OPINION:
Donald Trump is running for president again in 2024. While some Republicans may sigh and groan at the news, the fact is this: The Republican Party needs the “MAGA” movement.
Blaming the 2022 midterm “failure” on Mr. Trump and his followers is as unfair as that failure is overblown. It shouldn’t be a shocker that there was no “red wave” on Election Day. The red trickle may be disappointing, but it’s not that surprising to those of us who are plugged into the conservative base — not with abortion motivating Democrats and the liberal media promulgating the “red wave” headlines to drive left-wing voter turnout (which worked).
For Republicans, the overwhelming hype going into Election Day was a conservative media- and pollster-driven narrative. It was primarily created to generate ratings and clicks, but it was never going to inspire widespread Republican turnout in itself. I can assure you: The outcome of the close 2022 election races did not surprise Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, or soon-to-be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California — or Democratic leadership, for that matter.
The day before the election, in each of the seven competitive Senate races, polls showed them all within the margin of error 2 to 3 percentage points). Every race was coming down to the wire at that point. Both sides made difficult last-minute decisions related to the allocation of scarce resources heading into Election Day. Likewise, many PACs like mine shifted their top spending priorities at the last minute, based on where we saw the potential for the most significant electoral impact.
As head of the anti-Biden Committee to Defeat the President, I have been on the ground in battleground states for years. I always looked at Election 2022 as the continuation of a multi-year red tide that has been rising steadily over time. Since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 1994, the Republican Party has either won more seats than Democrats or remained competitive ever since. Indeed, Republicans have held the House majority for nine of the last 13 sessions of Congress.
The only Democratic wave election came in 2018, following the sham Mueller investigation into “Russian collusion.” That baseless witch hunt cast a shadow over the Trump administration and the entire Republican Party for 18 months.
While the 2018 election cycle resulted in Democrats picking up dozens of House seats, it will go down as a historical anomaly. Two years later, despite narrowly losing reelection, Mr. Trump won more votes than any presidential incumbent in U.S. history. He won more than 74 million votes, outdoing the 2008 and 2012 totals for former President Barack Obama — the liberal darling himself.
Historic Republican turnout in 2020 actually resulted in the party’s picking up seats in the House. Every single Republican incumbent in the House was reelected. Although former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, retained control of the chamber with a slim majority, 2020 spelled the first time since 2004 that the Republican Party made net gains in the House in a presidential election year. Such gains led to very few competitive House seats in 2022 for Republicans to leverage into any sort of red-wave momentum.
Mr. Trump may have lost in 2020, but Mr. McCarthy can thank him and the MAGA movement for winning back the House majority two years later. This election cycle, Mr. Trump endorsed more than 230 congressional, legislative and judicial candidates across America. Well over 200 of the Trump-endorsed candidates won their respective races — a more than 90% success rate. Now, Mr. McCarthy will preside over the most conservative caucus in decades.
In the Senate, it was always going to be a difficult election cycle for Republicans. Every two years, one-third of the chamber is up for election. In 2022, there were 15 Republican seats and 13 Democratic seats to be decided. Additionally, five incumbent Republicans announced their retirement, while only one Democrat announced retirement plans. Then there was Sen. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who decided to retire mid-term. So, in the end, there were more than 20 Republican seats to defend and only 15 Democratic seats on the flip side. Despite that lopsided number, Republicans lost only one seat, with the Georgia Senate runoff set for Dec. 6.
All eyes are now on the Peach State. My PAC plans to spend more than $300,000 to help get Herschel Walker across the goal line. If that happens, it will be because of the MAGA movement — the tens of millions of Trump voters around the country who still support him and his preferred candidates, such as Mr. Walker. There are millions of them in Georgia alone.
Many within the Republican consulting class now hope to distance themselves from Trump and his supporters, but I would argue just the opposite: Trump saved the Republican Party in 2016, and his MAGA movement endures on the ground today, driving Republican turnout like no other movement in recent history. We’re not going anywhere.
• Ted Harvey serves as chairman of the Committee to Defeat the President.
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