What is the main takeaway from the 2023 election cycle?

[MT Treasurer]

1.) The Republican Party is a dysfunctional, entirely unappealing opposition party and has been this way since long before Dobbs. Roe v. Wade merely kept the last leg of the three-legged stool alive, with its repeal the stool became history. Reagan, the Bushes, McConnell, etc. — the sooner the party moves on from this chapter in its history, the better it will be off. The GOP currently has no smart leader who can push the party in that direction, and the old guard remains unwilling to listen to the base, desperate to hang on to power. The biggest obstacle to winning elections against a united front is internal division.

2.) Voters (human beings) flock to leaders, not followers. "Trumpism without Trump" doesn’t work for several reasons, but the main one is that it completely emasculates the candidate emulating Trump. You have to be your own man to be perceived as a leader. Beshear was, Cameron wasn’t.

3.) Incumbents have several major advantages that challengers do not enjoy: an easier time setting the tone of/framing the narrative, free media coverage, fundraising networks, and the ability to brand themselves as their own men. (Incumbent GOP governors in 2022 did extremely well even on what was an overall abysmal night, even those who were attacked on abortion. This may have had something to do with Reeves' win as well.)

4.) Democrats approach elections and campaigns the same way they would approach a military campaign. The GOP thinks it can defy those rules with a non-traditional, non-methodological, non-chirurgical "enthusiasm" model but it just doesn’t work, especially when no one generating said enthusiasm is on the ballot. Result: Democrats win (nearly) everywhere they actually try, underperform elsewhere.