Apropos of Yogi Berra, let’s take a crack at making a political Yogiism:
In general, it’s different than a primary.
Republicans everywhere seeking federal or statewide office—Congress, governor, Texas land commissioner (why not?)—have bearhugged President Trump during primary season. In the Indiana Senate race, it was a rivalry of who could hold tightest. In the Georgia governor’s race, it was a case of who could do the best Trump imitation—accents not required, but creative suggestions of sending illegal immigrants back across the border a must. And, yes, in the campaign for Texas land commissioner, it was all about status: Incumbent George P. Bush, the son of Jeb, touted a strong Trump affiliation despite his job not relating to the president’s administration much at all. (And despite familial rivalry.)
On Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd and Republican ad guru Mike Murphy highlighted the Michigan Senate and Florida governor’s races—in the former, the two candidates are debating through advertising if one of them really did insult President Trump, and in the latter, Rep. Ron DeSantis is a reading a small child The Art of the Deal.
To such inventive and desperate lengths, this is the measure of a Republican candidate in primaries now: Are you Trumpy enough? After Sen. Luther Strange lost his bid for the GOP nomination in Alabama to Roy Moore last year, there was a question of how meaningful a Trump endorsement is to electoral success. But the president has avoided a similar embarrassing misstep since then—and with him wading into so many contests, office-seekers are unmistakably shaping parts of their campaign strategies around soliciting Trump’s blessing.
As Murphy noted Sunday, there’s an obvious downside to that.
“Now, you come out of this thing from the Trump church in the Republican primary with a big Trump halo. But in the general election, Democrats all hate Trump. And among independents, he’s mostly upside down,” said Murphy. “So, what is your magic light sword in the primary becomes an anchor around your neck in the general.”
The calendar is only now beginning to shift to general election season. In the reddest of red states, consistently mentioning Trump’s name on the trail favorably may not do much damage, if the goal is to energize Republican voters and capitalize on a numbers advantage. Todd brought up this logic in a related way, playing devil’s advocate to defend the primary strategy of all-Trump, all the time: “Which is the president says, hey, look, it’s going to be a referendum on him anyway. Isn’t it better for the party, rather than run away from him, ‘Well, I’m going to get saddled with him whether I like it or not.’ Is this oddly maybe a way to at least minimize your losses?”
Maybe that ends up playing in a state like Indiana, where businessman Mike Braun has said he is emulating the president’s transition from the private sector to Washington. But what about somewhere a little less certain—say, Texas?
The Lone Star State is plenty red, with Trump having defeated Hillary Clinton there by 9 points in 2016. But even then, Democrats were dreaming about turning it blue—in mid-October, when all signs pointed toward a potential Clinton landslide, the party was touting polling that showed a tight race there. Two years later, they’re doing the same thing: this time with incumbent Ted Cruz and the much-hyped Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who were separated only by two and six points in recent surveys.
Republicans remain supremely confident of Cruz’s prospects in November, despite the candidate saying this weekend that “we do have a real race and we are taking it deadly serious.” Perhaps serious enough that Cruz—who famously came around to Trump and has stuck by him, after Trump denigrated his family during the presidential race—is cutting a kinder, gentler, and non-Trumpy profile.
Leveraging his social media, he played a one-on-one game of basketball with Jimmy Kimmel for charity in June. He’s running a targeted ad about his work on Hurricane Harvey relief in Beaumont, the Dallas Morning News reported, where Trump and Clinton ran neck-and-neck. He’s cut similar “Tough as Texas” videos this year. And his fresh round of attack ads O’Rourke, a solidly left-of-center candidate, focus on drug policy.
It’s seemed like every high-profile primary in 2018 has been the same. But it won’t be so when the generals come around.
