Elections Are about Winning

Steven Malanga’s essay for City Journal, “Trumped at the Polls,” offers a comprehensive analysis of how the former president’s influence helped kneecap the GOP’s performance in the midterms:

With a deeply unpopular Democratic president in office, inflation raging, and high crime resonating in many areas, Republicans seemed poised to ride another state red wave this year. Instead, they have struggled merely to retain currently held governorships, losing several in the process. What was different this year? Polls suggest it was Donald Trump. The ex-president, who has remained a significant player in local elections, didn’t just spit fire at Democrats in 2022. He also feuded with Republican state leaders in some places, took shots at potential competitors within the party, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and played a massive role in helping MAGA candidates win state GOP primaries. But Trump, exit polls show, is deeply unpopular with many voters—even more so than President Biden. In some states, candidates he endorsed could muster little support beyond voters who say that they back Trump, too. It wasn’t enough to unleash a red wave.

In the previous GOP waves, moderate Republican gubernatorial candidates were able to flip several deep-blue states, including Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts in 2014. Both governors managed the task of governing in a blue state well enough to coast to reelection in 2018. But Hogan was term-limited this year, and Baker, facing the likelihood of a tough challenge from a Trump-backed candidate in the state GOP primary, declined to run again. Trump supporters won both state Republican primaries, including a victory in Maryland by state delegate Dan Cox, who was aided by millions of dollars in ads run by the Democratic Party, which preferred him as an opponent over former state secretary of commerce Kelly Schulz, endorsed by Hogan. The cynical strategy paid dividends. Cox managed less than four in ten votes in Maryland, a sharp turnaround from the 55 percent of votes Hogan won in 2018. Trump’s favored Massachusetts candidate, state delegate Geoff Diehl, fared worse, managing just 35 percent of the vote against Democrat Maura Healey. Baker, by contrast, won reelection in 2018 with 66 percent of the vote. As the Boston Globe observed, Healey likely wouldn’t even have run if she had to face the popular Baker in a general election. Trump helped ensure that didn’t happen.

In response, I noted on Twitter:

Trump, who is reportedly on the cusp of announcing his 2024 bid, has gone scorched-earth against Ron DeSantis, the other prospective frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary. It appears that the Trump–DeSantis tensions that have been building for some time are about to be played out in the open. The coming months — and perhaps years — will be bitter for the warring tribes within the GOP. As I said in my tweet, I am not a Never Trumper. For all of Donald Trump’s flaws, I thought the Trump administration’s record was a largely successful one. But the former president has made it abundantly clear that he is less interested in winning than he is in watching the world burn — and taking down the entire GOP with him. As someone who thinks it is good when Republicans win — and bad when they lose — that is an unacceptable proposition.