The GOP‘s recent shellacking in New Jersey and Virginia was not a failure of effort. Republicans had the ground game. They invested in turnout operations. They knocked on doors, built lists, and localized their messaging. Tactically, the party did the work. Strategically, however, it didn’t focus on the right voters.
In the first major election since President Donald Trump’s landslide victory and the GOP’s trifecta win last November, Republicans leaned heavily on last year’s winning strategy: coaxing low-propensity base loyalists back to the polls. Meanwhile, Democrats focused on, and won, the persuadable middle.
If Republicans want to reverse their fortunes, they must stop ceding the center to Democrats who portray themselves as moderates.
In New Jersey and Virginia, the Democratic candidates mastered a simple political trick: ignore your progressive voting record and sound like a centrist. Rightfully frustrated by more than a month of the government shutdown and missed paychecks in densely populated hubs of government workers, voters were duped by the governors-elect speaking fluently about “affordability,” “public safety,” and “women’s rights.” Their campaigns were crafted to soothe, to reassure, to signal pragmatic competence.
Yet while in office, these same women had routinely aligned with their party’s left flank on spending, open borders, green energy mandates, radical gender ideology, and more — all issues that the vast majority of voters reject. The packaging is moderate; the policy reality is not.
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