President Trump’s dimming reelection prospects were visible before the 2018 midterm elections, according to an internal Republican National Committee report seen by the Washington Examiner.
Using data from internal voter rolls, a small cadre of RNC employees concluded that Trump and the party faced two immediate, pressing concerns: Elderly Republicans were dying, and support from Obama-to-Trump voters was far from locked in.
According to the report, which was completed in the late-summer-to-early fall of 2018, a substantial number of GOP voters dropped off the RNC’s internal voter files.
That churn in the GOP voter rolls constituted the first alarm bell, according to an individual familiar with the report. The individual said that net growth in new voter info, which includes things such as mailing addresses and cellphone numbers, was being offset by those who either opted out of solicitations from the RNC or who had simply died. The net growth of new voters became anemic because of this churn problem.
Because the 2016 election came down to such narrow margins — roughly 77,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin provided the deciding margin — the RNC and the Trump campaign assumed that those who supported the GOP four years ago were “locked in.”
That assumption could now prove disastrous, as Trump trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden 50% to 42.2% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Biden is ahead by comparable margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as other swing states.
“It made me extremely uncomfortable that the Trump campaign had this attitude of ‘well, we have these voters for good,'” one individual said. “The only people who are wedded to Trump are those who are wedded to every and any Republican,” the person said, adding that the vast majority of those who appear at Trump rallies almost certainly voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008.
On Tuesday night, RNC spokesman Steve Guest said: “This story is completely inaccurate and made up. A so-called report like this does not exist. Not only did the Washington Examiner fail to reach out to the Republican National Committee prior to publication of this phony story, when asked by the RNC to provide a copy of the so called report, the Examiner failed to do so, thereby confirming that the report is completely made up.”
Back in 2018 The general response to the report from others who worked at the RNC, said one individual, was, “well, we have socialism” as an attack against Democrats and boasts about their new digital voter turnout apparatus.
Voter data from areas such as Kenosha County, Wisconsin, and other exurban communities, the individual said, showed a troubling trend. Although voters there very narrowly backed Trump in 2016, President Barack Obama’s margins were in the double digits in 2008 and 2012.
“These voters were basically Democrats before Trump, but they’re also not really ideological. They by and large vote for Democrats, but they’ll give Republicans a chance,” the individual said. “But there’s an ideological disconnect between party officials and voters who could vote for the party.”
Unlike members of Trump’s base, who can be trusted to vote for just about any Republican candidate, these voters feel no strong affinity toward the GOP. Moreover, the interests of those who live in communities such as Kenosha differ greatly from those who live in the Philadelphia suburbs in Pennsylvania.
These Rust Belt voters favor stronger social safety nets and hawkishness on trade, rather than typical GOP orthodoxies such as lower tax rates and an easier regulatory environment for businesses. That is not to say these voters oppose those things, but the rhetorical obsession from GOP donors and members of the party do little to excite one-time Trump voters.
Counties like Kenosha decide elections, said one individual who supported the RNC report’s conclusions. For as long as the Electoral College exists, the Republican Party should be hyper-focused on winning over as many noncollege white people as possible in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, of which there are millions who did not vote in 2016.
But instead, one individual said, the GOP has been more concerned with “coalition building” and enlisting the support from black, Hispanic, and Asian voters who make only a marginal difference in the Midwest and can prove potentially damaging if more likely Republicans are neglected.
“Lots of these people at the RNC are in a state of denial,” said the individual. “The base of the GOP are white people, and that gives the party an advantage in national elections. You could not have a voter operation in California whatsoever, and it wouldn’t make any difference, but the RNC does because they don’t want to admit those states are lost forever.”
The same report was shared with pro-GOP PACs, although the author’s conclusions were ignored by officials there as well. Much of the hesitation to embrace the report’s conclusions rests on unease from GOP officials acknowledging the reality of who really makes up the party. Journalists and cable news pundits who regularly chastise the GOP as the party of white people have made an impression on those who work on its messaging.
Steve Bannon, the former aide to the president who was indicted last week on fraud charges, had viewed the same report a year ago and concluded that the upcoming election against Biden looked like a “blow out” in the former vice president’s favor.
According to messages obtained by the Washington Examiner, Bannon was telling associates as recently as late July that he was “convinced” Trump was set to lose in November.
Editor’s Note: The story has been updated with comment from RNC spokesman Steve Guest.
