Donald Trump and His Elusive Base
27th May 2022
Semi-RINO Peggy Noonan tries some mind-reading.
I’m not sure it’s the party that’s building the coalitions and I’m not sure they’re coalitions exactly, but something new is being built, and it involves the widening of the Republican Party in terms of who wants to join and whom its voters will support. This shift began in 2016 and appears to be accelerating.
Gee, what happened in 2016? Let’s see….
Donald Trump’s endorsements yielded, famously, mixed success. Nebraska gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster, for whom Mr. Trump rallied, lost. Idaho Gov. Brad Little trounced his Trumpian challenger. But J.D. Vance broke through and won in Ohio because of Mr. Trump’s endorsement. If Mr. Trump had picked David McCormick in Pennsylvania, we wouldn’t be in recount territory; he would have won comfortably. Yet Mr. Trump’s backing couldn’t save the strange and hapless Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.
The figures I saw were 100 successful and 6 unsuccessful. If that’s ‘mixed’, then I don’t know what winning looks like.
Mr. Trump has real influence but it is not determinative.
Well, then, I guess he’s not the New Hitler like everybody thought. Isn’t that amazing?