There party Leader IS unpopular….
He IS contiuning to do things unpopular….
He is N OT running for office again….
Most Republican lawmakers ARE….
In the Trump era, here’s the rule: Elections in which Trump is on the ballot, the GOP does fine. In elections in which he is not, the GOP does poorly.
This isn’t just about incumbent disadvantage in midterm elections. Even during former President Joe Biden’s presidency, when Trump was the head of the GOP, its most recent nominee, and its next nominee, Democrats historically performed well. For instance, in 2022, they gained trifectas in four states, taking control of the legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, and winning the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts — all while their party controlled the White House.
The best place to see Trump’s impact on realignment may be in the Great Lakes states.
Trump won in 2016 by pulling off upsets in three blue-leaning Rust Belt states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He won those states in large part by pulling in labor union voters and other non-college voters, a demographic that had been used by Democrats but had been politically homeless since the Clinton era.
But an interesting thing happened in 2018. The counties in Michigan that swung hardest from former President Barack Obama to Trump swung back to the Democrats in the midterm elections.
A dozen counties in Michigan flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. Half of them flipped back to Democrats in 2018. Almost all of them gave back a majority of the GOP gains.
Trump made the working-class whites of Macomb County into Trump voters, but he never made them into Republicans.
In 2016, Republicans controlled both legislative chambers and the governorship in Michigan. They had held this trifecta since the 2010 elections and had held the state House for basically forever.
During Trump’s first term, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) won the governorship, and her party won most of the other statewide positions. In 2022, Whitmer won easily, and Democrats took over both chambers and won every statewide office. By 2024, with Trump at the top of the ballot, Republicans were able to regain control of the lower chamber.
Likewise, consider the trajectory of Pennsylvania.
In 2014, the last midterm elections before Trump, Pennsylvania Democrats had a very good year. Former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf knocked off incumbent Republican Tom Corbett. In 2022, the most recent midterm elections, Democrats also had a good year, as Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) won a second term.
Over those eight years, you can see some of the realignment of the Trump era. The blue-collar counties in coal and steel country moved toward Republicans, while the white-bread counties outside of Philadelphia have moved toward Democrats.
These opposite shifts have not been symmetric, though. Pre-Trump, Republicans won the rural coal and steel counties of southwestern Pennsylvania (Westmoreland, Fayette, and Greene) by 6 points, and eight years later, the GOP won those counties by 8 points.
Compare that to the Trump-era blue shift in the suburbs.
Before Trump, in 2014, Republicans lost Philadelphia’s wealthy, heavily educated collar counties (Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery) by a combined 11 points. Eight years later, the GOP is losing them by 30 points.
Blue-collar Pennsylvania shifted 2 points toward the GOP, while white-collar Pennsylvania shifted 20 points toward the Democrats.
There are numerous special circumstances at play here, and the realignment — Democrats picking up the upper middle class while Republicans picked up the working class — had been underway for more than a decade before Trump arrived.
But this is the pattern. For Trump, the realignment nets out to a small win, which may trickle down the ballot. When Trump isn’t on the ballot, though, the net result is a massive gain for Democrats….
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Trump’s unique charisma carried him to victory twice, but at the same time, his demands for personal fealty, character, and lack of convictions changed the GOP in a way that will likely make it weaker in the long run….
image….Tom Pennington/Getty
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