- The Republican primary elections on Tuesday were widely seen as a referendum on the effects of an endorsement by Donald Trump.
- Strong positive in U.S. Senate primaries. Not so much in races for the GOP nomination for Governor.
- The Republican Party may not be the wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc. it has been for the past six years; but there is no question that a Trump endorsement for a primary candidate is likely to be a good thing.
- I might have missed it, but looking across the political landscape I could not find an example where a candidate lost because he or she had been endorsed by Trump. Those who did lose, like Madison Cawthorn in North Carolina, lost because they were nuts, bad candidates, or just generally terrible people.
- These are primaries, remember, so the jury is still out on whether a Trump endorsement will help, or hurt, come November when Democrats and independents get to, literally, vote.
- Democrats, who are fully in the grip of the First-Mid-Term effect wherein the party of the President traditionally loses seats – sometimes lots of seats – in the first mid-term election of an administration.
- According to fivethityeight.com, in the 19 mid-terms since World War II, the President’s party has lost House seats in 17. The average loss in the House is 28 seats; four in the U.S. Senate.
- As much as I self-malign on my predictive skills, I cannot see a way, barring some catastrophic event, that Democrats can maintain control of the House.
- The Senate is a much closer call – especially since Trump-supported candidates are doing pretty well.
- Remember the 2010 cycle. The Tea Party was all the rage and the GOP nominated candidates that suited their “Live Free or Die” philosophy, but didn’t appeal to the electorate as a whole.
- In Joe Biden’s Delaware, Christine O’Donnell won the GOP primary for Senate only to have the oppo research dig up an item about O’Donnell and witchcraft. She had to cut a TV spot announcing, “I am not a witch.”
- Too late. 10 points from Hufflepuff. She lost and a seat that was supposed to be a Republican lock went to the Democrats.
- The Biden Administration is doing everything it can to assure the election goes the wrong way. The notion that the baby formula crisis has been allowed to fester to the point that it is daily front page news is mis-, non-, or mal-practice.
- When I worked for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the comms team and I got a weekly report from the constituent folks that told us the biggest delta – the change – in issue emails.
- If an issue like cattle prices was in the top three up or down, we knew it right away, could talk to the in-state staff, and prepare to brief the Senator.
- If cattle prices were enough of an issue to cause the people of Texas to complain to their Senator, we wanted to know about it, so the Senator could apply her considerable talents to the issue.
- When cattle prices dropped in importance, we wanted her to know that, too.
- It wasn’t brain surgery. It was one Senator’s office. The White House has a lot of resources and ought to have had some mechanism to warn that the baby formula shelves at the Safeway were empty.
- In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a nationwide toilet paper shortage. There was also a national ventilator shortage. Guess which of those affected more families?
- Getting back to Trump endorsed candidates, even Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is worried. He risked the ire of Trump when he warned that GOP voters have to nominate electable candidates for the Fall campaign.
- There are plenty of issues that will pop to the surface between now and November 8. It is unclear to me that one of them will be Donald Trump’s endorsements.
- See you next week.
Trump Endorsements? Meh+
