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J.D. Vance: Don’t Blame Trump (Alone)
J.D. Vance owes his election to the US Senate from the Buckeye State to Donald Trump. Yes, of course, it was a majority of voters in Ohio who elected him. But the former president’s late endorsement in a crowded and competitive primary field that included 2018 GOP Senate nominee and former State Treasurer Josh Mandel was The Factor.
Vance, meanwhile, underperformed the rest of the statewide GOP ticket in Ohio. As previously reported, incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine won by 25 points over his Democratic challenger. The weakest of the three Republicans running for State Supreme Court won by 11 points. Vance won over US Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) by seven points.
That’s still impressive in a state that just 10 and 14 years ago was handily won by Barack Obama and US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2018. Brown’s seat is up in 2024.
It would be easy to blame Trump for that. I’ve pinned much of the blame on him for his undue influence in some primaries (see: Pennsylvania) and for helping prevent the recruitment of stronger US Senate candidates in states like Arizona and New Hampshire. But it would be unfair to pin the losses entirely on him, even though survey data indicated that many voters were much less likely to support candidates seen as supporting Trump.
It is also true that Republicans won nearly 5 million more votes than Democrats for the US House (so far) in 2022. Just four years ago, Democrats outpolled Republicans by 8.6%. At least one exit poll shows that Republicans made gains across many demographics from four years ago, especially with Hispanics and women.
In many respects, as data continues to roll in, this was a classic midterm election. While all politics is local, the former President played an outsized role in many of them, often negatively.
Republicans won convincingly in states like Ohio and Florida while getting trounced in Pennsylvania, where Republican voter turnout lagged. The GOP did well in Georgia, netted four new US House seats in New York, and appears to be headed to a 221-225 seat US House majority, which curbs the Biden legislative agenda for the next two years. California Republicans appear to have figured out the “ballot harvesting” conundrum that Democrats enjoyed in previous elections and won’t lose a single incumbent in 2022. They may even pick up a seat or two in California while losing every statewide office (including, very sadly, Lanhee Chen’s campaign for State Comptroller).
But Senator-elect Vance has thoughts, and they are worth your time. This was initially published in The American Conservative. (Emphasis added)
Something odd happened on Election Day. In the morning, we were confident of my victory in Ohio and cautiously optimistic about the rest of the country. By the time the polls closed, that optimism had turned to jubilance—and lobbying.
Every consultant and personality I encountered during my campaign claimed credit for their own faction. The victory was a testament to Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), one person told me. Another argued instead that SLF had actually bungled the race, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC)—chaired by Rick Scott—deserved the credit. (Full disclosure: both the NRSC and SLF helped my race in Ohio, for which I’m grateful.)
But then the results rolled in, and it was clear the outcome was far more disappointing than hoped. And every person claiming victory on Tuesday morning knew exactly who to blame on Tuesday night: Donald J. Trump.
Senator-elect JD Vance and former President Donald Trump. Photo courtesy of Cleveland.com
Published in GeneralOf course, no man is above criticism. But the quick turn from gobbling up credit to vomiting blame suggests there is very little analysis at work. So let’s try some of that.
Let’s start with an obvious caveat: there is a lot we don’t know. Precinct level data is still outstanding in most states, and exit polls are notoriously finicky. Votes are still being counted out west. We’re still ignorant about a lot. But any effort to blame Trump—or McConnell for that matter—ignores a major structural advantage for Democrats: money. Money is how candidates fund the all-important advertising that reaches swing voters, and it’s how candidates fund turnout operations. And in every marquee national race, Republicans got crushed financially.
The reason is ActBlue. ActBlue is the Democrats’ national fundraising platform, where 21 million individual donors shovel small donations into every marquee national race. ActBlue is why my opponent ran nonstop ads about how much he “agreed with Trump” during the summer. It is why John Fetterman was able to raise $75 million for his election.
Republican small dollar fundraising efforts are paltry by comparison, and Republican fundraising efforts suffer from high consultant and “list building” fees—where Republicans pay a lot to acquire small-dollar donors. This is why incumbents have such massive advantages: much of the small-dollar fundraising my own campaign did went to fundraising and list-building expenses. If and when I run for reelection, almost all of it will go directly to my campaign. Democrats don’t have this problem. They raise more money from more donors, with lower overhead.
Outside groups, like SLF, try to close this gap. But it is a losing proposition. Under federal elections law, campaigns pay way less for advertising than outside “Super PACs.” In some states, $10 million from an outside group is less efficient than $2 million spent by a campaign. So long as Republicans lose so badly in the small dollar fundraising game, Democrats will have a massive structural advantage.
Importantly, because ActBlue diverts resources to competitive races, this structural advantage can be magnified. Let’s look at how this played out specifically. At first blush, Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp are similar figures: they both won close elections in 2018, and both cruised to reelection in 2022. They are both popular, effective governors from the South. But one won by over 20, and one by 8 (still an impressive margin). What explains this? Money. Look at the fundraising totals: Ron DeSantis outraised Charlie Crist about 7:1. Kemp was actually outraised, albeit barely, by Stacey Abrams. Money, of course, is not dispositive—Kemp won convincingly—but it has a major effect.
In both cases, incumbency provided a major advantage, in part because it’s easier to raise money when you’ve already won. But incumbency is also powerful in and of itself. Just look to Iowa, where incumbent governor Kim Reynolds cruised to reelection by a 20 point-margin, while newcomer Republican A.G. candidate Brenna Bird won by less than one point against twenty-eight-year incumbent Democrat Tom Miller.
This brings us to the Senate. In competitive states, every non-incumbent candidate was swamped with cash by national Democrats. This is true for Trump-aligned candidates (like me), anti-Trump candidates (like Joe O’Dea in Colorado), and those who straddled both camps. The house tells a similar story. Every person blaming Donald Trump, or bad candidates endorsed by Trump, ought to show a single national marquee race where a non-incumbent beat a well-funded opponent. The few exceptions—New York among them—don’t tell an easy anti-Trump story.
In Ohio, for example, Republican candidates ran against extremely well-funded Democrat opposition. Some of them were MAGA. Some establishment. Almost all of them lost. The only exception was Max Miller in Northeast Ohio, one of Trump’s early endorsements.
There is a related structural problem, which is that higher propensity voters (suburban whites, especially) are just more and more Democratic. Meanwhile, a lot of the Trump base just doesn’t turn out in midterm elections. Again, this is not unique to Trump: these voters have always had substandard turnout numbers. But 20 years ago, when most of them voted for Democrats, that meant Republicans had a structural advantage in midterms. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. This problem is exacerbated by Democrats’ strong advantages in states that have expanded vote by mail.
In the short term, as illustrated last week, those advantages serve as a reminder of the need for voting reform in this country, modeled on success in states like Ohio at running clean, fair elections: establishing fair but appropriately narrow windows to return ballots; implementing signature verification; conducting all pre-election work necessary to facilitate rapid tabulation of early votes when polls close; and implementing national photo ID requirements to ensure elections are secure.
In the long term, the way to solve this is to build a turnout machine, not gripe at the former president. But building a turnout machine without organized labor and amid declining church attendance is no small thing. Our party has one major asset, contra conventional wisdom, to rally these voters: President Donald Trump. Now, more than ever, our party needs President Trump’s leadership to turn these voters out and suffers for his absence from the stage.
The point is not that Trump is perfect. I personally would have preferred an endorsement of Lou Barletta over Mastriano in the Pennsylvania governor’s race, for example. But any effort to pin blame on Trump, and not on money and turnout, isn’t just wrong. It distracts from the actual issues we need to solve as a party over the long term. Indeed, one of the biggest changes I would like to see from Trump’s political organization—whether he runs for president or not—is to use their incredible small dollar fundraising machine for Trump-aligned candidates, which it appears he has begun doing to assist Herschel Walker in his Senate runoff.
Blaming Trump isn’t just wrong on the facts, it is counterproductive. Any autopsy of Republican underperformance ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged Republicans during midterm elections. These are the problems we have, and rather than blaming everyone else, it’s time for party leaders to admit we have these problems and work to solve them.
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In Arizona, Trump made endorsements in the top four statewide races, for Senate, Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General. All of them lost.
The fifth top statewide race was State Treasurer. She is a standard issue Republican, Pro-Life, Pro-Gun, Lower Taxes, Less Regulations. She won a landslide victory with 55.7% of the voter.
Based on this, it could be said that being endorsed by Trump cost candidates 5.7+% in the general election
“It could be said” doesn’t mean anything.
Consider the fact that the Senator, Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General are all positions of being able to prosecute election fraud, while the State Treasurer is not.
Being a Senator, does not mean that you would be in the position to prosecute election fraud in state elections.
The bottom line is that 5.7+% of the voters, who did vote for a generic Republican for the fifth statewide office, found the allegations of election fraud so bogus, that they voted against four “Biden Election Deniers” when faced with them on the ballot. The endorsement of Trump turned out to be a deciding factor in the general election, causing a 5.7+% drag on people who were standing for election.
It did for me. The reason why I voted against those four candidates was that they were endorsed by Trump after they promoted Trump’s Big Lie and proclaimed themselves to be “Biden Election Deniers.” But when faced with generic Republicans, like the Republicans running for State Treasurer and the Corporation Commission, I was happy to vote for them because I am a Republican. In other words, I voted for Republicans, provided that they were not “Biden Election Deniers.”
Republicans like me in Arizona were the difference between winning by 5.7% in the State Treasurer’s race, (55.7% to 44.3%), and losing by .01% in the Attorney General’s race (50.0% to 50.0%), .3% in the Governor’s race (50..3% to 49.7%), and 2.4% in the Secretary of State (52.4% to 47.6%) and Senate (51.4% to 46.5%) races.
The State Treasurer position is the fifth Statewide position in Arizona. The Attorney General position is the fourth Statewide position. In Arizona, over the last 50 years, we have elected Republicans more often than Democrats for the Attorney General position. In the 2020 election, in the Attorney General’s race, out of 2,590,823 ballots cast, the Democrat is beating the Republican by a mere 850 votes. (See https://results.arizona.vote/#/featured/33/0.) There are only 3,359 ballots left to count. (See https://apps.arizona.vote/info/bps/2022-general-election/33/0) and out of the last several thousand ballots counted yesterday, the Democrat was winning well over 50% of the votes.
That brings up one last point. The Democrat who is running for Attorney General, Chris Mayes, is a former Republican member of the Corporation Commission. Trump was a large reason why she left the Republican Party.
Trump has been a drag on the Republican Party ticket for the last three elections in a row in 2018, 2020, 2022. In 2016, Arizona had a Republican Governor, and two Republican Senators. After the 2022 elections, Arizona will have a Democrat Governor and two Democrat Senators. This will be the first time in since 1950 that Arizona had Democrats as the Governor and both Senators. (Barry Goldwater was elected in 1952.) Thank you Donald Trump.
We know you don’t like Trump, and that’s fine.
But the reasoning you fabricate is ridiculous. There was literally no “generic Republican” on the ballet.
And meanwhile, 48% of Maricopa election centers had printer or tabulator malfunctions on election day, and the AZ Elections Integrity Unit has officially demanded a response from Maricopa County “pertaining to issues related to the administration of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County.”
Actually, Yee touted her support for Trump policies during her short run for governor. Very conservative Representative Debbie Lesko endorsed Yee for Governor. See https://kimberlyyee.com/congresswoman-debbie-lesko-endorses-kimberly-yee-for-governor/.
Yee was fully on board with Trump in 2020. Her campaign materials state:
“Kimberly Yee is Arizona’s State Treasurer. In 2016, she was honored to speak in support of Donald Trump’s nomination at the Republican National Convention and in 2020 served as National Co-Chair of Asian Pacific Islanders for Trump and as a member of the Pro-Life Voices for Trump Advisory Board. She lives and runs a small business in the West Valley with her husband, Nelson, and is the proud mother of two boys.”
However, as Kari Lake caught fire among Republicans and was endorsed by Trump, Yee wisely decided to run again for State Treasurer again.
Cronkite News states at https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/10/13/arizona-state-treasurer-kimberly-yee-republican-stresses-transparency/,
“A self-described conservative, Yee received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and is on record opposing the teaching of critical race theory in schools.”
In some ways, it could be said that the only difference between Yee and Lake is that Lake became a whole hog “Biden Election Denier” and was endorsed by Trump, and Yee wasn’t.
The New York Times has fully investigated the fact that some voters were delayed in voting, and concluded that they were able to vote after all. The money quote from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/politics/maricopa-voter-complaints.html?:
“But a crucial element has been missing so far in all of these accounts: clear claims that any eligible voters in Maricopa County were actually denied the chance to vote.
“The video the campaign circulated of Mr. Bembry, for instance, was an edited version of a longer video posted on the site Rumble. In the full video, he states that, despite the inconvenience, he cast his ballot at a nearby polling site. ‘I was able to vote — no waiting, no misreads of the tabulation machines, nothing,’ he says.
“The New York Times reviewed 45 accounts offered by voters and 20 additional accounts from poll workers and observers in legal filings, public meeting testimony, submissions to the Arizona secretary of state’s office and on social media posts associated with Ms. Lake, her campaign and her allies, in some cases interviewing the voters to clarify details.
“In 34 of the 45 accounts, voters acknowledged that, while inconvenienced, they had ultimately been able to cast their ballots.”
Kari Lake did not lose by 11 votes. She lost by 17,000 votes. There is no evidence that 17,000 people, or for that matter, 1,700 people, or even 170 people, or even 17 people were not able to vote.
So the opposite is true.
So what authority do you have to support an election challenge by Lake? Lake is trying to overcome a 17,000 vote loss.
Not only do I predict that any election challenge to Hobbs’ election would lose, I predict that any lawyer who files such a claim will face discipline by the State Bar of Arizona.
Above, #34.
What, really? Wow. That sounds wildly corrupt. And it’s pretty much how fascism works.
Luckily there are out-of-state lawyers working on it.
It sounds vindictive. Kind of like McQueeg.
Rudy Giuliani’s license was suspended due to filing knowingly false lawsuits. Every lawyer has the obligation to make a reasonable investigation before filing a lawsuit. Lawsuits have to be based upon settled law, or a reasonable extension of settled law. For example, if I made up out of whole cloth, an allegation that a father had molested his child, just making it up, I would be disciplined. This is also true if out-of-state lawyers file the lawsuit.
Please show me any case where a 17,000 vote deficit was overturned by any court in the U.S.
I’d forgotten.
So it’s even more corrupt and fascist. And it’s considered acceptable. Man, oh man.
Lawyers cannot file knowingly false lawsuits. Period.
Congratulations for helping elect democrats in Arizona and for allowing democrats to hold the U.S. Senate. Your strategy was very successful. Now remind me why you are on this conservative website instead of being on the Huffington Post or Mother Jones?
Other than the ethically conflicted Tom Horne who ran for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I voted a straight Republican ticket, except for those candidates who were endorsed by Trump in the primary after they embraced Trump’s Big Lie, and declared themselves as “Biden Election Deniers.” All of the Republicans who I voted for won the general election. I just drew the line at candidates who were “Biden Election Deniers.”
I am an American first, a Conservative second, and a Republican third.
Kari Lake barely beat Karrin Taylor Robson in the primary. If Karrin Taylor Robson had won the primary, I would have voted for her and would not have canvassed with the Democrats. But that is not what happened.
Oh good grief…
Mindreading and politically-biased selective enforcement.
From a New York court? Surely you jest?😃
The suspension was done without a hearing, BTW, which is unusual to say the least, seeing as state of mind would be at issue.
Based on the sorry state of AZ election processes, I am not sure that any thinking individual can hold Trump responsible.
In fact many of us who have followed the election integrity movement for over a decade feel the entire reason for the Mainstream Media recent blitz of “Trump lost the election for all the poor foolish candidates who allowed Trump to endorse them” is a diversionary tactic – “Don’t look at the individual behind the curtain who has ensured the vote count for the Dem candidates would be easier to register than the Republican ballots. Instead: look at Trump.”
Among methods used in AZ to ensure a loss of R votes: that the ink for the printed out ballots was not going to make for legible ballots, that the voters who had problems at their polling station would be sent to other polling stations after surrendering ballot number one: they then found out that the unreadable ballot was going to be the one “counted” as the second polling place couldn’t allow them to vote there.
(But if your ballot is not readable, it will not ever be counted.)
From the UK’s “Daily Mail:”
As midterm voting kicked off around the country Tuesday, pockets of problems were quickly reported in states including Arizona, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in elections expected to draw record turnout.
In Arizona’s Maricopa County – the most populated county, which has the ability to swing an election between Republicans and Democrats – the chairman of the county supervisors Bill Gates said that 20 percent of the 223 voting centers had machines that were malfunctioning.
In a video posted to Twitter Gates explained that about one in five ballots at those centers wasn’t being properly read by the ‘tabulators.’
But hey, in any election where the contest between candidates is likely to be close, who would care if a full 20% of the 223 voting centers had machines that were not working, right?
Like me, you are a lawyer. Unlike me, you didn’t graduate from a state school like the University of Arizona, you graduated from one of the top 10 law schools at Georgetown. So, I have a couple of questions for you.
If it is developed after a hearing that Rudy knowingly filed a false lawsuit, would you agree that he should not practice law? What should be the consequences for a lawyer to knowingly file a false lawsuit?
I have explained this before. There are two methods for voting at the polls. First, you can use the machines to generate a typed ballot. It was those machines that had a problem.
Second, there are paper ballots for each precinct. You can simply fill out a paper ballot and darken the circle next to the candidate you choose.
Everyone could use a paper ballot. There are only 11 people who apparently didn’t get to vote. No election is within 11 votes.
By the way, the Maricopa County Recorder is a Republican and their Board of Supervisors has a 4-1 Republican majority. They did not set out to disenfranchise their fellow Republicans.
There would not be reports from dozens of people that the ink situation caused them to doubt if their ballots counted if it is true only 11 voters were deprived their vote. Especially given that then those ballots were placed into a box where the poll station workers said the ballots would be counted – only it was found the same box was later used to store the ballots already counted. How would that sit with anyone who knew their ballot was originally “going to be counted” but then the individual comes to find out a flood of counted ballots were mixed in?
As far as the M County Recorder’s office being primarily “R”, the ancient proverb of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” often holds true. Not always, but often enough.
Example: you are a self-proclaimed Republican. But unless the person’s name is Reagan, you don’t hold much stock with them.
With only one exception, I voted a straight Republican Ticket, except for Trump Endorsed “Biden Election Deniers.” All of those Republicans won.
I am hitting the road now to go see my mother for a week, so I have to sign off.
Gary
Yes, but the question at this point is unfortunately speculative. I also am unsure if Rudy’s discipline was based on making false statements, as opposed to filing a false suit— or a combination of the two. I’d like to know what the evidence was to establish “knowingly,” and maybe will look into it.
From what I gather, there are two conflicting scenarios that you have to choose between:
On the one hand, you could have republicans in office that were endorsed by Trump and who believe the 2020 election was stolen.
On the other hand you can have democrats in office that will – promote the killing of children in the womb up til birth at all cost, raise taxes, spend like drunken sailors and print more money driving up inflation, take money from the working and give it to the deadbeats who sit on their asses, letting as many criminals out of jail as possible while cracking down on police forces, letting in all illegal immigrants, crush the U.S. Oil Industry, eliminate the firearms industry, promote children getting castration and mastectomies without informing their parents, letting male criminals bunk with women so they can rape them, letting men compete in “women only” sporting events, letting everyone choose what sex they wish to be on any given day, promote critical race theory in schools and label all White people as supremacists and racists, censure anybody on social media who espouses conservative ideas, and so on……………
You have adjudged this latter scenario to be preferable to the republicans getting into office because they “believe in a stolen election.” I suppose that while America burns you can sit back comfortably and say to yourself “Well at least we don’t have any republicans in office that believe the election was stolen!” Now please explain to me how this will enhance America.
In Arizona, we have a politician who doesn’t engage in the Trump Big Lie and who is Pro-Life, has a NRA “A” rating, is Pro Low Taxes, and is Pro Less Regulations. Her name is Kimberly Yee and she is the State Treasurer. Our two term very conservative Governor Doug Ducey was the State Treasurer before he became our governor; hopefully Kimberly Yee can be elected out governor in 2026. In the meanwhile, our Republican Legislature will protect the public for the above nightmares you describe.
So Arizona as a State will have gridlock as opposed to a republican majority, and the U.S. Senate will stay safely in democrat hands while they cram through as many leftist judges as they can draft. Thanks again!
You can thank Trump.
In the 5 swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, every Trump Endorsed Candidate of major races has lost, with the sole exception of Senator Johnson in Wisconsin, and of Georgia where the race went to a runoff.
In Arizona, the top four races of Senate, Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General all had Trump “Biden Election Deniers” lose. In the Attorney General race, the Democrat won by 510 votes out of 2.5 million total votes, with 50.01% of the vote. (All of the votes have now been counted.)
In Georgia, Walker is headed to a runoff.
In Michigan, Democrats won the Governor’s race, and Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature in some 40 years.
In Pennsylvania, the Democrats beat the Trump endorsed “Biden Election Deniers” for Governor and Senate.
In Wisconsin, Democrat human corpse Tony Evers won, while a Bernie Sanders Democrat lost for Senate.
Thank you Donald Trump!
I cannot directly reply to the above since I’m not a big donor here (space limitation), but the simple “analysis” is the very definition of cherry picking.
I’m not buying it. That is a lame deflection. By your reasoning shouldn’t Trump be able to blame leftists for his bad behaviors? “Hey, if those leftists would have just stopped rioting and killing babies I wouldn’t have been so mean!” And by that reasoning, YOU should be the one blamed for all the negative and disparaging comments you receive on this website. You are making the oldest excuse in the book “The Devil made me do it.” NO! You are the one who voted to let the democrats control the Senate. YOU, not Donald Trump. He voted for republicans like the rest of us.