NR senior political correspondent, Washington Post contributing columnist. Author. Three Martini Lunch podcast. Intermittent cable news talking head. #TJAMS
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President Trump said on Friday that longtime adviser Stephen Miller would become his chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles on.wsj.com/3UCWKQn
Jim Geraghty retweeted
Your Friday #3MartiniLunch! Today, @JimGeraghty and @radiocraigc discuss President Trump's claim that when the stock market crashes, the American people have only themselves to blame, and the White House tells conservative groups that it is watching them. spreaker.com/episode/white-h…
One other point on this...
A couple problems with the "we need to tailor our policies and approach to appeal to the voters who stayed home" are that A) voters who stayed home in the midterm have already proven to be not all-that-easy to motivate and B) if you don't show up to vote, why should elected officials prioritize tailoring their approach to your preferences over all the people who _did_ show up and vote?
“The Republicans stayed home.”
Eh, not that much; when asked to identify themselves by party, 35 percent of voters told the exit pollsters said Democrat, 32 percent said Republican, and 33 percent said independent. Two years ago, 31 percent of exit poll respondents identified as Democrat, 35 percent identified as Republican, and 34 percent said independent. That’s definitely a shift, but it’s not a huge shift; each party and the independents make up about a third of the electorate from year to year.
Eight percent of voters identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. More than half of voters, 52 percent, said they think “support for transgender rights in society” has “gone too far.” Just 26 percent said it had not gone far enough, and 22 percent it has “been about right.”
Considering how more than half the electorate has the more Republican-leaning position on transgender rights, but Republicans still got wiped out from coast to coast, we can conclude that many voters may agree with the GOP on this issue, but they don’t vote based upon it. It’s a second-tier issue at best.
“Republicans flipped to the Democrats.”
Eh, a little. Eight percent of self-identified Republican men and 5 percent of self-identified Republican women said they voted for Democrats, while just 2 percent of self-identified Democratic men and just 1 percent of self-identified Democratic women voted for Republicans.
No, the much bigger factor was that independents started voting for Democrats in much larger numbers. Two years ago, 46 percent of independents voted for Donald Trump — actually slightly less than the 49 percent who voted for Kamala Harris, but enough to keep it close and make up for it in higher GOP turnout. This year, independents split in favor of Democrats, 58 percent to 38 percent.
BTW, the exit poll isn't just NBC.
"The Voter Poll™ expects to interview approximately 100,000 voters and is conducted by SSRS on behalf of CNN and other major news organizations, including ABC, the Associated Press, CBS, Fox News, MS NOW and NBC."
ssrs.com/news/exit-polls-hav…
“The Republicans stayed home.”
Eh, not that much; when asked to identify themselves by party, 35 percent of voters told the exit pollsters said Democrat, 32 percent said Republican, and 33 percent said independent. Two years ago, 31 percent of exit poll respondents identified as Democrat, 35 percent identified as Republican, and 34 percent said independent. That’s definitely a shift, but it’s not a huge shift; each party and the independents make up about a third of the electorate from year to year.
The exit polls indicate that the 2026 electorate was 73 percent white, 9 percent black, 10 percent Latino, 4 percent Asian, and 5 percent identifying as “other.”
Throw away that “changing demographics mean Republicans can’t win” crap. In terms of demographics, this isn’t that different a country than it was two years ago, when Republicans were winning the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. And nationally, the electorate was almost three-quarters white! The GOP wipeout was not because minorities and immigrants flooded the polls. It was because just about every demographic, including whites, wasn’t happy with the past two years of Republican governance.
Now, with that said, if there’s a widespread perception that your party plays footsie with white nationalists, a whole lot of minorities aren’t going to want to vote for you and will want to vote for the other party. If your party’s leader has dined with Nick Fuentes at his home, if your convention speaker keeps talking to guys who argue Hitler wasn’t really the villain of World War II, if you nominate a candidate who rages about Indian-American University of Texas students after the Longhorns beat Ohio State . . . what do you think is going to happen? Why would you think Republicans would do well among minority voters if figures associated with Republicans keep telling minority voters that they hate them?