The roots of this lie at Donald's feet. Whatever you may think of him (mild dislike-hate) it's not unlikely he'll be Pres in 2024. Do I believe saving files in Mar Lago is a federal offense or he really attempted to overthrow the gov on Jan 6th? Were we about to turn into a banana republic with Trump as El Supremo? Probably not.
What I can't forgive is his stacking the Supremes to overturn Roe v Wade. Even if you agree with the legal theory, the unpleasant truth: the American public gristle at the broad repudiation of abortion rights and is taking that out on the GOP. That empowers the progressive left to continue its hold on Congress. Want to control our border, admit qualified alien workers, reduce crime, limit gov spending, have a reasonable foreign policy, reason tax policy, stimulate innovation/GDP, and produce energy (fossil & green), blah blah blah? Forget it. The Progressives have other ideas for you.
Ironically, the EU whose members are generally steeped in the Catholic tradition have ALL installed legal abortion with reasonable term limits (14-16 weeks typically). On this issue, they've pivoted beyond tribalism and forged a compromise to "move on". If the GOP doesn't embrace this type of thinking as Glen Youngkin has, they'll continue to get their ass kicked and so will we.
Thank you. My name is Tom Spritzler and I'm running for the US Senate. I approved this message.
Are Republicans Tired of All the Losing?
Another lousy Election Day shows the GOP has a brand problem.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
Nov. 8, 2023 6:44 pm ET
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Wednesday. PHOTO: JAY PAUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democrats are buoyant about their Tuesday night election showing, and why not? They handed Republicans another drubbing with their twin issue set of abortion rights and fear and loathing of the MAGAGOP. Republicans have a brand perception problem.
Start in Virginia, where Democrats picked up the state House of Delegates and held control of the state Senate. GOP gains in the Legislature were always going to be a tall order two years into Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term when incumbent parties typically lose seats. President Biden won the state by 10 points and congressional Democrats in 2022 carried all seven of the state Senate’s swing districts.
Mr. Youngkin nonetheless deserves credit for investing his political capital to seek gains. The result was disappointing, but it’s not the giant failure the Trumpians on cable TV are claiming. Republicans picked up one seat in the state Senate for a 21-19 split. Democrats retook the House, though they’re on track for a thin majority of 51-49.
National Democrats poured in millions of dollars to tarnish Mr. Youngkin, who showed in 2021 he could carry a state that has moved left. They reprised their 2022 strategy of pounding GOP candidates on abortion in the race’s final weeks. Mr. Youngkin tried to parry the attacks by unifying Republicans around a 15-week limit with exceptions. But that wasn’t enough to blunt the claims that Republicans are extremists who will outlaw all abortions.
That’s especially true in the suburbs. Democrats defeated a Republican incumbent in suburban Richmond who sensibly explained that her support for a 15-week compromise was informed by her own experience as an obstetrician delivering premature infants.
They won a Loudoun County seat in a district that Gov. Youngkin carried by less than one point in 2021. Former prosecutor Russet Perry ran as a champion of abortion rights and defeated the GOP’s Juan Pablo Segura, a local businessman. Northern Virginia has become toxic for the GOP since Mr. Trump became the leading face of the party. The recent GOP House chaos on Capitol Hill didn’t help.
Abortion was also important in Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear cruised to re-election in a state Mr. Trump carried by more than 25 points in 2020. Gov. Beshear styles himself as a moderate, and he ran ads suggesting the GOP would force rape survivors to give birth to their attacker’s children.
Republican candidate Daniel Cameron offered inconsistent answers about which abortion exceptions he’d support, in a high-wire act of trying to placate different parts of the electorate. He also touted Mr. Trump’s endorsement to win the GOP primary, but Mr. Beshear used that to peel away non-MAGA GOP voters.
Ohio voters approved a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, and it wasn’t close at 56% to 43%. The Democratic Pennsylvania state Supreme Court candidate, Daniel McCaffery, also ran on abortion and promised to defend “voting rights” if Mr. Trump tries to overturn the next election as he did in 2020. He said he was running for “the policy court,” and he won in a rout.
The sobering message for Republicans is that they’re losing on abortion, and the choices are unpalatable compromises or more nights in the political wilderness. The results suggest that the GOP’s Nikki Haley, who has said that a federal 15-week limit on abortion is political fantasy, is right if the GOP is going to win among suburbanites and independents.
***
Democrats racked up these wins even though President Biden’s approval rating is down near 40%. The immediate effect of Tuesday’s results was to let Mr. Biden off the media hook for those awful poll numbers, as White House spinners say abortion and MAGA are all Mr. Biden needs to win in 2024. They might be right, though Democrats are still taking an enormous risk given that Mr. Biden must endure another campaign year after he turns 81 on Nov. 20 and is in obvious decline.
But elections, not polls, are the measure of political success, and Republicans have the bigger problem. Mr. Trump’s partisans often claim he is realigning the party to include more working-class voters. That’s true, but so far that has been more than offset by the flight of moderates and suburban women from the GOP.
Republicans lost or did worse than expected in 2018, 2020, 2022 and again in 2023. That won’t change until Republican voters finally get tired of all the losing.
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