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Mike in MD's avatar

There's a case for optimism here, as the newest voters will have Trump as their most relevant political experience, and while it's too soon to tell, early indicators are that it will probably not be a very positive one--just as his first term didn't exactly convert most youth of the time to his cause, and the economic and other impacts of his second could be even worse. The same happened under Biden which caused a rightward shift among the youngest voters, if perhaps not as sharp as some post election analysis said. Whether that's still relevant to them in 2028 and later will be interesting to see; it's possible that those who started voting in 2022-24 shift left.

And the newest voters won't have COVID as a particularly fresh or relevant memory, and the same is probably true for the gripes mentioned about excessive "progressive" censoriousness ("wokeism", cancel culture)' I actually agree with some of those complaints, though I hardly think they're a good reason to vote for Trump or any Republican. Biden-era inflation will likely also be a dim memory, especially if tariffs or other policies under Trump raise the cost of living even higher--something that younger voters may be especially hammered by.

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Brad Warren's avatar

And honestly, we have no idea how things will shake out once Trump is out of politics. A lot of his support is either soft (voters who swung his way in 2024 because of inflation) or cult (the folks who build shrines to him in their yards), and neither of those groups seem particularly wedded to the Republican Party en masse.

Perhaps I'm smoking hopium again, but I could easily see a big chunk of the former group swinging back toward Democrats as Trump inevitably crashes and burns, and a big chunk of the latter group withdrawing from politics.

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JanusIanitos's avatar

I doubt it will be a large chunk that does either, but we don't need that.

Since 2000, all but one of our presidential elections has been relatively close. The sole exception is 2008 when Obama won in a modern landslide. Even that pales in comparison to the grand wins of years past.

The marginal house seat in 2024 was PA-07, which we lost by 1.01%. In 2022 in was IA-03, which we lost by 0.69%. In 2020 it was VA-07, which we won by 1.82%.

In the past three senate elections, to cover the entire body, the four closest seats needed to get us to 51 seats:

PA 2024, lost by 0.2%

WI 2022, 1%

NC 2020, 1.7%

NC 2022, 3%

Hopefully I didn't miss anything closer there; I did that one by eyeball.

For presidential elections the tipping point states were:

2000: FL, R+0.009

2004: OH, R+2.1

2008: CO, D+9

2012: CO, D+5.3

2016: WI, R+0.8

2020: WI, D+0.6

2024: PA, R+1.7

It would only require a relatively minimal drop off in republican support in the post-Trump era for things to swing back to our favor. If republicans lose 5% of their voters while we retain all of ours (or e.g. we lose 5% and they lose 10%), that's enough. That level of swing would take away every republican presidential win since HW Bush in 1988. It would have us in control of the house and senate and presidency today if it had occurred in 2020 and held true since then, although the senate would require a tie breaking VP — they would still have won NC's senate election in 2022 narrowly with a 5% loss in their voter base (a rough net loss of 2.5 points).

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Buckeye73's avatar

I also strongly suspect that a large part of Trump's support is turning out infrequent voters who don't show up when he is not on the ballot. We see this with the over performance of the Democrats the last two midterms and in the special and off year elections. However, I suspect that the high education suburban Never-Trump voters are going to stay with us.

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Brad Warren's avatar

It's just very difficult to see the "Trump coalition" (especially its most recent iteration) staying together post-Trump.

The next GOP nominee will almost certainly be a cosplay Trump, but those types of candidates have a tendency to go down like Lauren Boebert at the movies. Whatever animal magnetism Trump has does not appear to be easily transferrable.

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

Maybe their next ticket will be John Cena/Pat McAfee?

(excuse me while I go and vomit profusely)

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Mike in MD's avatar

Cena's politics probably wouldn't go over too well in the GOP. While he's generally avoided explicit endorsements, he's supported causes such as Black Lives Matter and Love Has No Labels.

He stated that he was "surprised" by Trump's 2024 victory. Whether he was surprised in a good, bad, or neutral way is unclear, but he ain't Hulk Hogan, Jake Paul, or Dana White.

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