Americana

The Republican debates are only helping Donald Trump

THE SCENE

SIMI VALLEY, Ca. — Late Wednesday evening, as strategists for seven Republican campaigns roamed a post-debate spin room, Trump strategist Chris LaCivita asked why anyone was still there.

“These debates are becoming a sideshow,” LaCivita told Semafor. “No one’s really materializing as a threat.” Trump was going to keep skipping these events, he said. As the second primary debate was wrapping up, he’d urged the Republican National Committee to “put an end to any further primary debates” and let the campaign “train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden.”

The Trump campaign’s gambit, skipping RNC-sanctioned debates and forfeiting the free media attention to his rivals, has paid off. When Republicans walked onstage at the FiServ Forum, Trump held a 26-point lead over the field in Iowa, according to an average of all polling in the first caucus state. When they wrapped up at the Reagan Library this week, Trump’s lead had grown to 36 points, and Fox was cutting its debate ad rates.

Trump’s rivals are trailing a candidate who has spent far less time campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire; who’s been indicted four times, and burned millions of dollars on lawyers, with no impact on fundraising; and who’s been targeted by $6 million of early-state ads warning that he could lose to Biden again.

Yet there’s evidence that the debates have strengthened Trump’s position, for two reasons.

First, the clear beneficiary of last month’s debate was Nikki Haley, who leapfrogged Ron DeSantis in some polls of New Hampshire – and who attacked DeSantis on Wednesday, asking how voters could take his energy plan seriously when “you banned fracking, you banned offshore drilling” in Florida.

The Trump campaign celebrated that, seeing no long-term threat from Haley, who, according to LaCivita, has a low ceiling. Much of her mini-surge has come from peeling off moderate and liberal Republicans — the party’s least relevant voting bloc. “DeSantis finds himself with another challenger for a distant 2nd place,” Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio wrote in a memo last month.

Second, giving Trump’s challengers time and space to criticize the ex-president has benefited him more than them: The likeliest primary voters don’t like to see him under attack. In early-state polling, DeSantis’s negatives have increased all year, as his campaign and super PAC have attacked Trump over his handling of the pandemic, his spending record, and his early (and abandoned) support for transgender rights.

The candidates most critical of Trump — Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Huchinson, and Will Hurd — are the ones who the largest share of primary voters say they won’t support. And a Thursday memo from conservative anti-Trump PAC Win It Back, first reported by The New York Times, found that virtually all messaging against the former president, no matter how carefully packaged, wasn’t flipping many votes. In some cases, it even strengthened his support.

“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters with complete context of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” PAC leader David McIntosh wrote.

DAVID’S VIEW

One way to look at this primary is as a road with a series of off-ramps, any of which could have been used by Republican voters to ditch Trump. When Trump announced his run in November, it was a disappointing midterm performance frequently blamed on the most MAGA candidates. In March, it was the threat of indictments. In May, it was the DeSantis campaign launch — the arrival of a younger candidate with more money to spend and the biggest grassroots operation in the field. In August, it was the debate, with its opportunity for some Trump rival to break out and begin consolidating opposition.

Republican voters are driving straight ahead, as they have for eight years. (Apologies to Lindsey Graham, who came up with the “off-ramp” analogy in 2016.) Trump has advantages that no candidate can replicate, including something most ex-presidents eventually benefit from — nostalgia. Polling consistently finds that voters remember the Trump years as a time of relative peace and prosperity, while giving him a mulligan on the pandemic.

No challenger disputes this, trying instead to take some credit for the Trump years and promise that they can bring them back, too. Pence is the most direct about it: “The Trump-Pence administration proved that you can turn this country around faster than you can imagine, and I have faith we can do it again.”

Primary voters just don’t care about his legal struggles, and most agree with the meta-narrative advanced by Trump and conservative media: Everything he’s accused of is a ruse by political enemies who want to destroy their most effective opponent. In a poll released by Fox Business just days before its own debate, 46% of likely Iowa caucus-goers supported Trump, unchanged from July. Two-thirds of Republican voters thought that Trump would “likely” defeat President Joe Biden, more than said so of any other candidate. Just one-third of Republicans thought that Trump’s “legal issues” would be a problem; one in four thought that they might actually be an asset.

Meanwhile, the process arguments candidates have made about Trump refusing to defend his positions on stage — DeSantis called him “missing in action” in Wednesday’s debate — are falling flat. As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted, the percentage of Republicans in YouGov polling who say Trump should attend the debates plummeted after the first one. Just 39% of GOP voters want him to participate in the future, versus 31% who say he should not.

Trump’s rivals have a plan: Run unexpectedly strong in Iowa, win New Hampshire, then get a one-on-one contest against a weakened Trump in South Carolina. But Trump is simply far stronger than any of the recent front-runners who’ve stumbled in Iowa — and the last three Republican caucus winners in open races went on to lose the nomination anyway. Unless they can figure out how to dramatically cut into Trump’s support, rather than just reshuffle the dwindling non-Trump vote, their path is fully blocked.

THE VIEW FROM TRUMP RIVALS

Like Nikki Haley’s T-shirt says: “Underestimate me, that’ll be fun.” Meanwhile, the Trump campaign talks about DeSantis as if he’s irrelevant, but its allied super PAC just made a six-figure buy on direct mail to oppose him in Iowa. DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo pointed back to July, when a big ad buy helped Tim Scott jump in Iowa polls and there was speculation that he could overtake DeSantis. He didn’t.

“After the debate everyone was saying that Vivek was going to overtake him, and he’s dropping off,” said Romeo. “Now they’re saying it’s Nikki Haley. There’s a lot of fluidity in that alternative lane.”

NOTABLE

• In the Wall Street Journal, Alex Leary and Aaron Zitner find Trump critics, from donors to pollsters, worrying that “the race is past the point of no return.”
• In the Washington Post, Robert Costa covers donor Thomas Peterffy’s Ahab-like quest to get Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin into the race, which will resume at a mid-October retreat: “Wednesday’s debate in California likely did little to calm the restlessness felt by plugged-in Republicans desperate for an alternative to Trump.”

California. Sen. Dianne Feinstein died on Friday at age 90, creating a vacancy that Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged to fill with a Black woman.

Feinstein’s age and waning health had prompted a years-long debate about how to replace her. Starting in 2021, after appointing Sen. Alex Padilla to the seat vacated by Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom said that any Feinstein replacement would be Black, female, and not already running for the seat. “I don’t want to get involved in the primary,” Newsom told NBC News this month. Rep. Barbara Lee, who has been running to replace Feinstein since February, said she was “troubled” by the fact that Newsom wanted only an interim appointee. She has trailed two white candidates, Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter, in polls and fundraising.

Our Revolution, the campaign group founded by Bernie Sanders after his 2016 presidential bid, urged Newsom to double back and appoint Lee. “We don’t need a caretaker,” said spokesman Paco Fabian. “Newsom promised to appoint a black woman to the Senate. Barbara Lee is that black woman.”

Pennsylvania. Republicans cleared the field for former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick to challenge Sen. Bob Casey, and are passing around a survey to prove that the race is winnable. Conducted in mid-August and shared with Semafor this week, the Cygnal poll of 600 likely voters found them wanting a “check” on Biden by an 8-point margin, and a deterioration in Casey’s image as a moderate, pro-life Democrat — by 25 points, more voters called him “partisan” than “independent.” McCormick’s name wasn’t polled, but Casey led a generic “Republican” by one point. McCormick is also rebooting his image as the race begins; as first reported by Insider, language about his “staunchly pro-life” views no longer appears on his website.

Biden for President, “Delivers.” The president’s campaign bracketed Donald Trump’s visit to Michigan with this ad, which harks back to the messaging that the 2012 Obama-Biden team used to batter Mitt Romney. Trump is pictured on a golf course, where his “rich friends” play, next to a reminder that the number of people employed in the automobile industry shrunk by the end of his term.

Steve Harvey, “Vote for a Damn Change.” Virginia’s 55th House district isn’t a GOP target in November, and Harvey’s musical ad — a cover of “Rich Men North of Richmond” — suggests that he’s had to fight two party establishments in his longshot Republican campaign. His new lyrics are right in sync with this year’s Republican campaigns, though, denouncing schools that teach about gender identity (“so I can play with my kids before they make ‘em strange”) and critical race theory (“I wish politicians would focus on standards, and not just the standard of ethnic despair”).

Andy Beshear for Governor, “Alan.” Three years ago, when Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath put a Trump voter in a campaign ad, Democrats were incensed: Donald Trump was on the ballot, and she was giving voters permission to support him. Kentucky’s governor, also a Democrat, has received no backlash for this spot, in which a Louisville-area Republican says he voted for Trump but will support Beshear, who’s “bringing a lot of good jobs” and “making sure the police have everything they need” and who “cut the income tax,” a GOP priority that Beshear’s grabbed credit for.

Trump has hovered around 50% of the vote in every Iowa poll since the state fair in August, and he leads here when Republicans are asked who they could end up voting for. Just 19% of likely caucus-goers say that they’re “not considering” Trump, compared to 28% who aren’t considering DeSantis, 33% who aren’t considering Scott, and 41% who aren’t considering Haley. The candidates with the lowest ceilings are the ones most doggedly criticizing Trump — Will Hurd (86% not considering), Asa Hutchinson (84% not considering), and Chris Christie (82% not considering).

The Virginia GOP’s election strategy is straightforward: Focus on education, crime, and the economy, turn out early votes, and convince voters that Democrats are wild-eyed abortion extremists. “Education” is the leading issue for voters — 64% call it a “major factor” for them, compared to 53% who say that of abortion. But the electorate is skeptical of new abortion limits, with just 35% saying it should be illegal in “all” or “most” cases, and 34% saying it should be legal in “most” cases. That’s why Democrats insist that the GOP will pass the strictest limits possible if they capture the state senate, and why Republicans insist that the opposition will legalize abortion far beyond the current 26 week, six day limit.

AUSTIN, Tex. – Asa Hutchinson isn’t dropping out of the race for president. In an interview with Semafor, at the Texas Tribune’s annual conference here, the former Arkansas governor said that he’d keep running — “it’s too important” — even as the RNC’s debate requirements kept him offstage this week. As seven other candidates debated at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Hutchinson released an AI-powered “Ask Asa” site, and in our conversation, edited for length, he criticized competitors who he thought were making impossible promises to win votes.

Americana: At the last debate, you said that the questions about whether Trump participated in an insurrection might prohibit him from seeking office again. I haven’t heard any other Republican candidates discuss that.

Asa Hutchinson: Well, I raised the issue because it’s another cloud over the candidacy of Donald Trump. It’s another uncertainty. It’s another first for America. It’s another aspect of chaos that he brings to our country over the next year.

The 14th Amendment says that if any federal official engages in or supports acts of insurrection, then he is ineligible for holding federal office, unless the Congress gives a waiver to that person. How does that apply to Donald Trump? He has supported acts of insurrection, and that’s going to be litigated in the courts. It’ll probably, ultimately, make its way to the United States Supreme Court. If he is, in fact, convicted of the January 6 offenses, I believe the 14th Amendment would apply, and the United States Supreme Court would not allow him to serve.

Americana: You said, early in this campaign, that you’d declare Mexican drug cartels to be terrorist organizations. Since then, other candidates have gone further — Ron DeSantis is talking about using drone warfare against drug labs, killing drug traffickers “stone cold dead.” What’s different from your approach?

Asa Hutchinson: When I was heading the DEA, I went down to Mexico, saw President Vicente Fox, and said we have a problem with the cartels. We shared intelligence information, we cross-trained our personnel, and we cooperated. And within a short amount of time, Benjamín Félix had been captured and Ramón Felix had been shot and killed, with Mexican forces.

That relationship has deteriorated, and I want to rebuild that. What’s different is that in this political environment, people just want to be more aggressive and then showcase how tough they are. So, all of a sudden, we’re invading Mexico, we’re dropping bombs through drones on cartels? It has to be done in cooperation with Mexico. They’re a friendly nation, they’re an economic partner — we don’t suggest that we ought to invade Canada because marijuana is coming in from Canada. Whenever you’re looking at going inside of another nation, we’ve got to respect their sovereignty.

Americana: Vivek Ramaswamy has compared his strategy to the counterinsurgency that America built in Iraq after the invasion. What would be the consequences of that approach?

Asa Hutchinson: Mexico is a proud nation. They know their history, they believe in their sovereignty, and they don’t want to be a client state of the United States. We want to build partnerships, rather than build vassal states. I remember when some DEA agents went in there without authorization to Mexico, and took action, and the result was all of our DEA agents getting kicked out of Mexico. It would destroy the relationship if we did this unilaterally.

Americana: Is there any part of the Trump approach to immigration, dismantled by Biden, that you wouldn’t want to restore?

Asa Hutchinson: I think he realized that the separation of families was not a good policy. What we see today is that we need to have more resources, and a revision of some of our laws, to make sure we’re building smart infrastructure along the border. This is probably controversial here in Texas, but Gov. Abbott put up water barriers [in the Rio Grande]. Now, I don’t want them to be unsafe. I don’t want them to unnecessarily cost lives. But I don’t understand the Biden administration suing Governor Abbott and just saying you don’t have the authority to do that. If I was president, I would call my border patrol in and say: Why didn’t we think of this?

Americana: Do you support the governor’s policy of sending migrants from Texas to Democratic cities?

Asa Hutchinson: Isn’t that consistent with President Biden’s policies? That’s what Homeland Security is doing, taking migrants that come in along border cities, and moving them to places like Los Angeles and Chicago. It’s probably problematic the way that it’s not coordinated, and some migrants don’t know exactly what’s happening to them.

But he’s addressing the challenges that he sees in Texas, and it reminds people that this is a national problem. It has forced Democratic leaders, mayors and governors, to recognize what’s happening now is unacceptable. I do believe that for Gov. DeSantis to jump into the fray, and bring people from Texas up to the northeast, was more about getting into the national spotlight.

Americana: And you’re running against DeSantis, who signed a law protecting the governor’s travel records. Your successor in Arkansas just signed a law exempting some of her travel records from the state Freedom of Information Act. Is that good public policy?

Asa Hutchinson: Well, in my eight years as governor of Arkansas, it was not protected — not in terms of changing the FOI law, or who was allowed access to records. For security purposes we don’t want those that threaten public officials to know the nuances of their travel. But it’s a Republican principle in Arkansas that we have open government; that the taxpayers can have access to knowing what the taxpayers money is being spent on. That open records law that we have in Arkansas is really important.

Americana: Are there more threats to public officials than there were, say, 10 years ago?

Asa Hutchinson: Yes.

Americana: Why is that?

Asa Hutchinson: Everybody has responsibility — from the media that divides, to elected officials that use harsh language and don’t engage in civic discourse, to the public that utilizes social media to express anger. All of these things bubble up to a society that has more at risk and doesn’t put a balm on antisocial behavior — people behaving in violent ways.

• 15 days until elections in Louisiana
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• 40 days until the third GOP presidential debate
• 108 days until the Iowa caucuses
• 403 days until the 2024 presidential election

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