It's About More Than Trump

Back in August, when the Mar-a-Lago raid happened, Republicans circled the wagon around Trump. More than one conservative declared they’d support Trump in 2024 to spite the Biden team. Many a Republican who’d been ready to move on from Trump suddenly gravitated back toward him.

Two weeks ago, the midterms saw the Republican Party signal it was time to move on. For the first time in five elections, independent voters sided with the incumbent party in the White House. Thirteen percent of Republicans nationwide voted Democrat. Republicans who Trump endorsed in key races all went down in flames.

For all of President Trump’s fans circulating that 219 of Trump’s 235 endorsed candidates won, consider that two-thirds were not in competitive races, and in the competitive races, a candidate who claimed the 2020 election was stolen was more likely than not to lose the race.

In fact, we can quantify the Trump effect on candidates.

Relative to baseline expectations derived from their districts’ recent voting patterns (as calculated by the Cook Partisan Voting Index), 144 Trump-endorsed candidates exceeded their baselines by an average of 1.52 points. In 257 races where Trump did not endorse a general-election candidate, Republicans exceeded their baseline by 1.46 points.

But that similarity is driven mainly by Trump’s endorsements of many Republicans cruising to easy reelection in uncompetitive districts. If we focus exclusively on districts where the margin of victory was less than 15 points, such that the seat was conceivably in the balance, the picture that emerges is quite different.

In these 114 districts, candidates bearing Trump endorsements underperformed their baseline by a whopping five points, while Republicans who were without Trump’s blessing overperformed their baseline by 2.2 points — a remarkable difference of more than seven points.

In key, competitive districts, a Trump-endorsed candidate underperformed by 5%, and a Republican without Trump’s endorsement overperformed by 2.2%.

So the GOP is ready to move on. We have the data. Trump is an anchor. The voters realize it.

I do not think, therefore, that it is a coincidence that Merrick Garland has decided to appoint a special counsel to see if Trump should be indicted.

Just as the GOP is preparing to move on from Trump, the Department of Justice hopes to provoke a rally around the candidate effect with Republican voters. Stan Greenberg, the Democrats’ top pollster, just released a new poll showing Ron DeSantis would win a majority of the Hispanic vote and crush all comers on the Democratic side.

Therefore, the Democrats need the GOP to boost Trump. In August, a raid on Mar-a-Lago sent Trump soaring in the eyes of Republican voters. How much more will he soar in their eyes if the DOJ indicts him?

No, Garland is not non-partisan. He has refused to enforce laws against protestors outside Supreme Court Justices’ homes. He has refused to investigate the firebombings of pro-life pregnancy centers. He has started rounding up pro-life activists to jail them. He is a partisan guided by partisans. They want the GOP to circle the wagons around Trump. They need Trump.

So they’ll indict Trump and watch the GOP make him their 2024 nominee. They need to stop DeSantis.