The Winning GOP Strategy Already Exists
The Republican Party is in trouble. For the last three major election cycles, all they’ve done is lose, and they’re headed in a similar direction going forward. Though polls show an even race between Trump and Biden, the last three election cycles prove that incumbents have always trailed one year before the election. We should expect no different in 2024.
The culture war around the Dobbs decision, which enabled states to restrict abortion access across the U.S., is broadly unpopular. In many states, voters have created public ballot initiatives to determine the abortion laws of their states, and in states such Kansas, Michigan, and Ohio, restrictions have been rejected by voters. It is evident from these results that legal abortion is more popular than not in the U.S., and Republican policy on this issue has scared away suburban, college educated voters, who have been slowly turned off from the GOP over the course of the Trump administration, and in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision.
Current polling predicts that Donald Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee in 2024. The Republican leader, though, has nothing new to offer to the party. Trump disappointed in 2018, 2020, and 2022, and his 2024 campaign has nothing new to offer in terms of concrete policy prescriptions. While Biden may be unpopular, analysts seem to think his economic policy and legislative track record — alongside Democratic energy around Dobbs — will vastly improve his standing come election day.
The Republicans need a switch in campaign strategy. And they already have it at their disposal. What if I told you that a political outsider defeated a Democratic Party heavyweight in a state that went for President Biden by 10 points in 2020?
Enter Glenn Youngkin. His campaign strategy in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election was
the embodiment of a famous quote from former House Speaker Tip O’Neil: “All politics is local.” Over the course of his campaign, Youngkin subtly distanced himself from Trump and the hard-right GOP — he spoke rarely on the issue of abortion and instead focused on a conservative agenda that could bring suburban parents back into the Republican fold, promising school choice, tax cuts, and greater parental involvement in their children’s education. Youngkin’s campaign resonated with suburban, college educated voters, as well as Latino voters, which helped him edge out his democratic rival by two percentage points. It should not be a shock that Republicans do better when running on policy rather than culture war issues.
Unfortunately, Youngkin’s campaign was a local, off-year election, which means his strategy might be difficult to replicate on the national stage. Nevertheless, the governor’s success indicates that there are avenues for Republicans to winning back their lost suburbs.
Youngkin’s success proves that it will not be ruby-red southern Georgia that holds the key to flipping the Peach State back, but suburban counties like Cobb County. The county — which Hilary Clinton won by two percentage points and Biden won by a whopping 14 percentage points in 2020 — is a suburb of Atlanta, filled with well-off, educated neighborhoods. Even when Mitt Romney lost the national election in 2012, he won Cobb County. The growing democratic margin proves that suburbanites are more comfortable with a country club Republican Party than a country music Republican Party.
A suburban-targeting Republican should campaign on tax cuts, school choice, smaller government. These issues don’t sound as toxic to a socially liberal-leaning independent as abortion restrictions and transgender sports bans but still appeal to a wide Republican base. Not to mention, a nominee under multiple indictments will not fare well with many suburbanites, many of whom will be listening to full coverage non-stop from CNN once the trials start. Moreover, the rest of the field doesn’t make the GOP look much better. All the moderates are basically irrelevant, and the top 3 candidates — Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy — all have the same problem of looking too extreme or toxic to the American, college-educated purple voter.
Suburbanites are more comfortable with a country club Republican Party than a country music Republican Party.
There are, of course, ideological convictions to be considered here. Beliefs rooted in politics and religion are hard to sway and are often deeply entrenched. But the Republicans have no right to complain about losing if they run the same strategy that is unpopular with the American people. The moderate Republican base is very much within reach, as Democrats continue to shoot themselves in the foot, sometimes mirroring the GOP in a march towards extremism. Allegations of “going too far” within the Democratic party’s left-flank can be exploited by the GOP for votes — but only if the pot isn’t calling the kettle black. Whether or not Trump has irrevocably ended old-school Republican ideology as we knew it is to be seen, but if the GOP wants to be seen as the party of sensible policy and moral standing, perhaps it’s best they focus on holding congress, and keeping Biden’s potential second term in check until a stronger candidate (like Youngkin) can enter the Oval Office in 2029.
Romen Der Manuelian ‘27 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at d.romen@ wustl.edu.