President Donald Trump has dominated the Republican Party for a decade, and in many ways, it has been good for the GOP and conservatism.
Republicans won two of the three presidential elections (after losing two straight and four of six). Republicans control Congress, and for the first time in forever, the Supreme Court has a conservative majority. It even struck down Roe v. Wade.
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Trump’s policy accomplishments are also real. Taxes are lower, especially for the middle class. Illegal immigration was controlled for four years, and it’s getting under control again. And for the first time since the Cold War ended, we are avoiding senseless wars of choice.
But just as Trump’s policy record is mixed (increased spending, federal support for in vitro fertilization, oodles of corporate welfare), so is the Trump-era political record. If you step back from the current political balance in Washington, D.C., you see a troubling trend, highlighted by the recent blowouts in New Jersey and Virginia:
Republicans, in the Trump era, are mostly losing.
Yes, Trump wins. Yes, when Trump is on the ballot, the downballot Republicans get some lift from Trump. But when Trump isn’t on the ballot, the Trump era is a story of GOP loss.
This is a big problem for Republicans because Trump will never be on a ballot nationwide again. It’s very possible that after Trump is gone, Republicans will experience their darkest hour and lowest point since the New Deal.
Trump wins. Other Republicans lose
Here’s one measure of the partisan shift in the Trump era: In 2016, Republicans controlled 31 governorships and 68 legislative chambers. Come January, the GOP will control only 26 governorships and 57 legislative chambers (more than a 15% reduction on both scores).
In the Trump era, here’s the rule: Elections in which Trump is on the ballot, the GOP does fine. In elections in which he is not, the GOP does poorly.
This isn’t just about incumbent disadvantage in midterm elections. Even during former President Joe Biden’s presidency, when Trump was the head of the GOP, its most recent nominee, and its next nominee, Democrats historically performed well. For instance, in 2022, they gained trifectas in four states, taking control of the legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, and winning the governorships of Maryland and Massachusetts — all while their party controlled the White House.
The best place to see Trump’s impact on realignment may be in the Great Lakes states.
Trump won in 2016 by pulling off upsets in three blue-leaning Rust Belt states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He won those states in large part by pulling in labor union voters and other non-college voters, a demographic that had been used by Democrats but had been politically homeless since the Clinton era.
But an interesting thing happened in 2018. The counties in Michigan that swung hardest from former President Barack Obama to Trump swung back to the Democrats in the midterm elections.
A dozen counties in Michigan flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. Half of them flipped back to Democrats in 2018. Almost all of them gave back a majority of the GOP gains.
Trump made the working-class whites of Macomb County into Trump voters, but he never made them into Republicans.
In 2016, Republicans controlled both legislative chambers and the governorship in Michigan. They had held this trifecta since the 2010 elections and had held the state House for basically forever.
During Trump’s first term, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) won the governorship, and her party won most of the other statewide positions. In 2022, Whitmer won easily, and Democrats took over both chambers and won every statewide office. By 2024, with Trump at the top of the ballot, Republicans were able to regain control of the lower chamber.
Likewise, consider the trajectory of Pennsylvania.
In 2014, the last midterm elections before Trump, Pennsylvania Democrats had a very good year. Former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf knocked off incumbent Republican Tom Corbett. In 2022, the most recent midterm elections, Democrats also had a good year, as Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) won a second term.
Over those eight years, you can see some of the realignment of the Trump era. The blue-collar counties in coal and steel country moved toward Republicans, while the white-bread counties outside of Philadelphia have moved toward Democrats.
These opposite shifts have not been symmetric, though. Pre-Trump, Republicans won the rural coal and steel counties of southwestern Pennsylvania (Westmoreland, Fayette, and Greene) by 6 points, and eight years later, the GOP won those counties by 8 points.
Compare that to the Trump-era blue shift in the suburbs.
Before Trump, in 2014, Republicans lost Philadelphia’s wealthy, heavily educated collar counties (Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery) by a combined 11 points. Eight years later, the GOP is losing them by 30 points.
Blue-collar Pennsylvania shifted 2 points toward the GOP, while white-collar Pennsylvania shifted 20 points toward the Democrats.
There are numerous special circumstances at play here, and the realignment — Democrats picking up the upper middle class while Republicans picked up the working class — had been underway for more than a decade before Trump arrived.
But this is the pattern. For Trump, the realignment nets out to a small win, which may trickle down the ballot. When Trump isn’t on the ballot, though, the net result is a massive gain for Democrats.
Liberal shift
Americans hold more liberal views today than they did when Trump came into office.
Back in 2015, only a slight majority of voters believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a Pew Research survey. After 2016, the trend became more and more pro-choice, and by the time the Supreme Court struck down Roe in 2022, pro-choicers were at 61%. (The numbers have not moved much since then.)
Young women are becoming more Democratic and more liberal, especially on social matters. It’s easy to see how Trump could cause this.
If the man at the head of the pro-life army is a twice-divorced serial philanderer who brags about grabbing women by the private parts, then the pro-choice attack — that opposition to abortion is just about controlling women — sounds believable.
Likewise, as the marriage and birth rate collapse, there is a risk that a Trump-led GOP could polarize young women away from family formation. That would be a problem far more profound than the GOP’s political struggles.
As Matt Continetti wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Independents have drifted away from [Trump] and his party” over the past 10 years. “He lost independents by 13 points in 2020 and by 3 points in 2024. Republican House candidates … lost independents nationally by 12 points in 2018 and 2 points in 2022.”
Trump’s unique charisma carried him to victory twice, but at the same time, his demands for personal fealty, character, and lack of convictions changed the GOP in a way that will likely make it weaker in the long run.
