Winning Pennsylvania in the 2024 election may be extremely difficult for any Republican candidate.
The headlines of this November election focused on the losses by two Trump-backed candidates in the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.
But the Republican losses go much deeper than that.
In the useless arena of conventional wisdom and polls, the so-called experts predicted that the GOP would win 10 of 16 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, with one seat a tossup. The actual outcome pushed the House delegation to the Democrats, with a 9-8 margin.
But the big story buried in the mass of election analytical outkill was the potential loss of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to the Democrats, who picked up 12 seats from the last election and haven’t held control of the legislative body since 2010.
Because of a death and a few governmental changes, the House hasn’t officially changed hands, although it’s likely to do so when the dust settles.
There’s mostly bad news when you dig into the voters themselves. The Black and Latino communities weren’t particularly interested in the nonpresidential election, with Philadelphia voters staying away from the polls in hordes.
A Philadelphia Inquirer analysis found the following:
–Philly’s vote count dropped 33% from 2020, more than any other county and the statewide average of 22%.
–It’s not just a 2020 comparison: This year saw a stark divergence between Philly turnout and the rest of the state compared to every federal election since at least 2000.
–Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, has about 133,000 fewer voters than Philly — but cast about 67,000 more ballots this election.
–Philadelphia’s share of the state’s total Democratic vote has dropped from 20% in 2016 to 15% this year.
These results demonstrate that Philadelphia may have less clout than Pittsburgh in the foreseeable future.
More important for Republicans, however, is that many traditional Democrats didn’t participate in the 2022 election, and the Dems still won big.
Moreover, the expected Latino surge for the GOP didn’t happen in Pennsylvania, as traditional Hispanic locales saw a drop in voting turnout. The steepest dives were in heavily Latino cities such as Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Reading, and Allentown, which all saw turnout drop even more than Philadelphia.
Some community leaders said the turnout in Latino communities shows a failure of candidates and both parties to connect with long-neglected voters.
“There’s lots of things to say about how ignored Latinos feel by the electoral system,” said Erika Almirón, a senior organizer with Mijente, a national Latino social justice group that works in Philadelphia. “And it manifests by not wanting to participate, and so if we want those numbers to improve, candidates have to knock on doors, we need resources.”
Simply put, the GOP has two years to turn it around in Pennsylvania.
One factor in the use of the government as a weapon against the Political foes of the left that isn’t discussed is that this is the fruit of the Obama years.
Obama was always a cheap Chicago pol and he used his high position to transform the federal government and the system into the Chicago way where government is used to enrich friends and punish enemies.
Till those Obama types are purged we’re not going to see things change.
In his famous appearance on Phil Donahue’s show Milton Freeman when questioned by Donahue on the excesses of capitalism replied: “just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us?” This is a basic principle of life that people tend of act in their own self interest. And since most people aren’t angels particularly in government the best way to create ethical behavior is to make such behavior profitable.
That’s really the secret, if you make the rewards of honorable behavior strong enough then the risks of unethical behavior are not worthwhile.
CBS has suddenly decided that the Hunter Biden laptop stuff is real.
This in my opinion is a definite signal that they have decided than in a possible match with Trump in 2024 Joe Biden in expendable.
The real question is will Biden fight (Jill that is) I don’t think Joe has much fight in him, but he does know where the bodies are.
The moment I heard that Nancy Pelosi was dropping herself from the leadership but staying in congress all I could think of was the movie Casino with Hakeem Jeffries playing the role of Phillip Green. I suspect that the new leadership will not make any move that is not approved by Nancy as she, like Biden knows where the bodies are buried.
Personally I think the only reason for this is to remove Pelosi and a fundraising meme for the GOP.
Finally it’s starting to get cold and the heat has been on in the house. That means that the first oil delivery of the new Biden season is coming for me and a lot of other folks.
I get about 200 gallons per delivery which is going to likely run over $1000 as opposed to the $500-$600 that it would have in the Trump years.
If this doesn’t change the voting patterns of folks in New England nothing will.
While increasingly irrelevant, the mainstream media is still a force to be reckoned with in regard to shaping opinion. Despite paywalls at many newspaper and magazine sites, revenue is down, and layoffs are up. The paywalls of course limit readership, and usually, considering what is produced by the MSM, that’s a good thing.
You probably that FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency firm that is incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda, filed for bankruptcy protection a few days after Election Day.
Oh, Election Day, is that a non-sequitur?
Nope.
The co-founder, and until November 11, the CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was the second-largest contributor to Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Nearly $40 million in SBF funds went to the Dems, most of that money ended up in three Democrat-PACs. Only George Soros, who made his fortune in currency trading, donated more to the Dems during the midterm cycle.
Bankman-Fried, often referred to as SBF, has not been charged with any crimes. Still, there are comparisons being made between SBF and Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff, as well as the collapse of Enron. Bankman-Fried’s successor at FTC, John Ray III, who did the best he could in cleaning up Enron, had this to say about his new employer, “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.” Larry Summers, alluded to the Enron debacle too. “The smartest guys in the room. Not just financial error but — certainly from the reports — whiffs of fraud,” the former Treasury secretary under Barack Obama said. “Vast explosion of wealth that nobody quite understands where it comes from.”
And I believe there is a bit of the Fyre Fest hoaxster, Billy McFarland, embedded in Bankman-Fried’s mental DNA.
Notwithstanding Summers remark, there have been few if any screams of anger from prominent Democrats about the FTX ruination. I wonder why. Not!
The mainstream media coverage of Bankman-Fried has largely avoided this word–megadonor. Which is of course how the MSM reflexively labels major Republican campaign contributors such as Ken Griffin, Andy Sabin, Ronald Lauder and so many more. When I entered “megadonor” into the Google News site this morning and their names popped up. Not so much with SBF–and most of those mentions came from conservative-leaning sites such as Fox Business and the Washington Free Beacon. NBC News managed to use the word “megadonor” in an article about SBF–but take a look at the mournful headline that accompanied that story: Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall could deprive Democrats of key donor.
We used to see similar media malpractice–until bloggers and conservative journalists repeatedly called the MSM out on it–with the phrase “mass shooting” only being used when the evil perpetrator was a white male.
You know who else is almost never called a megadonor by the media?
George Soros.
Media bias is like the Hydra, a beast from Greek mythology. There are so many heads that need to be sliced off.
I was around for the 1994 and the 2010 Red Wave elections. And for the most part, they were pretty awesome, particularly the first one, when the Republican Party bulldozed the Democrats and captured the Senate after eight years of Democrat control, as well as the House of Representatives, after a record 52-year reign by the Dems. And while the GOP didn’t win the Senate in 2010, the Republicans gained an astounding 63 House seats in what is now known as the Tea Party election.
After both midterms, conservatives salivated at the prospect of the next presidential election. In 1992, Bill Clinton was victorious, it was believed, because George H.W. Bush ran a lackluster campaign–that was true–and votes for third-party candidate Ross Perot siphoned enough support from the GOP conservative base to elect the Democrat. In 2008, the feeling was that John McCain never had a chance against Barack Obama after the Great Recession market crash two months before Election Day. But McCain ran a lackluster campaign too.
Overconfidence, bordering on hubris, kicked in for the GOP after those Red Waves.
As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House.
Bubba had a come-to-Jesus moment–having Dick Morris in his camp helped–and Clinton after the ’94 midterms pivoted to the center by declaring, “The era of big government is over.” The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, widely-known as the Welfare Reform Bill, offered tangible proof.
After what Obama deemed “a shellacking” in 2010, Obama, as he does best, talked a good game–but he didn’t pivot. With no hope of getting unpopular legislation, such as cap-and-trade passed by the new GOP House, he channeled his charisma to win in 2012–as conservatives seethed. And ObamaCare didn’t go into effect until 2013.
Besides over-confidence hindering their White House chances, Republicans nominated country club-flavor Republicans, Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, for president in 1996 and 2012, respectively. In essence, their campaign was, “I’m not the other guy.” Yawn.
As of this writing there will be a Democrat majority in the Senate in the next Congress, and maybe, a razor-thin Republican majority in the House.
Election denial.
It’s time for the GOP to look at what went wrong this year, starting with election-denial. As I wrote in March, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump was not a free and fair election. Big Tech and media meddling in regard to suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, in my opinion, was the foremost reason. Richard M. Nixon was the victim of a suspicious presidential election tally in 1960. I was a child in 1968 and 1972, but I don’t recall reading about Nixon mentioning the 1960 race at all during his ’68 or ’72 successful presidential runs.
Deal with it. The Dems won in 2020 and we lost. Move on. If Trump runs in 2024, that needs to be his message. Most of the candidates in close races who said that Biden stole the election from Trump in 2020 were defeated. Election denial is toxic for Republicans.
The big winner in the midterms was Florida governor Ron DeSantis. He’s not an election denier and he has a solid list of accomplishments to point to after four years in office.
The new election playing field.
I loathe mail-in voting, “election season” instead of Election Day, and ballot drop-boxes. But these things aren’t going away. To prevail, Republicans have to adapt and find ways to perform better on the new playing field. Mail-in voting is a good place to start. Increasingly, the GOP is the party of private sector jobholders. Let’s say you’re a construction worker raising a family who is told by his boss, “Hey, I need you at this worksite tomorrow in Nebraska–it pays well.” But that worker hasn’t voted yet and Election Day is two days away. Meanwhile, in Blue Illinois, Election Day is a holiday for government workers.
What if it snows on Election Day? That happened in a Republican area in Nevada last Tuesday.
Shortly before Election Day in 2016, my mother was hospitalized. She had voted in every presidential election since 1956, but mom wasn’t able to vote for Trump, much to her disappointment. We need to reach out to seniors and, gently of course, convince them to utilize mail-in or early voting.
Republicans need to build on its increasing support among Hispanics and reach out to Asians. The GOP is the party of law and order. However, the media wing of the Democratic Party labels the phrase “law and order” as racist. So Republicans need to rebrand and become, let’s say, the “safety and security” party. Safety and security is an appeal that will resonate among all racial groups.
Tribalism.
If the increasingly frail and mentally feeble Joe Biden runs for reelection and wins renomination–the Democrats won’t have a strong campaigner like Clinton or Obama on the top of the ticket in ’24. And Biden has already said that he won’t pivot, as Bill Clinton did, to the center now that the midterms have passed.
Woo-hoo! We’re gonna win!
Slow down there, cowboy.
Republicans face disaster if they underestimate the support Biden will enjoy from the tribalist base of the Democrats. That tribe will vote every candidate who has a “D” next to their name. In the Chicago area, I live among millions of these people. They might wise up one day. Maybe they won’t. But as Dan Bongino said numerous times in the last week, “Things are just not bad enough yet for a lot of people to wake up from the Kool-Aid slumber.”
And it’s not just Illinois that is afflicted by Dem tribalism. Pennsylvanians chose a cognitively challenged far-left US Senate candidate, John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke this spring, over a mentally nimble Republican candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz. True, Oz could have run a better campaign.
Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 landslide win over Walter Mondale, won 49 states. But in the popular vote–yeah, I know, the Electoral College declares the victor–Mondale still collected more than 40 percent. In 2024, even if Biden is in worse physical and mental shape than Fetterman is, he’ll do much better, courtesy of tribalism, than Mondale did, in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Fetterman, if by some other-worldly convergence ends up as the Democrat nominee for president in 2024, could match Mondale’s popular vote percentage. I am dead serious about that. Tribalism is a tough nut to crack.
There is much to think about and much to do for the Republican Party. But at least the GOP won’t be overconfident in 2024. That might be the best news out of this Red Ripple election.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 