Trump's Winter of Discontent
Despite two primary wins,Trump’s skating on thin ice. By contrast, Dems are walking on solid ground.
Two weeks ago it was minus 40 in Chicago. And the Resistant Grandmother (TRG) was holed up in my bedroom with my dog and electric blanket. Now it’s in the upper 30s and I’m no longer afraid the water pipes will burst. Good for me. But so what?
The point is, we’ve just gone through two consequential elections in Iowa and New Hampshire and learned some things. The results, like the weather, reveal there’s still plenty of winter ahead. Trump won both contests. But if the two dreariest weeks in January have told us anything it’s that Trump is more vulnerable than his first two wins would suggest he is. And that Democrats and President Biden are stronger than previously thought.
As the politics-focused Washington-based publication The Hill assessed a few days ago:
“Former President Trump appears to be on a glide path to the Republican nomination…but his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire contained warning signs about his potential vulnerability in the general election.”
Losing moderates and independents
The Hill added that Trump lost moderates and Independents – the key voting bloc that will determine the November election for both parties and the group who voted for Nikki Haley. If Haley loses the Republican nomination, her voters will not fall in for Trump but, more likely, turn to Joe Biden (the hill 27 jan 2024). Trump ignores the importance of these centrist votes at his peril, and that’s good news for everyone who wants to see Trump defeated. Up to now, these independents have remained silent, their voices not heard against the cacophony of angry MAGA followers. But that’s changing, too.
“He’s a crook”
For example, recent Politico coverage of the New Hampshire primary quoted a former Independent Trump voter saying, “I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt. When I voted for him I didn't realize how corrupt he is” (23 jan 2024 politico.com).
Activist Constitutional lawyer George Conway agrees these disaffected MAGAs are part of a growing movement of 2016 and/or 2020 Trump voters who now, rightly, feel duped and angry. “Although the core of the Republican base supports Trump, other people don’t want to be part of that anymore. They’re sick of it; they’re starting to see, to understand how bad it is, and those people are not going to vote for Donald Trump.”
Former Trump staffer weighs in
No less than former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany came to the same conclusion by looking at New Hampshire data. Now a Fox News pundit, McEnany saw the 67,000 New Hampshire votes for President Biden, who was not even on the Democratic ballot and whose name had to be written in by Granite State Democrats and moderates, as an impressive sign of enthusiasm for the president assumed by many pundits to be a drag on the Democratic ticket due to age and other factors.
On a Fox panel assessing the New Hampshire results, she said: “Last night (Tuesday) was a very good night for Joe Biden. He won a plurality of voters who say he’s too old and are upset about the Gaza war. So the divides in the Democrat (sic) Party aren’t as stark as one would think.”
Assailing he will go!
Expectedly, Trump on Truth Social has since assailed his former staffer for such candid truth-telling, saying, “I don’t need any advice from RINO Kayleigh McEnany on Fox!” offering no factual refutation of her analysis.
McEnany’s observations came as a bracing tonic against those who saw Trump’s double-barreled primary wins as forming a juggernaut lurching irrevocably toward the nomination if not the presidency. It was particularly depressing to hear many think that was so at the same time Trump was bullying his way through two New York courtrooms– interrupting judges, libeling plaintiffs against court orders, insisting on special perks and favors not granted by law or custom, and generally bringing a wrecking ball to the American rule of law.
Could it really be possible this man could ascend again to the presidency? That a nine-person jury of seven men and two women in the E. Jean Carroll's second defamation case found him guilty and assessed damages totaling more than $83M served as a needed reminder that Trump cannot win the Oval Office or anything else unless it comes through the good graces of ordinary Americans. And Iowa and New Hampshire, like the two New York civil litigations, could serve as our reminders and guide.
Declaring independence
Trump’s relationship with moderate Americans is front and center as 49 percent of the electorate – Independents – are now the largest voting bloc in the country. The numbers on party fealty vary state by state, but overall the loyalty lineup plays out this way: Independents outnumber Democrats who only slightly outnumber Republicans, although the Democrat vs. Republican figure changes frequently, but usually just slightly over time (gallup.com).
As fewer voters identify as Republicans, the GOP has been making it harder to vote across red and purple state America where gerrymandering state legislatures keep them in power. Rabid Republican candidates like Kari Lake have taken Trump’s cue and now also lie they’ve won when court challenges and multiple recounts prove they have not.
Getting back to Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump won both contests thanks to loyal MAGA followers, but that ultra conservative group is shrinking. In Iowa, Trump won by 51 percent but with only 14 percent of the electorate showing up, a decrease of about 77,000 since 2016. The non-Trump voters including those supporting DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, Hutchinson and a few others mustered almost 49 percent to Trump’s 51, casting Trump’s “landslide” in a slightly less impressive light.
Losing New Hampshire Moderates
As for the Granite State, New Hampshire saw a 10 percent increase in turnout than its 2016 numbers, with about 320,000 voters this year compared to 288,000 in 2016. Unlike Trump’s first campaign when his voters encompassed independents and moderates, this year that bloc largely abandoned the former president, flocking to Haley by a two-to-one margin (23 jan. 2024 washington post).
According to Chris Galdieri, professor of political science at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm’s College, the emigration of moderates from Trump to Haley shows a dramatic shift away from the former president, making him a less powerful candidate ultimately more vulnerable to Democrats:
“In 2016 Trump did pretty well among Republicans regardless of ideology.” By contrast, 2024 totals suggest that “OK, maybe there are some Republicans who are in play and could be convinced to vote for Biden in the fall,” Galdieri said.
Why Independents would vote for Biden
Assuming a Trump nomination, Independents opting for Biden would vote on the new compelling issues of protesting the elimination of reproductive rights and saving democracy, Galdieri said.
Political analyst Simon Rosenberg says the Republican reckoning has been a long time coming, but exacerbated by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 (msnbc.com).
How to repel women – ask Trump
Trump has made matters worse by bragging about how proud he is for “terminating” Roe, considering it a major accomplishment other Republican presidents failed at. While that goes over well with “very conservative” and white evangelical voters in rural Iowa and New Hampshire, it does not appeal to suburban women – especially those in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that Trump needs for reelection. Even red states like Kentucky, Montana, Kansas, and Ohio have overwhelmingly passed laws that have enshrined reproductive rights in their state constitutions, thanks to aggressive get out the vote efforts – evidence of women’s resentment and growing agency.
And then there’s the news coverage of women like Kate Cox in Texas who had to flee the Lone Star State to receive life-saving fertility care, the 10-year-old Ohio girl who fled the Buckeye State to get an abortion from a pregnancy caused by rape at the hands of an uncle, and now, more recently, new statistics reporting more than 64,000 rape-caused pregnancies in the two years following the Dobbs v. Jackson, Mississippi Women’s Health decision overturning of Roe in June of 2022.
The high court’s fiat has only strengthened women’s resolve not to elect Dobbs-friendly Republicans and to remove as many of them as possible. The former Republican president who has bragged about the “honor” of overturning Roe has become an anathema even to Republican women who voted for him not believing Roe could ever be taken away given its 50 year precedent.
Women prefer Dems
According to reports by the Center for Women and Politics, in every presidential election since 1996, a majority of women have preferred Democratic candidates (cawp.rutgers.edu), and ongoing atrocities meted out on women since Dobbs have only strengthened that resolve.
Special elections prefer Dems
Moreover, Democrats have been running in high gear throughout all elections since 2020 – winning all special election contests for state houses and Congress and flipping the House of Delegates in Virginia and House of Representatives in Pennsylvania to Democrats, just as it did in Michigan, flipping both houses in 2022.
Another problem facing Trump as seen through the Iowa and New Hampshire lenses involves the former president’s abundance of legal woes. Among the group of Haley New Hampshire voters, 83 percent told Fox pollsters they won’t vote for Trump if he is criminally convicted. With two federal prosecutions spearheaded by special counsel Jack Smith and two at the hands of state-based prosecutors adding up to 91 counts of criminality, “Guess what. He’s going to be,” said Democratic strategist Jim Messina. “If I were Donald Trump’s campaign manager I’d be throwing up in a basket under my desk” (msnbc 26 1 jan 2024).
Haley voters won’t settle for Trump
Criminal conviction or not, another Fox poll holds still more bad news for the former president: 35 percent of Haley followers won’t vote for him, period – again adding more candidates to Biden’s voter stockpile.
Assessing the bad news, Trump former staffer McEnany advised Trump to do two things to preserve his viability: 1) unite the Republican Party and 2) start embracing Independents.
Repelling women, part 2
True to form, Trump retaliated by attacking both Haley and McEnany, calling his former U.N. Ambassador a “birdbrain” and earning blowback from Republican officials conscious of their already-bad problem attracting women. One member of the New Hampshire Republican National Committee said, “He won’t get women voters who are swing voters…If there were to be a close election, yes, his comments could sway it” (the hill.com).
Trump’s screed against his former press secretary came through employing his signature all caps style on Truth Social: “I don’t need any advice from RINO Kayleigh McEnany. Just had a GIANT VICTORY over a badly failing candidate, ‘Birdbrain,’ and she’s telling me what I can do better. Save your advice for Nikki!” – thus managing to abuse two women in the same Truth Social post.
Not (ever) doing his homework
McEnany may be disappointed but not surprised the former president isn’t progressing on either uniting the party or welcoming Independents. Not when Trump acolyte Georgia Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene signaled the need to expel all non-Trumpers out of the party. “Anyone Republican that isn't willing to support his policies…we are completely eradicating from the party,” she asserted the day after the primary (the hill 24 jan 2014). Greene’s directive kills two birds (pun intended) with one stone, as “anyone not willing to support his policies” would exclude Independents, too.
We should feel good
Democratic political analyst Rosenberg says he has looked at the data and sees Trump struggling against an electorate with greater numbers of people who are turning on him and seeking other candidates. “He’s in trouble. He did not have a good 10 days. We should feel very good about where we are.”
Trump lost
Doing my own simplistic mini-analysis, TRG looked at Trump’s Iowa and New Hampshire totals and those of his opponents and found reason for Rosenberg’s confidence.
Trump’s Iowa victory total (56,260) coupled with his New Hampshire win (176,392) adds up to 232,652 voters who selected Trump over his opponents.
However, the votes of all of his opponents in aggregate including Joe Biden add up to 277,446. That’s about 45,000 more voters who opted not to give Donald Trump a second term as president. If this ratio keeps up, and currently there’s no reason it shouldn’t given Trump’s unpopular opinions and disturbing behavior, Democrats will be walking on solid ground while Donald Trump and what remains of the Republican Party will be lucky if they’re still skating on thin ice.
– trg
Who I write for…
Thanks so much for reading!
Deb, thanks so much for your comment. What you say is relevant and may all be true, but also may be undercut by the enthusiastic nature of the New Hampshire vote. There, with an actual election in front of them, voters seemed to brush away the cobwebs (age, Gaza, etc) and come down on the side of democracy and maybe women’s rights. We don’t know yet, exactly, but these seem most on Democrats’ minds. And the good economy may also be sinking in.
You may be right and I’ve shared many of the same fears. But I am heartened by New Hampshire moderate and Democrats’ choice. Let’s wait and see together how the next spate of primaries turn out.
While I agree Trump may be losing ground in the middle, I really fear those folks will choose to not vote rather than vote for Biden. Biden has achieved a lot for which he has not received appropriate credit, but his age is definitely working against him (as it should Trump, as well). I will vote for Biden, but I wish there was another- younger - choice. And the specter of a 3rd party candidate entering this summer remains a concern, as well..