On Super Tuesday, the GOP Gets What It Wants
Plus: Optimism and pessimism.
Seems it’s the end of the line for Nikki Haley, with multiple outlets reporting she intends to suspend her presidential campaign this morning. She’ll be speaking shortly after this newsletter goes out. She isn’t expected to use the occasion to endorse Donald Trump. Will that last? We’ll see.
Happy Wednesday.
MAGA Ascendant
Nikki Haley’s rationale for lingering in the GOP presidential race—that only a handful of states had voted and millions of Republicans who wanted an alternative to Trump still deserved a voice—was always destined to die after Super Tuesday. Republicans around the country have voted, and they couldn’t have spoken more clearly: Sign us up for four more years of this!
Haley had given Trump critics what they’d longed for: A one-on-one fight between him and a traditional conservative for control of the party. It just came eight years too late to redirect a Republican party now realigned in Trump’s image.
The skeptics remain a sizable rump coalition; between 15 and 40 percent of GOP primary voters supported Haley in most states. To everyone’s faint surprise, she even won Vermont yesterday. Her campaign noted this made her the first Republican woman to carry multiple presidential primary contests, which is true, although arguably D.C.—the other contest she won—barely counts. Where these voters go now may be the central political question of 2024.
Haley’s therapeutic resistance notwithstanding, however, the GOP as a whole is only tipping farther and farther into its MAGA rut. The most notable down-ballot outcome from last night was in North Carolina, where Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson carried the Republican nomination for governor.
In many ways, Robinson, who became his state’s first black lieutenant governor in 2021, is an American success story: The ninth of ten children in a family torn apart by his father’s alcoholism and abuse, Robinson graduated high school, joined the Army Reserve, and worked at furniture plants while pursuing his dream of getting a degree and becoming a history teacher.
In 2018, however, a chance evening changed everything after Robinson spoke in defense of gun rights before the Greensboro city council. The speech went viral, and a new career path presented itself: How about becoming a culture warrior? He started booking speaking appearances and became a board member of the NRA.
His eye-wateringly right-wing views and history of incendiary statements—he memorably derided Black Panther as a movie “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxist . . . to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”—could always have earned him a comfortable living on the gold-hawking conservative podcast circuit, but in the old days would have made a career in electoral politics unlikely.
Now, however, all that seems like an asset: Robinson is a real American who speaks his mind, and screw what the lamestream media thinks about it! Three years after his viral speech, Robinson was lieutenant governor. As of yesterday, he’s the GOP pick for the top job.
A few Republicans in North Carolina found all this a little embarrassing. Two candidates ran against Robinson in yesterday’s primary: state treasurer Dale Folwell and wealthy attorney Bill Graham. Both leaned heavily into Robinson’s controversies. The final result: Robinson 65, Folwell 19, Graham 16.
—Andrew Egger
Optimus and Pessimus
DATE: Early Wednesday morning, March 6, 2024
LOCATION: A hip coffee shop around the corner from Bulwark HQ, Washington, D.C.
Pessimus: Any good news for me, Optimus, on this dark and dreary morn?
Optimus: It’s a crisp and sunny morn, my friend! Cheer up.
Look at those returns from last night. Lots of resistance to Trump among non-MAGA and non-election denying Republicans! And not just in blue states. Look at North Carolina. I think you have to call North Carolina a swing state now—the Haley vote there was a lot bigger than the 2020 Biden-Trump margin, and my friends in Durham tell me . . .
Pessimus: Whoa, whoa, buddy. I voted for Haley, I admire her campaign, and I have some thoughts on what she could do next.
But let’s not kid ourselves: THINGS ARE NOT GOOD RIGHT NOW. DONALD TRUMP HAS CRUISED THROUGH THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARIES. HE’S THE NOMINEE OF ONE OF OUR TWO MAJOR PARTIES. AND HE LEADS PRESIDENT BIDEN IN THE GENERAL ELECTION POLLS.
Optimus: Hey, man, I’m sitting right here. No need to shout.
Pessimus: I DO NEED TO SHOUT. I AM ALARMED! PEOPLE ARE NOT ALARMED ENOUGH . . .
[Deep breath]
Okay, I’m calm.
Optimus: But what about that Haley vote?
Pessimus: It’s good. Could turn out to be really important. But when you do the math to see how many weren’t already Biden 2020 voters, it’s not clear we end up with many more Republicans for Biden or independents for Biden than we had in 2020. And we could have fewer Democrats for Biden. I mean, challenger Biden at 77 was a better candidate than incumbent Biden at 81.
Optimus: But Trump’s also not quite what he was . . .
Pessimus: Fair enough. But that’s not even my point. My point is this:
Trump loses in 2020. He instigates January 6. For a while even Republicans won’t defend him. Our long national nightmare looks to be over.
But then Republicans collapse. Trump survives.
Fast forward to November 2022. Trump launches his campaign with an uninspired speech to a dispirited crowd at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s indicted four times. His behavior in the classified documents case is beyond belief. And DeSantis raises $100 million, and Pence, Haley, Christie, Scott—they all run. There are plenty of respectable alternatives to Trump.
And he crushes them all.
Optimus: But that’s just the Republican party. I wrote that off a while ago. I thought you did too! But MAGA, election denial, chaos . . . that’s a path to defeat . . .
Pessimus: I hope so.
But think about the past year. House Republicans make fools of themselves. The Biden administration chugs along pretty competently, some of their legislation produces jobs and fixes roads, the economy’s good, inflation finally begins to come down and real wages go up, even the Hunter Biden scandal seems to be no big deal . . . and where are we?
Is Biden strong? Have Republicans really paid much of a political price for all the insanity? Trump seems to have paid none! He’s probably stronger politically than he’s ever been. HOW CAN THAT BE?
Optimus: You’re shouting again, Pess. When people face up to the real choice, to what a Trump second term would be like, we’ll be ok. And it was clever of Team Biden to schedule the State of the Union two days after Super Tuesday. It gives Biden a chance to frame the choice for the fall right now, for a national audience. You know, Pess, the Biden people are going to make this a choice, not a referendum . . .
Pessimus: I hope so. But how many times did we tell ourselves that in 1992? Bush was the incumbent, and people wanted change, and you know where we ended up.
Optimus: But this is a race between two incumbents. And by the way, when you think of Trump as a de facto incumbent, his victories in the primaries really aren’t that impressive . . .
Pessimus: BUT WHY IS TRUMP THE DE FACTO INCUMBENT? Okay, okay, I’ll stop shouting. But he should be like Nixon, finished politically. He should be a de facto disgraced criminal, not a “DE FACTO INCUMBENT.” And the fact that everyone accepts that he’s kind of an incumbent, that it’s 50-50 race against an actual normal, sane, and non-criminal incumbent, I mean—doesn’t that sort of say it all?
Optimus: We’ll see. But I’m really looking forward to that State of the Union. Having a watch party! Anyway, I’ve got to get to work. Remember: This is America! We can do it!
Pessimus: Hope so.
[Optimus hustles off to the office, as Pessimus sits in the coffee shop, looking deep into the dregs of his cappuccino, continuing to mutter to himself . . .]
—William Kristol
Catching up . . .
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not seek reelection in Arizona: Washington Post
Sinema’s exit sparks rush to the center in Arizona Senate race: Politico
Biden’s plan for Trump: Bury him with campaign cash: Politico
Biden preps for State of the Union speech and rowdy Republicans: New York Times
D.C. passes sweeping public safety bill, reversing some progressive reforms: Axios
CEOs’ confidence in economy surges: Axios
Quick Hits
1. Arizona Takes Shape
More on this later, but the most consequential election story yesterday may have been the one that broke hours before polls closed, when independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she would not attempt to defend her seat this year. That decision will simplify what could have been one of the most chaotic contests in memory: Instead of a three-horse race, we’ll see a straightforward showdown between Republican Kari Lake, the former newscaster and former candidate for governor, and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Sinema’s exit also tees up what’s likely to be some pretty naked political pivoting, as Politico reports:
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s retirement announcement Tuesday set off a new scramble for her base of independent voters in Arizona’s hotly contested Senate race.
In a state where the late centrist maverick Sen. John McCain dominated politics for decades, they could prove to be decisive.
After the Democrat-turned-independent declared that she will not seek a second term — a move that transforms the contest into a two-way battle between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake — both parties insisted their candidate would benefit. But to do so, they will likely be forced to pivot hard to the center.
For Gallego, this will mean drifting away from some of the policy positions he staked out as a former member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Lake’s task may be taller: She needs to patch things up with the group of center-right Republicans and right-leaning independents she spent most of her 2022 race denouncing as everything wrong with Republican politics. (In theory, she’s also going to do a lot less lying and rabble-rousing about election results—which, we’ll see!)
Lake spent some time last year taking meetings with erstwhile RINO foes, but as she declined to make any actual apologies for her past conduct, these did little to thaw the ice. But national Republicans have little choice but to pray she finds a way to make the pivot work: You ride into battle on the horse you have.
2. ICYMI
Bill and A.B. had a great conversation reacting to the Super Tuesday results last night:
Cheap Shots
Republicans have been telling us exactly who they are and what they value for quite some time now. They are firmly entrenched as the party of MAGA. We can all stop wishing for another outcome and deal with the ugly reality.
"The skeptics remain a sizable rump coalition; between 15 and 40 percent of GOP primary voters supported Haley in most states."
As a Democrat who changed his registration to vote for Haley in North Carolina, I'm not sure her support among actual GOP voters ever hit as high as 40%. Her numbers, even being as consistently low as they were, were always padded by independents and crossover Trump-hating Democrats.
The results went as expected, and yet I'm a mix of depressed and pissed off. I'm depressed because any hope represented by the Haley campaign is totally extinguished, and I'm pissed off because GOP primary voters, at every turn, have endeavored to prove that the only thing Hillary Clinton got wrong about them in her deplorable comment was she underestimated when she put the percentage at half. I am pissed at Republican voters for doing this to the country when it was completely unnecessary. And I'm pissed at them because we knew they would do it all along, and it never crossed their minds to maybe prove us wrong.
This State of the Union Address tomorrow night is very high stakes. Biden has to knock it out of the park, and he can't give any fodder to rightwing media. I'm kind of terrified.