The easy thing for Republicans to tell themselves after the stinging loss of a Senate seat in Alabama is that they only went down to defeat because the party had the misfortune to nominate someone accused of preying on teenage girls.
And there is something to that. But the Republican Party nominated a man accused of sexual misconduct to run for president in 2016, and that didn’t stop him from winning 62 percent of the vote in Alabama. Donald Trump didn’t just win Alabama a year ago — he won by a larger margin than Mitt Romney, John McCain, or George W. Bush. So while it’s undoubtedly true that the allegations played a role in the race, they hardly work as a comprehensive explanation of the outcome.
The larger issue is that the Republican Party is led by an unpopular president and unpopular congressional leaders who are pursuing an unpopular agenda, and it’s putting them in massive electoral peril.
Republicans have been ignoring warning signs all year
It is entirely normal for the party that occupies the White House to lose ground down ballot during midterm elections. That said, the GOP’s results in 2017 have really been quite bad:
- Across about 65 special elections for House and state legislature, Democratic candidates have run 9 points ahead of Hillary Clinton on average.
- Republicans lost the governors’ mansions in Virginia and New Jersey last month, while losing ground in both state legislatures.
- Trump’s net approval rating is lower today than it was for any previous president on record at this point in his term, and, remarkably, that’s been true for every day of his presidency.
- The Republican tax bill is less popular than any previously passed tax bill.
- Polling on all the different health care bills the GOP has tried and failed to advance has been dismal.
- Democrats are currently 10 points ahead in generic congressional balloting, which would be enough to win the House despite significant gerrymandering.
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Republicans in Washington are aware of all these facts, but seem, strangely, a bit indifferent to them. The experience of watching Trump — whom they all expected to lose as late as 7 o’clock on the evening of the 2016 election — triumphing against the odds has them dazzled. And the fact that in office, Trump, despite considerable speculation that he wouldn’t, has pursued a very orthodox Republican Party agenda has them pleased.
At the nexus of these two factors, they’ve decided to bank as many policy wins as they can and then hope to hit a stroke of good luck.
Republicans in Washington are aware of all these facts, but seem, strangely, a bit indifferent to them. The experience of watching Trump — whom they all expected to lose as late as 7 o’clock on the evening of the 2016 election — triumphing against the odds has them dazzled. And the fact that in office, Trump, despite considerable speculation that he wouldn’t, has pursued a very orthodox Republican Party agenda has them pleased.
At the nexus of these two factors, they’ve decided to bank as many policy wins as they can and then hope to hit a stroke of good luck.
