I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
Second.
(a pollster he trusts) saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
This is pretty accurate overall. He’s sticking hard to anti-immigration policies though:
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
And his summary:
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. I remain hopeful about our country.
To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
Again, not insane. And very obviously with an eye towards a Presidential run in 2028. Vance has done this sort of thing all through his time as Vice President: support the President while making it clear he doesn’t agree with everything Trump has done. He’s trying to threat a needle: Trump’s hard core supporters won’t tolerate dissing Trump, but if he wants to win both the primary and the election, he needs to create distance between himself and Trump.
In 2024 the moment I knew that Harris wouldn’t win (remember, she was ahead for much of the campaign) was when she was asked if she’d have done anything differently than Biden and she said no. People were unhappy with Biden, and that was the moment she put a gun in her electoral chances and pulled the trigger.
Vance isn’t that stupid.
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I think that in some ways Vance is much more dangerous than Trump. Vance is much more disciplined and a lot smarter (this doesn’t mean he’s brilliant, I’ve had dogs who were smarter than Trump.) But he’s a creature of Peter Thiel, he’s xenophobic despite having an Indian wife and he’s willing to do anything to grab the brass ring.
It’ll be interesting to see if he can thread the needle and it’ll be interesting to see how much support Trump keeps losing (since the economy is just going to keep getting worse until a few months after he actually ends the war with Iran in a way that gets them to stop blockading the Strait.)
Overall I am not optimistic, the fundamental problem in the US is that the majority of people in power are delusional. They think that this is America in the 90s or 50s, at the height of its power, not a nation that has made itself abhorrent to most of the rest of the world, shipped its industry to China and which can’t even re-arm properly without materials from China which are increasingly subject to sanctions.
America needs a reset and I doubt Vance is the one to do it.
Update 2: And, despite all the screaming, Jews are still primarily democratic voters:
I haven’t written a lot about the US elections. The Democrats will win, since Trump has completely trashed the US economy with his policies and caused a cost of living crisis (you ain’t seen nothin’yet), the only question is how large the Democratic wave is.