4 Ways the GOP Can Learn from its 2022 Mistakes and Rebound in 2024: An Autopsy
By all accounts, the GOP underperformed on Election Day. Here are 4 lessons the GOP can take away from its unexpected night to take back Washington in 2024.
Ten years ago, Republicans faced crushing defeats at the presidential and U.S. Senate levels. Searching for answers and hoping to prevent these losses in the future, the Republican National Committee commissioned its now infamous “autopsy” of the 2012 election.
In the years since its release, some of the report’s recommendations have come to pass. The party’s massive investments into its voter targeting efforts and nationalized ground game, for example, are a direct result of the autopsy. Same with its successful wooing of oft-forgotten minority groups, including women, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
But many of the autopsy’s recommendations wouldn’t — or better yet, couldn’t — come to pass because of one man. That man is one Donald John Trump, and, well, you know his story.
Fast forward to today, and the Republican Party is reeling. In a year that should have been promising for Republicans, the GOP barely made a dent. In fact, it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that the Democrats will maintain control of the U.S. Senate with a (slightly) larger majority, while Republicans only take back the House with a razor-thin majority.
Fortunately, there’s no need to conduct another costly autopsy to determine what went wrong or how the party can move forward and find success in 2024.
Why? I can tell you exactly what would be in that autopsy, free of charge:
1. Dump the Trump
The nation’s 44th President had his moments. During his four years in office, Trump instituted much-needed tax reform, helped usher in major fixes to the nation’s criminal justice system, and oversaw a period of economic strength and stability for much of his tenure.
But for every positive step he took, the words that he spoke or posted on social media set him back four more. And it only got worse after he legitimately lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, challenged those results, and then supported a failed coup against Congress to prevent the certification of those results.
Then, after he still didn’t get his way, he further strengthened his hold on the GOP, holding it hostage and turning the 2022 elections into a referendum on his 2020 loss. Trump endorsed primary candidates who pledged their loyalty to him, promising to focus on “election integrity” and reshaping American culture rather than addressing the struggling post-COVID economy or rising inflation. And in doing so, he meddled in competitive primaries, ultimately leaving the GOP with a bad nominee and (in many cases) a general election loss.
The end result? Voters saw right through this gambit. Only TWO of Trump’s “hand-picked” Senate candidates won their races on Election Day — Ted Budd in North Carolina and J.D. Vance in Ohio. Moreover, Democrats were able to take advantage of Trump’s meddling and flip Pennsylvania’s Senate seat after Republicans nominated Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz over (party-preferred) businessman Dave McCormick.
The icing on the cake? After Trump launched vendetta campaigns against the “Impeachment 10” — a.k.a. the 10 House Republicans who voted for impeachment — four of them lost their 2022 primary bids to Trump-backed opponents. Well, turns out the joke’s on Trump, as voters ultimately chose the Democratic candidate in two of those districts during Tuesday’s elections (MI-3 and WA-3).
Unfortunately, Trump has all but confirmed his 2024 presidential bid, and it appears he will launch this campaign as early as the 15th. If Republicans truly want to take back Washington in 2024, they would stop giving Trump his 15 minutes of fame and not let him run roughshod over the party any longer.
2. “It’s the Economy, Stupid”
It’s been three decades since Democratic strategist James Carville first coined the term, and yet it remains one of the most relevant phrases in politics today.
Why? 2022 should have been a pocketbook election, and it wasn’t. The COVID-19 pandemic took a massive toll on the American economy, leading to rising inflation and a weakened stock market. Exit polls released on Election Day suggested that:
Inflation was the most important issue to voters (31%);
Two-thirds of voters (68%) believe the current state of the American economy is “not so good” or “poor”; and
More voters trust Republicans (54%) than Democrats (42%) to handle inflation.
Republicans clearly failed to capitalize on this. And they failed to do so because they allowed their own agenda to trump (pun intended) that of the voters.
Case in point… whatever the purpose of this campaign ad is:
Ditto this introductory “rap video”":
While neither Blake Masters nor Linda Paulson won their respective races, I highly doubt their losses were a direct result of their questionable ad campaigns.
Rather, these candidates — like too many others in 2022 — likely failed to convince voters they could do a better job on the issues that mattered most to them than their Democratic counterparts.
3. Candidate Quality Matters
Further building upon the above, 2022 showed us (once again) that slapping an (R) after your name doesn’t make you a winner in a year expected to be favorable for Republicans.
This should have been a lesson learned a decade ago from the aforementioned GOP Autopsy. After all, a big part of the reason Republicans failed to win the U.S. Senate in both 2010 and 2012 was that it ran weak candidates like Christine O’Donnell, Sue Lowden, and Richard Mourdock in winnable seats in those cycles.
Except it apparently didn’t. And to make matters worse, 2022 was a year in which voters really didn’t care about party affiliation because they flat-out didn’t like either party! According to exit polls, just 44% of voters had a favorable opinion of either party. Moreover, a majority of respondents said that the two parties were “too extreme” (51% Democratic Party, 52% Republican Party).
Running weak candidates particularly hurt the party in swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania, both of which featured competitive Senate and governor’s races in 2022.
Georgia: Gov. Brian Kemp (R, not backed by Trump) won re-election over Stacey Abrams (D), 53% to 46%. Hershel Walker (R, endorsed by Trump) trails incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), 48.5% to 49.4%. That race is headed to a Dec. 6th runoff.
Pennsylvania: Doug Mastriano (R, endorsed by Trump but not party) lost to Josh Shapiro (D), 42% to 56%. Mehmet Oz (R, endorsed by Trump and party) lost to John Fetterman (D), 47% to 51%.
In both of these swing states, the more extreme the candidate was, the worse they ended up faring in the general election. In fact, the only one of the four Republicans who won outright was the one (Kemp) who fought against election denialism.
Nominating credible candidates matters. Voters aren’t going to elect candidates who plan “40 days of fasting and prayer” as part of their campaign strategy. Not now, not ever.
4. Fraud? What Fraud?
One of the biggest takeaways from the 2020 elections was the idea that an election could be “stolen” or rigged to benefit a particular candidate (In this case, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party).
Yet, as already noted, Trump and Republicans doubled down on this concept in 2022. And it backfired on them, in spectacular fashion.
None of this is to say that election security and voter fraud aren’t serious issues. In fact, significant majorities in both parties support election reform — including requiring voter ID at the polls.
After Trump lost his re-election in 2020, he implored the GOP to pass restrictive voting laws — many of which reversed policies put in place during the pandemic — to “stop the steal” with any future elections. And they did.
So was there fraud in 2022? As of this writing, there have not been any reports of widespread fraud or major issues with the 2022 elections. In fact, many of the so-called “election deniers” who lost their races this week have already publicly acknowledged their defeat and conceded.
This is a good thing, and it correlates with the will of the voters who reportedly were not too concerned about American election security headed into Tuesday. A whopping 8 in 10 Americans were reportedly very or somewhat confident that their state’s elections were fair and accurate according to exit polls — numbers that do not suggest any nefarious action was afoot.
Americans should always be diligent and work together to make sure our elections remain safe and secure. But, like with Trump, this is another issue that needs to be pushed aside if the party is to have any success in 2024.