After the disastrous 2020 national election and disappointing 2022 midterms, sane folks are wondering if the Republican Party even has a ballot box future. Let me be clear: I believe that the 2020 Election was stolen and that there is no way on God's green earth that Basement Joe got 80 million votes, and I even blogged about it.
All the Republican pundits were salivating that the 2022 midterms would obliterate the Dems, but it didn't. Instead of the anticipated Republican House pick-up of 30, 40, 50 seats or more, there was no route. Republicans barely took the House and failed to take the Senate. The media went wild, and Democrats gushed sighs of relief. Ditching Joe Biden ceased being an urgency. Biden had passed a critical test; midterms are a referendum on the president.
Election results from 2022 were not pretty for Republicans. Much of it had to do with creeps like Mitch McConnell funding Rinos like Lisa Murkowski and refusing to fund MAGA candidates, but much of it also focused on MAGA and Trump fatigue. Democrats may not like Biden, but the fact that the Biden Administration is loaded with progressive Obamaites is enough to keep them loyal, even with rising gas prices and inflation. It's a classic case of the devil they do know vs. the devil they know and don't want. Democrats hate Trump, and by extension, they hate MAGA.
Election results are anchored in political realities. The stone-cold reality is that in 2016, Trump won 6 states that Obama won TWICE: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Of course, that was unexpected and utterly earth-shattering for the Democrats. The Dems got their act together and swore that what happened in 2016 would NEVER happen again. They would do whatever it takes to win; winning is all that matters. So they ratcheted up and perfected their election fraud game with mail-in ballots (facilitated by COVID) and ballot harvesting. To what extent voting machines played a role in Trump's 2020 defeat is still a debatable but real issue.
It's as if election night 2020 was exceptionally well planned. Anybody who stayed up late that night, as I certainly did, believed that Trump was easily winning. But then the vote counting stopped, election watchers were evicted from vote counting places, the blinds were drawn, and hours went by without any election results. It's as if the Democrats needed to know how many votes they needed to win and then magically produced them. It's been reported that there was little to zero signature verification. Nobody knew if the counted ballots were even the ballots of legally registered voters. But they were counted, and reportedly multiple times as they were fed through the voting machines.
When it was over in 2020, victory was declared for Biden in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.
Here's the CURRENT math: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are GONE. They are controlled by Democrats. When the Democrats control the governorship, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, they control election results. Billionaire George Soros understands the critical function of the state Secretary of State—they certify election results. Hence, Soros has been on a mission to not only fund lawless Attorney Generals and prosecutors who refuse to prosecute criminals but he's also obsessed with picking and funding candidates for Secretary of State. In Arizona, Soros-funded Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs certified her own election results to defeat Kari Lake. That's an election fraud currently being played out and litigated in the AZ courts as Lake attempts to prove massive election fraud.
Moving along, it's clear that PA, MI, and WI are gone, but it's also probable that GA and AZ are gone.
The probability that Republicans can win in 2024 is weak at best, given that presidential general elections are a swing state game. Certain states are reliably red or blue, so the focus is always on the swing states. In fact, a high turnout may give the House back to the Dems in 2024. Currently, the Republicans hold 222 House seats, and the Democrats have 213. Many House and Senate Republicans are so Rino that they stand with the Dems.
Democrats control the Senate 51-49. With the Democrats controlling the presidency and the Senate, a Republican-controlled House is totally neutered. They can pass as many Democrat-hating bills as they want, but they will all be killed in the Senate or with a presidential veto.
As election 2024 officially kicked off right after the 2022 midterms, the election landscape and electoral map look grim for Republicans, given that Democrats control many critical swing states except for FL and OH, which currently lean solidly red.
As Republican voters are ready to slit each other's throats over nominating Trump or DeSantis…the only real contenders thus far, Democrats are enjoying the tremendous Republican divide and will likely benefit from the infighting.
A woman holds a sign outside a Books-a-Million bookstore where Governor Ron DeSantis was due to sign copies of his book in Leesburg, Florida. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters
Trump supporters are convinced that Trump will easily win. I do not believe that a general election victory is possible for Trump for the reasons outlined above. The GOP has lost PA, MI, WI, and probably GA and AZ. Holding FL and OH won't be enough.
Here's where it gets really ugly. Can any Republican win the White House in 2024? It's possible, but it will require a Republican candidate who can win over independent voters and swing Democrats who vote on issues and not the party.
Are American voters sick of old white dudes? Biden clearly has dementia, but nobody cares, and it's a non-issue for the Democrat base because nobody believes Joe Biden is calling the shots. Trump will be 78 in 2024 and has negative issues besides his age. He enjoys pissing folks off, and his name-calling horrifies many because it's viewed as the unprofessional rants of an insecure person who is more of an entertainer than a statesman.
I understand that Trump supporters view him as the only president who ever stood up for them and We the People. While that may be debatable, there is no denying that the GOP base loves Trump in sufficient numbers to make him the POTUS nominee in 2024, and that is something the Democrats no longer fear.
Who and what do the Democrats fear? They greatly fear someone who can turn a purple or purple/blue state red by focusing on issues affecting most folks; issues like the economy, safe communities, and education are enormous. When DeSantis flipped solidly blue counties like Miami Dade red and won re-election by nearly 20 points when he barely won his first gubernatorial election, that sent shockwaves through the Democrat establishment.
When Glenn Youngkin shocked the political establishment by winning a governor's race in purple/blue Virginia, it became clear Youngkin had a winning game of focusing on what matters to Virginians. He distanced himself from the drama of MAGA and Trump.
Elections are all about winning the hearts and minds of ordinary folks; that is where Trump comes up short. He's pure DRAMA and frequently DRAMA on steroids. He can dazzle his base. For some, a Trump rally is cringe-worthy, but for others, it's as close to heaven as a mortal can get when they worship their candidate.
Anyway, I'm not looking forward to 2024 simply because it's not looking good for conservatism and the Constitution. As an advocate for peace and constitutional governance (end all the wars and massively downsize Fedzilla), I'm used to losing in every election by folks who seem to cherish mountains of debt, an MIC on steroids, and authoritarian governance.
Disclosure: As an independent voter, antiwar activist, and Libertarian-leaning constitutionalist, I rarely vote Republican, but I did vote for Trump because the Hildabeast needed to be defeated. That said, Rand Paul was my candidate for president and still is.
