MARK HALPERIN: Republicans are bracing for a wipeout. Here's who they'll blame if it happens
The political strategists I have known in my career are among the smartest, most interesting, most knowledgeable and most impressive people I have ever met.
They are also capable of more white-hot animus for other people than anyone I have ever met.
And I am not talking about Democrats hating Republicans, or vice versa. That is frequently a manageable relationship. Sometimes they even share a corporate client.
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The disgust to which I refer is intraparty. That is when the hatred becomes unmatched by all other human relationships.
More than Glinda felt pure, unadulterated loathing for Elphaba at the beginning of "Wicked." More than a tenant despises her cruel and unusual landlord. More than the Red Sox detest the Yankees.
These folks are experts at circular firing squads and shooting off bazookas inside the tent.
Most political strategists detest two things: losing campaigns and losing money. The pair is connected. An election defeat can cost you your next client. Being blamed for an election defeat can cost you several.
There is, therefore, a substantial professional incentive to establish that the catastrophe was foreseeable, preventable and definitely somebody else’s doing.
With a few weeks to go before Election Day, Democratic strategists are feeling good or great, while Republicans range from uneasy and determined to absolutely horrible. The latter have begun rehearsing their recriminations with select audiences. Some of those audiences are reporters.
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The Democrats will not need a lengthy warm-up period if the election disappoints.
There are two parallel campaigns underway: the one to win the election and the one to win the argument about why it was lost.
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On the Republican side, the simplest argument is also the hardest to refute. One man controls the party, and his name is Trump.
His advisers can recommend a message, a schedule, a spending plan or a period of blessed silence. They cannot guarantee delivery.
A Republican wipeout would thus produce a comprehensive Trump indictment: his unpopularity, his indiscipline, his economic decisions, his foreign entanglements, his family’s enrichment and his apparently inexhaustible interest in attaching his name to things. Trump’s cheerleading for AI and data centers is hurting Republicans, too, alienating voters who see higher electric bills and threats to their jobs where he sees a glorious future.
The defense of the staff will be that they could not control him. The prosecution’s response will be that taking responsibility for the consequences of not managing him properly was rather prominently included in the job description.
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There had been a plausible Republican case for optimism late last year. Democrats were divided, the Senate map was favorable, the novel mid-decade redistricting plan seemed to be working, and Republicans could hope voters would tolerate an economic mixed bag if the promised benefits began arriving.
Instead, a voter worried about groceries sees a president worried about building names. A family falling behind on retirement savings hears about a ballroom. A young adult unable to afford a house watches the president’s family make deals.
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Each story supplies the caption for the next one.
The political damage requires voters to conclude that the president is spending more time on his surroundings than on theirs.
"Why is he focused on a Washington arts building instead of my wallet?" is a question no Republican media buyer can answer with another video invoking Zohran Mamdani or AOC.
The Iran conflict compounds the problem: higher energy costs, another foreign war that seems to be taking forever and a president who campaigned on avoiding precisely that sort of entanglement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune will face a related accusation: that congressional Republicans produced too little voters could feel, understand or remember. A legislative accomplishment that requires a staff briefing to appreciate is difficult to sell in a 30-second spot.
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Republicans have money. What they have lacked is a national message persuasive enough to make that money work.
The consultants will say the committees commissioned stale spots and recycled attacks, and started airing them too late. If the spots fail, the people who approved them will explain that testing showed they worked. The people who opposed them will explain that they always knew the testing was wrong.
The turnout people will be asked why they could not bring Trump-only voters back for an election without Trump on the ballot. The candidate recruiters will be asked why loyalty at times outranked electability.
Individual candidates will be blamed for hugging him too tightly or abandoning him too quickly. Some may achieve the distinction of being blamed for both.
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And the media will occupy its customary place in the Republican explanation: burying accomplishments, magnifying liabilities and making every Republican candidate answer for Trump.
The Democratic version will be less centered on one man and considerably more crowded.
Suppose Democrats barely take the House and fail to win the Senate. What might once have been celebrated as a successful midterm could become an indictment of a party that persuaded itself it was entitled to a much bigger one.
Once a wave becomes the assumed outcome, every seat it fails to wash ashore becomes evidence of malpractice.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will be accused of weak leadership. The progressives will say the party offered voters too little to get excited about. The moderates will say the progressives offered Republicans entirely too much to get excited about.
Strategists who made Trump the central issue will be accused of neglecting household costs. Strategists who emphasized household costs will be accused of failing to make voters understand the full danger of Trump.
Republican billionaires will be accused of buying the final weeks, and their Democratic counterparts will be blamed for sitting on their wallets.
The Democratic media complaint will be the inverse of the Republican one: Trump was normalized, and his opponents held to a higher standard.
There is no neutral after-action report when the authors are competing for the next contract.
That does not make the recriminations worthless. Sometimes the angriest person understands the failure best. Political strategists are very good at spotting other political strategists’ mistakes.
They are less consistent about spotting their own.
By the time the returns are in, both sides will have ready explanations, supporting anecdotes and witnesses who remember being ignored.
The only thing they will not have is enough blame for themselves.