Also, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy showed a remarkable organizational ability in 2020, recruiting a winning class of new candidates, raising tons of money, and targeting vulnerable Democrats who didn’t even know they were vulnerable. You can read about McCarthy’s effort, much of it behind the scenes, here.

But in 2022, Republicans will deal with a new factor that is both a big plus and a potential liability: Former President Donald Trump. Out of office just four months, Trump remains highly popular with Republicans. But more importantly, Trump’s accomplishments and governing philosophy — broadly defined as America first — remain even more popular.

A new Quinnipiac poll asked the question, “Would you prefer to see candidates running for elected office that mostly agree with Donald Trump or mostly disagree with Donald Trump?” Eighty-five percent of Republicans said they want candidates who agree with Trump, versus ten percent who did not. Compare those numbers to the response to the question, “Would you like to see Donald Trump run for president in 2024, or not?” On that, 66 percent of Republicans said yes, versus 30 percent who said no. Sixty-six is a big number, but the 85 percent who want to see Trump-agreeing candidates is even bigger. More Republicans want a Trump-like agenda for the party than want to see Trump himself run again.

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Enter Newt Gingrich. Way back in 1994, Gingrich organized what is still one of the greatest victories in political history — the Republican takeover of the House after 40 years of Democratic control. Gingrich famously did it by crafting what he called the “Contract With America,” which was a list of specific promises Republicans would keep if elected. In the years since, several Republicans have created contract-like pledges to run for the House. Some have been quite successful.

Now, Gingrich sees an opportunity for another contract, this one built around Republican principles and Trump’s accomplishments in office. He has met with Trump to discuss the plan (see this report from Politico) and believes a contract would focus GOP candidates across the country on platform of proposals that have broad support.

“The ‘Contract With America’ was positive and specific and helped us win control in 1994 after 40 years in the minority,” Gingrich told me in an email exchange Wednesday. “A similar positive platform of ideas was developed by Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, and Eric Cantor in the 2010 comeback where we picked up 63 seats with John Boehner’s cry, ‘Where are the jobs?’ McCarthy’s Commitment to America was a positive document that helped the House GOP pick up 15 seats when they were expected to lost seats in 2020. A contract lets Republicans focus on issues that pull us together rather than personalities that drive us apart.”

“We have found 20 issues that are positive and have 85 percent support which could give us a huge advantage over the Democrats in 2022,” Gingrich continued. “The GOP needs to be looking forward and positive, not allowing the media and the Democrats to draw us into defensive negativity, looking backwards.”

Finally, when I asked what role the former president would play, Gingrich said, “Trump remains the most powerful voice in the GOP, and if we find common ground to offer a positive, better future, he can be enormously helpful carrying those ideas to the American people.”

What Gingrich is doing is trying to enlist Trump in organizing and selling a platform for Republicans to run on after Trump. The two key points in Gingrich’s approach are, one, focusing on issues that pull Republicans together rather than “personalities that drive us apart,” and two, looking forward and being positive rather than lapsing into “defensive negativity, looking backwards.”

Gingrich knows Republicans are working in a hugely negative media environment. Just google “Republican civil war” and you’ll see the extent to which some news organizations dwell on real and imagined differences inside the GOP. Some of those same news organizations devote an inordinate amount of their coverage to Trump, even though he is a former president and a new president is trying to enact a far-reaching agenda that could bring enormous changes to life in the United States. For some, politics is still Trump, Trump, Trump. The Gingrich proposal is a plan for Republicans to focus on issues rather than be swept along in a media environment created by hostile journalists.

What are the majority-support issues Gingrich is talking about? He sent an extensive list of contrasting views of what he calls the “American Majority” versus those of the “Democratic Machine.”

“Ninety percent of all Americans want people who enter the country illegally to be tested for COVID-19 before they are released by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol…The Democratic Machine has been blocking every effort to hold a vote on this reform…Some 87 percent who make up the American Majority want mandatory deportation for noncitizen gang members…The Democratic Machine is opposed…80 percent of Americans want to fully fund the police and law enforcement, including 69 percent of Democrats…74 percent favor mandatory life sentences in prison for cop killers…72 percent favor mandatory prison sentences for anyone attacking police…The Democratic Machine simply turns a deaf ear to these views…Taxpayer-provided giveaways (welfare, health care, free college) for people in the country illegally are opposed by the American Majority (75 percent of Americans).”

And more: “The American Majority (81 percent) wants to require photo identification to vote. H.R. 1 opens the door to eliminating voter identification…the American Majority recognizes the disaster that was inflicted upon children by the teachers’ unions during the pandemic, and 81 percent of Americans now favor school choice for every child…The Democratic Machine is bitterly opposed…The whole process of ‘wokeness’ and equity-over-equality is generally embraced by the Democratic Machine and repudiated by the American Majority. The Democratic Machine in the House passed a rule on the first day erasing ‘mother, father, son, daughter’ and more than two dozen gendered terms from the House rules document. Some 66 percent of Americans favor restoring pro-family, gender-based language to the House rules…Some 85 percent of Americans favor religious freedom…The Democratic Machine is relentlessly in favor of placing sexual orientation and gender rights over traditional rights.”

Not all Republicans will agree with Gingrich’s list. Tonight another Republican former Speaker, Paul Ryan, will deliver a speech at the Reagan Library in which Ryan will urge the GOP to stay out of cultural wars. “We conservatives have to be careful not to get caught up in every little cultural battle,” Ryan will say, according to prepared remarks released in advance. “Sometimes these skirmishes are just creations of outrage peddlers, detached from reality and not worth anybody’s time. They draw attention away from the far more important case we must make to the American people…Our party must be defined by more than a tussle over the latest grievance or perceived slight.”

Bet on Gingrich’s approach to prevail inside the GOP. But the key unpredictable factor in Gingrich’s plan will be Trump. The former president is engaged in a long tease over whether he will run again, and in any event will tend to make his part in the 2022 campaign all about himself. Gingrich is trying to expand the effort beyond Trump while still recognizing Trump’s accomplishments and relying on Trump’s extraordinary appeal to Republican voters. It won’t be an easy job.

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