The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 1
This week:
- Democrats latest attempt to “save democracy”
- Haley’s New Hampshire surge is for real as she attacks DeSantis
- Trump takes sides in Ohio
A very happy new year to all of our readers.
Outlook
Ballot bans backfiring: Attempts by partisan Democratic state officials to throw former President Donald Trump off the ballot are already backfiring, and many top Democrats understand this. It isn’t worth it to them, given that the Supreme Court is likely to reinstate Trump in a unanimous ruling.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), for example, has criticized these efforts and gone to some length to keep California officials from trying it — and absent this, it is very likely they would have already tried.
In Maine, whose Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) purported to disqualify Trump over the Christmas holiday, Rep. Jared Golden (D) criticized the decision, as did Sen. Angus King (D), who caucuses with the Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
It isn’t hard to see why. Golden, for his part, is now facing pressure from his prospective Republican opponents to sign a statement demanding Bellows’ resignation or impeachment. Given the conservative nature of his northern Maine district, which went for Trump twice, the pressure on Golden could be his undoing.
Fair elections? Others have written about the legal absurdity of down-ballot state officials uniltarerally declaring Trump guilty of “insurrection” without any sort of trial or even charges being made to that effect, then throwing him off the ballot on the basis of his supposed guilt, again unilaterally. The idea is not only absurd, but also very dangerous. The purpose of elections in the U.S. hinges on their free-ness and fairness, which keep them interesting, guaranteeing that they more or less reflect the popular will at the time of voting. If Bellows’s decision is allowed to stand, then the U.S. can no longer be said to have free or fair elections anywhere.
George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley describes the new wave of Democrats’ efforts to purge Trump in Maine and Colorado — and (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to do the same in other states — as “the type of ballot-cleansing powers long associated with authoritarian countries such as Iran.” He is absolutely correct.
This is no joke when you consider the consequences of letting down-ballot state officials unilaterally convict people of insurrection against the United States. If Bellows can throw Trump off the ballot just on her own say-so, why can’t she throw off absolutely anyone else who crosses her? Even to keep the scope more limited, why can’t she throw off anyone who receives an endorsement from Trump? Anyone who says January 6 was just a riot, not an “insurrection?” Anyone who disagrees with her about anything?
And of course, who is to stop Republicans from throwing Democrats off the ballot — say, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) for attempting to prevent certification of the 2016 election on transparently bogus grounds? Legislative immunity or no, he would still be just one Republican secretary of state away from being disqualified.
The theory behind Trump’s disqualification, after all, holds that the Insurrection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is “self-executing.” In practice, this means that low-level state officials can act as judge, jury, and executioner in disqualifying any candidate they want. In fact, under this legal theory involving “self-execution,” no court should really even be able second-guess the disqualifications handed down by officials such as Bellows.
And the fact that Bellows has suspended her decision pending litigation already gives away the fact that she doesn’t really believe in what she herself has done.
This new wave of malignant, anti-democratic election interference is a very bad look for Democrats, and it is going to bite them. One cannot decry Trump as the greatest danger to democracy, only to turn around and become an even greater danger to democracy — indeed, a much greater and more fundamental danger to the very idea that elections reflect the will of the people.
Trump disputed the outcome of an election, and it is fine to criticize him for it. But they are trying to rig an election before it even happens, not only validating many of his complaints but threatening the very integrity of the system they pretend to be defending from him.
President 2024
New Hampshire: Pollsters took a rest over the Christmas holiday, but in the run-up to that celebration, they established quite clearly that former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s (R) surge in the presidential primary is for real.
Where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has largely failed to gain traction, she appears to be surging to or even above 30 percent in New Hampshire. Multiple polls of the Granite State now confirm that momentum.
She has placed the first crack in Trump’s seemingly impossible-to-break facade. It started showing when an American Research Group poll showed Trump leading Haley by a meager four point margin — 33 to 29 percent. Although other polls show Trump’s support to be more robust than 33 percent, Haley’s standing has indeed surged, hitting 30 percent in the latest St. Anselm College poll.
The danger for Trump is that Haley’s emergence as the obvious non-Trump (but not anti-Trump) candidate will help her catch fire in the next two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, then gain stature in the subsequent South Carolina primary, where voters are at least very familiar with and well-disposed toward her. Trump’s advantage in all of those states, although seemingly rock-solid at the moment, could be cast into doubt if she establishes herself as a viable alternative.
Some commentators have suggested that this makes her an obvious vice-presidential choice. This is true, but surely she is hoping for more, and she has reasons not to give up that hope. Although many have claimed that Haley’s politics represent an outmoded, Bush-era conservatism, she still beats Biden more easily than Trump does in the polling averages. Then again, she has not faced the sort of withering attacks that any Republican candidate can expect — the attacks over her incoherent comments on the causes of the Civil War give an early taste of that.
Over the weekend, Haley’s super PAC was already blanketing the airwaves during college football bowl games with an ad comparing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) campaign to a “dumpster fire.” This is sound strategy. She would only hurt herself by attacking Trump head-on. The winning strategy for her is to persuade supporters of other non-Trump candidates that she and Trump are the only games in town, all the while avoiding alienating Trump’s supporters.
Biden-approval: Biden’s approval numbers continue to be catastrophic for Democrats, ranging repeatedly from the high-30s to low 40s, trailing his disapproval rating by double-digits in many cases.
Gallup has Biden in worse shape at this point in his presidency (about 1055 days in) than any president since President Harry S Truman, who suffered a 36 percent approval rating at this point compared to Biden’s 39 percent. This puts Biden in a uniquely awful position compared to any other president in the modern history of polling. Expect him to take an even bigger hit if his write-in campaign in New Hamsphire fails to win a substantial majority on January 23.
Governor 2024
Indiana: Former education secretary Jennifer McCormick (D) has the field to herself as the Democratic candidate for governor. The only other Democratic candidate, the multi-decadal and multi-office perennial candidate Bob Kern (D), has dropped out.
McCormick, at the time a Republican, narrowly defeated former Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction and tool of teacher’s unions, Glenda Ritz (D), in 2016. After her office was abolished by a 2019 law, McCormick dropped her mask in 2020 and endorsed multiple Democrats in mostly hopeless races in this increasingly Republican-dominated state.
Hoosiers have not elected a Democratic governor since the late Frank O’Bannon won by 15 points over then-Rep. and now Club for Growth president David McIntosh (R) in 2000.
Senate 2024
Ohio: Just before Christmas, former President Trump endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno (R) in the Senate race against incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Trump called him “exactly the type of MAGA fighter that we need in the United States Senate” and a “successful political outsider.”
Moreno could use the help. Before Christmas, a Survey USA poll had shown Moreno at 12 percent in the primary, trailing Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) at 33 percent and anti-Trump state Sen. Matt Dolan (R) at 18 percent. So if Trump’s endorsement has any clout, the next two and a half months will show it in Ohio.
The primary election is March 19.
House 2024
Colorado-4: The conservative two-term firebrand (and otherwise controversial) Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) is carpetbagging from her Western Slope third district to the more solidly Republican fourth district of her state, which has opened up with the retirement of Rep. Ken Buck (R). She will face a crowded GOP primary in which she is not guaranteed the nomination.
Boebert only just barely survived the 2022 election despite her district’s Republican lean, so this bodes well for Republicans keeping the seat in their hands.
