Why would Trump have success in 2024 when Trump-aligned candidates struggled so much in 2022?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a huge elephant in the room I'm surprised hasn't seen more discussion.

In 2022, basically all of the swing state candidates that tied themselves heavily to Trump and election denialism unperformed and lost by often embarrassing margins.

Yet in 2024, the one narrative seems to be Trump is a uniquely strong GOP candidate who is perhaps one of the only Republicans who can win MI/PA/WI Presidentially. Why would Trump 2024 find success in these key states when those who tied themselves to him in 2022 didn't?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Look at Trumps abortion policy and then look at Mastriano's.

[7,052,770]

Look at Trumps abortion policy and then look at Mastriano's.

Trump is literally responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned and 15 states completely banning it in all circumstances. Every horror story you hear about women in life-threatening situations is directly a result of Trump appointing 3 Supreme Court justices who voted to allow this. That's one of his lasting legacies, one that will likely live on for decades even if he loses in November.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Why do democrats act like they won by such a large margin in 2022 lol.

In Georgia: Walker lost Round 1 by less than a point and Presidential races do not have runoffs so that is the margin that should be used. So Walker only barely lost despite being a far worse speaker than Trump, not being anywhere near as teflon when it comes to scandals as Trump as well and these two things did end up making a difference.

Even then if the Walker Abortion scandal happened in July instead of October , he probably wins round 1 as well.


In Arziona: Kari Lake lost by less than a point and while Masters lost by more, Lake is far more comparable to Trump than Masters. This was also before the border crises got as bad as it is now so are you really gonna be as confident about AZ looking at just 2022 given that Lake nearly won in 2022 .


Now yes the Dems won big in MI/PA in 2022 but they won big in 2018 there as well and both states ended up being close in 2020 and even in 2014 the GOP clearly underperformed in both states as well. The fact is the MI/PA GOP state parties are just a complete mess and have been for a while which is why outside 2010, they have not done good in either state in midterms this century.


The best result I would say for the Democrats to use from 2022 for their favor is Wisconsin given Evers won by 3 and they nearly beat Ron Johnson but Evers was also more popular than Biden as well so are you really gonna be confident just based on this.

[Doomer]

Why do democrats act like they won by such a large margin in 2022 lol.

It wasn’t that and you know it.

Republicans should have run away with the midterms, but all they got was a slight House lead.

[oldtimer]

Here are some reasons:

1.Biden is more unpopular now than in Nov.22

2.You can argue the midterm electorate being older more upper class favoures Democrats now.

3.Candidate specific (Dr.Oz, Mastriano, O'Dea).

4.Whitmer running unopposed makes Michigan a mystery.

5.Republicans still won something in NV,WI which places them only 1-2 states away from 270.

6. Some Democrat victories where by slim margins (AZ, GA).

2024 is a great test for No.2

[Progressive Pessimist]

I agree. I still fail to see how Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano were a step to far, but Trump is just fine.

I get the caveat of presidential turnout versus midterm turnout, but I still think that ignores the newfound strength of statewide Democratic parties that occurred as of 2022. I feel like that could make a huge difference and defy polls, especially as Democrats are fundraising better.

Here are some reasons:

1.Biden is more unpopular now than in Nov.22

2.You can argue the midterm electorate being older more upper class favoures Democrats now.

3.Candidate specific (Dr.Oz, Mastriano, O'Dea).

4.Whitmer running unopposed makes Michigan a mystery.

5.Republicans still won something in NV,WI which places them only 1-2 states away from 270.

6. Some Democrat victories where by slim margins (AZ, GA).

2024 is a great test for No.2

For number five those victories were significantly closer than they should have been, and those candidates under-performed down-ballot races that went to Democrats in their states.

And with your sixth point Hobbs shouldn't have won at all, as narrow as it was. Meanwhile in the Senate races in both Arizona and Georgia, Kelly and Warnock won by the biggest margins for Democrats in years.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Dem incumbents were popular in 2022
Biden is very unpopular this year

[oldtimer]

I agree. I still fail to see how Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano were a step to far, but Trump is just fine.

I get the caveat of presidential turnout versus midterm turnout, but I still think that ignores the newfound strength of statewide Democratic parties that occurred as of 2022. I feel like that could make a huge difference and defy polls, especially as Democrats are fundraising better.

Here are some reasons:

1.Biden is more unpopular now than in Nov.22

2.You can argue the midterm electorate being older more upper class favoures Democrats now.

3.Candidate specific (Dr.Oz, Mastriano, O'Dea).

4.Whitmer running unopposed makes Michigan a mystery.

5.Republicans still won something in NV,WI which places them only 1-2 states away from 270.

6. Some Democrat victories where by slim margins (AZ, GA).

2024 is a great test for No.2

For number five those victories were significantly closer than they should have been, and those candidates under-performed down-ballot races that went to Democrats in their states.

And with your sixth point Hobbs shouldn't have won at all, as narrow as it was. Meanwhile in the Senate races in both Arizona and Georgia, Kelly and Warnock won by the biggest margins for Democrats in years.

2022 in all states that didn't touch the coast was basically a recap of 2020, and the more high profile the race the more D it was: House R > Governor R > Senate R

That changed my position from "Biden is Doomed" to "Biden can't lose".

However the combination of the above No.1-No.6 has changed my mind back to "Biden is Doomed", the flipback for me occured on March 30th 2023, because No.5+No.6 require No.1 .

I also have the memory of '94 and '10 as cautionary tales of midterms meaning nothing.

[DrScholl]

All of the Republicans running for Senate were pretty much considered inevitable until election night so the predictions this year are similar. There was even talk about Hassan and Murray losing. At the same time almost all of them did better than Trump despite losing which negates all of oldtimer's conspiracies.

[wbrocks67]

What a lot of people don't seem to want to bother to explain is why Trump has suddenly got so much popular.

It wasn't just Trumpism struggling in the midterms - it was Trump himself. He bombed in the exit polls in all the swing states; he was usually around -20 favorability in all of them. Trumpism -- and Trump himself -- were both unpopular around the 2022 midterms. We also saw this in national polling too, where Trump was about -15 nationally.

Now suddenly we're seeing Trump surge in popularity in polls (comparatively), to where he was only -8 yesterday and -9 today.

So we're supposed to believe that Trump was very unpopular two whole years, and now suddenly out of nowhere he's getting more popular? Clearly there's something going on with who's answering polls right now.

[Progressive Pessimist]

What a lot of people don't seem to want to bother to explain is why Trump has suddenly got so much popular.

It wasn't just Trumpism struggling in the midterms - it was Trump himself. He bombed in the exit polls in all the swing states; he was usually around -20 favorability in all of them. Trumpism -- and Trump himself -- were both unpopular around the 2022 midterms. We also saw this in national polling too, where Trump was about -15 nationally.

Now suddenly we're seeing Trump surge in popularity in polls (comparatively), to where he was only -8 yesterday and -9 today.

So we're supposed to believe that Trump was very unpopular two whole years, and now suddenly out of nowhere he's getting more popular? Clearly there's something going on with who's answering polls right now.

Absolutely. Maybe Biden's support is tepid right now, but Trump is 100% being overestimated.

[2016]

This is just a very dumb Question to ask?

Turnout. Only he can jack up Turnout among the Republicans while his aligned Candidates can not if he isn't on the Ballot hence Republican underperformance in both, 2018 and 2022.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

The poor polling is Biden specific. Casey leads by more than Fetterman’s victory margin, Gallego leads by more than Kelly’s victory margin, Rosen leads by more than CCM’s election margin, etc. Biden is just way more unpopular and is losing these states anyway.

[Dan the Roman]

The sense of national crisis is passed. Republicans themselves contributed to it, first with January 6th, then the massive reaction in the states, with a view spreading that you might have chaos in 2024 if Lake/Mastriano/Finchem won.

The wider environment has calmed down from inflation, to the culture wars over schools(itself a legacy of covid) to even the post-election threats of violence.

Instead we are left with two things

1. Malaise - things are bad, getting worse, and no reason to believe Biden himself won't continue to deteriorate. In this respect, he has come to symbolize a situation many Americans find intolerable

2. I know this will be unpopular on this board, but Democrats have negated a lot of their 2022 pitch of "if you elect MAGA governors/SOS then they will use the power of their offices to disrupt the 2024 election triggering chaos". Now with the efforts to remove Trump from the ballot, it is Democrats who, having won election on a platform of not using their control of the electoral machinery to cause chaos, are actively using it to cause chaos. The legal pursuit of Trump has also seemed to fall into chaos, partially due to the tactics of Trump's defense team, but also because folks like Willis screwed up. But it doesn't matter who is at fault.

In short, Democrats have badly undermined one of their two strongest 2022 messages(the other being Dobbs) at the same time its resonance was falling anyway.

The reason there is so much focus on Trump's abortion position is that it is more or less what is left.

[AncestralDemocrat.]

This is a huge elephant in the room I'm surprised hasn't seen more discussion.

In 2022, basically all of the swing state candidates that tied themselves heavily to Trump and election denialism unperformed and lost by often embarrassing margins.

Yet in 2024, the one narrative seems to be Trump is a uniquely strong GOP candidate who is perhaps one of the only Republicans who can win MI/PA/WI Presidentially. Why would Trump 2024 find success in these key states when those who tied themselves to him in 2022 didn't?

Midterms aren't presidentials (with all the turnout factors that need to be considered), and Trump's 2024 coalition will be built on low propensity voters.

I expect congressional democrats to overperform Biden, in any case.  

[Randy Marsh]

1. Biden is the most unpopular president in the history of polling. He wasn't on the ticket in 2022

2. Biden voters are more highly engaged. Recent analyses by Nate Cohn and Nate Silver show that higer turnout is probably bad for Dems this time around because Biden does best in polls of the most engaged voters (voted in a primary and midterm), worst in RV polls, and somewhere in the middle in LV polls

[TechbroMBA]

Does everyone forget abortion being on the ballot in 2022 immediately after Dobbs?

Without that call to action I don’t see the same D turnout. In this sense victory has defeated the Democrats because with democratic governors and referendum victories you can’t ring the same bell again quite as easily.

[darklordoftech]

Maybe Trump has some charisma that prevents him from coming off as kooky?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a huge elephant in the room I'm surprised hasn't seen more discussion.

In 2022, basically all of the swing state candidates that tied themselves heavily to Trump and election denialism unperformed and lost by often embarrassing margins.

Yet in 2024, the one narrative seems to be Trump is a uniquely strong GOP candidate who is perhaps one of the only Republicans who can win MI/PA/WI Presidentially. Why would Trump 2024 find success in these key states when those who tied themselves to him in 2022 didn't?

Midterms aren't presidentials (with all the turnout factors that need to be considered), and Trump's 2024 coalition will be built on low propensity voters.

I expect congressional democrats to overperform Biden, in any case.  

The "low propensity voter" argument seems compelling at face value but has a lot of contradictions and unrealistic assumptions under the surface.

For one, the mainstream consensus is that voter turnout will be lower than 2020, so by this logic wouldn't Biden do better, or is the turnout dropoff exclusively from low propensity Dem voters, and if so, are these R voters really low propensity?

Furthermore, the narrative that 2022 turnout patterns disproportionately favored Democrats is blatantly false. The general theme was relative to 2020, swingy/D-leaning suburbs tended to retain the highest voter participation, but the biggest dropoffs tended to come from heavily non-white communities that lean heavily D. By and large, turnout in rural red communities held up just fine, and D victories in places like AZ, MI, PA, and WI were on genuine persuasion.



It's a bit hard to tell from this image, but this shows the 2020 --> 2022 turnout in WI. While Dane County (Madison) had the best turnout retention in the state, turnout in Dem parts of Milwaukee and smaller cities like Racine and Waukesha was really bad in 2022, and most rurals were somewhere in the middle.

In states like Texas, this contrast is a bit starker, with significant swaths of heavily-D parts of Houston and Dallas literally having 10% turnout; there was nothing comaprable in red parts of rural TX.

Sidenote, but these turnout-change maps are fun because they show where new developments have been built in recent years. 2020-->2022 turnout map in Collin and Denton Counties in Texas are good examples lol. Funfact is collectively in TX precincts that saw turnout increases from 2020-->2022 collectively swung left for Gov even as the state as a whole obv swung right (when you factor out cases where turnout change was caused by change in precinct boundaries).

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

His indictments hasn't turned into convicted sentence yet and Jack Smith is turning into Ken Star but it's a blue wall not red wall map we are still fav despite the polls


You know the irony is that these secular network gives us these bias polls and they are quick to Criticize Trump on TV like CBS

Should Trump prevail it would be blamed on the prosecutor Jack Smith for not making his Trump trial speedy enough

[Spectator]

Why do democrats act like they won by such a large margin in 2022 lol.

That’s disingenuous and you know it. 2022 was essentially a blue wave in the competitive races, and it shouldn’t have been. Biden was extremely unpopular and inflation was through the roof. There was the Afghanistan debacle and the Russia-Ukraine war. It should have been a layup in the swing states, but Dems swept. It was arguably a better election cycle for Dems than 2018 was. They did better in governorships, the Senate, and the state legislatures than in 2018.

A lot of that if not all of it is directly attributable to the horrid candidates that Trump endorsed and then were nominated.

My actual answer to this question is that the Trump candidates that aren’t Trump are…freaks. They brand themselves after him and it comes off very weird. Voters don’t want a knock-off of the real thing.

[BlueSwan]

Because Trump has a massive cult following of low-information low-propensity voters who will walk through fire to vote for HIM, but not for anybody else and often won't talk to pollsters. This is why Trump overperforms his polls and why other republicans do not.

[TheTide]

Maybe Trump has some charisma that prevents him from coming off as kooky?

What's most important, perhaps, is that he's a familiar figure. He had been a regular news headline for a good thirty years going into 2016 and of course there was The Apprentice too. Familiarity can breed contempt, but it can also breed a sense of security. This is why he's the best candidate from that wing of the party and why Ramaswamy (for example) would likely be a catastrophic candidate.

[emailking]

If the premise is true it's because of Biden's unpopularity. I'm not convinced the premise is true, but it very well could be.