In January 2015, in the wake of the Republican sweep in the 2014 elections, I wrote an article for National Journal on “The Emerging Republican Advantage.” I predicted that because of their growing support not only among the white working class, but among voters with college but not advanced degrees (who tend to be mid-level white collar) and among senior citizens, Republicans could tilt the playing field in their favor over the next few elections. But I offered several conditions, and one was if they ran a presidential candidate in 2016 who like George W. Bush in 2000 ran close to the center rather than the right. (Remember “compassionate conservatism.”) I never dreamed the Republicans would nominate someone like Donald Trump.
Trump isn’t so much on the right – he’s actually on the party’s left on social security and trade – but by his inflammatory rhetoric, he divides the party’s base and energizes Democratic voters. By nominating Trump, the Republicans appear to have forfeited any chance to secure a majority.
You can see the potential that existed for a Republican majority if you look at the Senate race in Ohio. In that race, as analyzed this morning by the Daily Kos Election Reports, Republican incumbent Rob Portman is pulling away from Democrat Ted Strickland. It’s partly a result of inept campaigning on Strickland’s part, but it’s also a result of Portman being a kind of moderate conservative Republican – squishy on social issues (he backs gay marriage), predictably pro-business on economics, but not dogmatically anti-government. In polls, Ohio voters by three-to-one say that Portman is not a Republican like Trump. If the Republicans had nominated someone with Portman’s political coloration to run against Hillary Clinton this year – a Kasich-Rubio ticket was the obvious choice – then I believe that Republicans would be looking at a very good result, even with the preponderance of Republican senate seats up for grabs.
The contrast with what-could-have-been and what-is raises interesting questions about the parties after November. If Clinton does win and Democrats take back the Senate, which I believe will happen because of Trump’s candidacy, then where will the Republicans go? Will they attempt to incorporate Trumps stands on immigration, runaway shops, and trade deals into their platform and nominate candidates who can appeal forthrightly to Trump’s base? Or will they, like the Republicans after Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964, turn back toward the center and nominate candidates like Portman in state and national races? And what of Clinton’s presidency? Will she suddenly emerge – in the manner of Britain’s Theresa May — as a brilliant politician who can unite the country or will she suffer from the same political difficulties as a president that she has as a presidential candidate? My guess: the Republicans will move to the center and repudiate Trump, and Clinton will have difficulty with the political side of the presidency, and the result in 2018 will be another Republican wave election. I hope I’m wrong.
