BY RICK MORAN | PJ MEDIA
Bartos For U.S. Senate/Facebook
The 2018 midterm elections sent a shiver through national
Republicans not only because several prominent House Republicans lost their
seats. It was also where they lost them that concerned GOP party leaders.
The Democrats gained 41 seats in the House in 2018. But
Republicans consoled themselves by picking up two additional Senate seats. The
problem for the GOP was not that they couldn’t win statewide elections. The
problem was that they were losing control of one of their primary strongholds:
big-city suburbs and exurbs.
That spelled trouble for holding on to their House
majority. Specific demographic groups had abandoned Republicans in droves, including
suburban moms and single women. How to get them back has occupied the attention
of Republican leaders for nearly three years.
It wasn’t just the women’s vote that cost the GOP in the
suburbs. It was the white vote that didn’t give Republicans the majorities they
normally got that hurt them at the polls. More to the point, Pennsylvania is a
far more traditional Republican state, and Trump was not as popular there as he
was in some other states.
Trump is not on the ballot in 2022, although Democrats
are going to try like hell to make voters think he is. But the elections held
in Pennsylvania this year — down-ballot contests that political professionals
look at closely for clues about which way the political winds are blowing — are
confirming results in Virginia and New Jersey.
Republicans are on the comeback trail in big-city
suburbs.
The
most recent election results, however, suggested the GOP is on much favorable
footing in these areas now that Trump is out of office. From Loudoun County,
Va., to Bucks County, Pa., suburban voters appeared to reject the idea that
every Republican candidate is a Trump foot soldier. Just as Virginia Democrats
sought to paint Youngkin as a Trump acolyte, Pennsylvania Democrats sought to
tie local Republican candidates to the former GOP president — and there were
few signs that it worked.
Not only is it not working, but there was also a sense of
bewilderment in Virginia from people who weren’t buying what the Democrats were
selling about Trump being behind every candidate.
“Don’t
let Trump’s Bucks County crew take over our school boards and local
government,” warned one Democratic mailer. The flip side read, “Bucks County
Republicans are keeping Trumpism alive here at home. To stop them — Vote!”
Just
as in Virginia, where the fleece vest-wearing Youngkin did not campaign with
Trump in the general election, GOP candidates likewise kept Trump at arm’s
length in the Philly suburbs.
There were also questions about whether the Republican
base would turn out without Trump on the ballot. Tom Bonier, chief executive of
the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, told Politico that “the Republican base
was engaged without Trump on the ballot. And at the same time, without Trump on
the ballot, it seems that some number of these mostly suburban, mostly
better-educated Republicans who had fled the party under Trump were more
comfortable coming back to the party.”
It’s still Trump’s party. And if he runs, he almost
certainly wins the nomination. But it’s also true that Biden Democrats are
digging their own electoral grave by supporting policies that are angering
millions of ordinary people. They don’t need Trump to tell them whose fault it
is.
The media doesn’t like it, but Trump is a force to be
reckoned with — for both Republicans and Democrats. Whether he takes a hand in
the midterm elections isn’t as important as how people view the Democrats in
less than a year.
