It’s probably time to stop referring to the alarms ringing in Republican offices as “wake-up calls.” There have been far too many, and it’s not as though the party has been hitting the snooze button.
Another alarm went off in Wisconsin Tuesday night, when voters easily elected the state’s first liberal judge to an open Supreme Court seat since 1995, rejecting conservative candidate Michael Screnock by a shocking 12-point margin.
The elections that Republicans keep losing on otherwise friendly turf aren’t a matter of being caught off guard or of being unprepared. And this isn’t happening, at least not always, because the GOP is running bad candidates. Republicans are losing these because many voters are excited to vote them out of office.
A quick recap: In November 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam trounced Republican Ed Gillespie (who three years earlier had nearly defeated an incumbent Democratic senator) by 9 points, as Northam received the most votes of any candidate in any nonpresidential year.
In December, a no-name Democrat called Doug Jones defeated firebrand former Judge Roy Moore in an Alabama special election for the Senate, one of the most uniformly Republican states in the country.
In March, President Trump made a last-minute visit to a congressional district in Southwestern Pennsylvania, acknowledging the special election there was a “tough” one. “It’s a crazy time out there,” said Trump. The Republican candidate lost that race in a district Trump had won by 20 points.
These are only the three most prominent examples. Democrats have taken state offices from the GOP in special elections all over the country, which brings us back to Wisconsin.
After Democrats flipped a red-state Senate district blue in a January special election, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker declared the loss a “wake-up call,” imploring conservatives to understand the gravity of the moment. Republicans everywhere probably were already awake after the debacles in Virginia and Alabama. But it made no difference this Tuesday in Wisconsin, where the GOP governor had been clanging the alarm.
Washington Examiner writer Emily Jashinsky spoke with Republicans there on Monday. They were perfectly aware of the headwinds they faced, and they did everything they could to counteract them.
The state GOP supported Screnock with hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the big turnout in liberal strongholds drowned the turnout in the state’s conservative counties, just as in Virginia.
So Republicans have sounded the alarm, woken up, and spent big. And they still keep losing. So where can Republicans stave off Democratic candidates? The outlook is grim. Democrats are very likely to make serious gains in the 2018 congressional election, and taking control of the House seems more likely than not. Taking the Senate is possible. On the state level, many legislative chambers are likely to flip to Democratic control, as are several governorships.
The blue wave is likely to drown Republicans, the good and the bad, indiscriminately and, as is the way with waves, there is little anyone can do to stop this one.
Republicans should therefore be bold and pass good, conservative policies on the state and federal levels. Too often, Republicans are afraid to “spend” their power by passing legislation easy to demagogue. They value retaining their power over exercising their power.
Retaining power may not be an option for Republicans in 2018. So there is no reason for the party not to do what it believes in. A bold conservative agenda may help save some GOP seats or some state legislatures by showing that Republicans stand for something and walk the walk rather than just talking the talk.
States should pass tax reforms that lower rates and abolish loopholes. They should pass legislation to protect the unborn and to protect the freedom of religion. Beltway Republicans should reverse course and cut federal spending.
They should do it now, because that’s what they were elected to do. It may also be their only chance to exercise power come 2019.
