There has actually been a lot of news lately that I think is going to significantly affect the 2018 primaries, but a lot of it has kind of flown under the radar with the crush of coverage of the release of “Fire and Fury”, and the Mueller investigation kicking into high gear. So I thought I’d take this chance to highlight a few of them.
First of all, bye-bye Bannon. While this is of course a most welcome development, and if in fact my typing is kind of cockeyed, it’s because I’m still doing my happy dance as I sit, bouncing like I’m singing-along-with-Mitch, it does change the vector of the 2018 primaries. Bannon was trouble for Mitch McConnell, and possibly for Paul Ryan for two reasons. First, he brought his Breitbart base over to Trump, and the Trump base accepted him when Hair Furor embraced him. Primaries are at heart “base voter” affairs, and if Bannon was going to back a dark horse, McConnell had to worry about voter apathy for his incumbents. The second, and even more important reason was cold hard cash. Primaries from the right are nothing new to GOP incumbents, but usually they are easily repelled by the lack of name recognition for the challenger, but more importantly their lack of financing. Bannon had the Mercers ready to bankroll his challengers. His loss of backing from Rotten Rebekah makes it much easier for McConnell’s already weak incumbents to survive their primaries basically unscathed.
The exodus continues. Hardly a week goes by without at least one announcement of another long time GOP incumbent abandoning their seat while they still have a shred of dignity left. I have written before about how this is a problem for Paul Ryan since in one stroke he loses two crutches, incumbent recognition, and incumbent fundraising capability. But there is another, to my mind more important dynamic at work here.
Congressional turnover is nothing new, for either party. Older incumbents retire, or run for a higher office, and new blood comes in to replace them. But the GOP is undergoing an internal upheaval. This has become the party of Trump. For every incumbent who retires, Paul Ryan is going to have trouble finding traditional GOP candidates willing to risk their names and reputations to get into this shit show. Meanwhile, there will be a bumper crop of far right nihilists and torch throwers, desperate to ride the Trump train. Low quality traditional candidates and traditional base enthusiasm, combined with a plethora of escaped Hannibal Lecter’s and “base” Trump supporter turnout to propel them could well lead to a higher than normal number of Christine O’Donnell’s and
Todd Aiken’s out there in November, ripe for Democratic picking.
But here’s what I’m really going to be watching as we go through the 2018 primary season. Turnout. And no, I don’t mean turnout between the candidates, I mean a turnout comparison between the parties, especially in pink and purple states. In both Virginia and the Alabama special elections, Democratic turnout was much higher as compared to 2016 than Republican turnout. If you look at the primaries in traditionally red districts, and you see that Democratic turnout is near to or hopefully higher than the GOP turnout in the race, that could be an early indicator of blood in the water for Democrats to rush to in November. Especially if fledgling Trumpaholics prevail in the primaries, that could have the effect or driving away traditional GOP voters in November if they’re sufficiently fed up with Trump’s nonsense.
So, there you have it. That’s what’s stuck out for me in the last few days. See you in the comments, and you can tell me what YOU think. Forget “the more you know,” as Rachel Maddow likes to say, hopefully “You know more now.”
It’s here! The moment you’ve been dreading looking forward to. My new e-book President Evil. A common man looks at Trump and the 2016 primaries. You can get it now on Amazon. * Reminder * With my appreciation for your support, the book is still on sale today for $2.99 vs the list price of $4.99. And please feel free to leave a review at either Amazon or goodreads, every review helps, positive or negative,