I wanted to take a moment to marvel over the Nikki Haley situation with you. The conventional take is that as she’s risen in the GOP presidential primary contest she’s getting the heightened scrutiny that goes along with it. But that’s not actually true. As with so much else in the news, that take is driven by vibes and the need for a storyline rather than any actual data. FiveThirtyEight says that on October 1st she was at 6.9% support in nationwide polls. Today she is at 11%. That’s a 4 percentage point shift when Donald Trump, today, remains literally 50 percentage points ahead. The only place where there’s even been a modest shift is in New Hampshire. And it’s quite modest. There she’s moved to about 25% support after almost two months at 20%.

So … Go Nikki! Laying the groundwork for a 2 to 1 trouncing in New Hampshire to build momentum for a … well, not really clear that it’s for anything. But let’s not be spoil sports!

Since this will be the final Backchannel of 2023, I want to devote it to a note of thanks as we go into the new year. 2023 was the first full year of The Backchannel. We launched it at the end of 2022, and it is a members-only newsletter. So I’m writing to you as the members who make TPM not only possible but vital: Thank you.

Kate and TPM’s Josh Marshall talk with Professor Heather Cox Richardson about the state of American democracy and how we got here.

Belaboring The Point is now on YouTube! Check out the latest video episode of the podcast here.

I give you my favorite editorial fail of the final week of 2023, from the Times write-up of the Maine disqualification …

I noted on Tuesday that, for whatever reason, I’m feeling a relative optimism about the 2024 election. That leads me to speculate: what happens after Trump? I don’t think I’m getting ahead of myself. The question is important and illuminating even if Trump isn’t done with us. Because it goes to the heart of what exactly the Republican Party is today.

It is a commonplace and an accurate one to say that the Republican Party is Donald Trump. When we referenced this yesterday while recording our podcast, Kate Riga reminded us of the party’s 2020 decision to scrap its entire party platform and replace it with, simply, whatever Donald Trump wants. It made sense: the party is Donald Trump. The rest is just fine print, which Trump can make up or change whenever he wants.