Plus, Trump’s tax-by-tariffs plan, winning the Latino vote, and the difficulties of gun tracing—all in the June 20, 2024 newsletter.
The post Trump’s GOTV Plan Looks Scandalous. Republicans Should Be Outraged. appeared first on Washington Monthly.
Today for the Washington Monthly, I examine Donald Trump’s eyebrow-raising get-out-the-vote strategy: outsource the job to other groups, chiefly the right-wing Turning Point network.
The strategy might make sense if Turning Point had a successful track record in getting out the vote. It does not.
Moreover, it appears that Turning Point got the lucrative gig by convincing Trump to dump Ronna McDaniel as chair of the Republican National Committee and install Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.
It looks like a scandal. If I was a Republican, I would be outraged.
Will the outrage ever come?
First, let’s check out what’s leading the Washington Monthly website:
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Trump’s Tax-by-Tariffs Plan Would Enrich the Wealthy, Cripple the Economy, and Send Inflation Soaring: Contributing Writer Robert J. Shapiro runs the numbers on Trump’s latest “crackpot idea for the U.S. economy.” Click here for the full story.
“The Opportunity for Democrats to Break Away from the Ethnic Identity Headlock”: Steve Kettmann, a former staff reporter for New York Newsday and the San Francisco Chronicle, interviews Mike Madrid, author of the new book The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy. Click here for the full story.
Gun Without a Trace: Jamaal Abdul-Alim, education editor at The Conversation, investigates the origin of the gun that killed a young Milwaukee girl, and explains the Republican-passed laws that have made gun tracing so difficult. Click here for the full story.
Donald Trump’s Get-Out-The-Vote Plan is Bonkers: My look at the suspicious arrangement between the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the far-right Turning Point network. Click here for the full story.
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As I wrote today, Trump’s decision to lean on Turning Point for its ground game has potential political ramifications.
The Turning Point leaders do not believe in trying to persuade and turn out swing voters. They prefer to focus on conservatives who have not been reliable voters, in hopes of expanding their base. But ignoring swing voters risks ceding that important bloc to the Joe Biden campaign, which is what happened four years ago.
Whether or not that plan upsets Republicans depends whether or not they believe swing voters are mythical unicorns (though I would argue the last few election cycles proves swing voters are still real).
But every Republican should be livid that Trump apparently ousted the chair of the Republican National Committee in order to steer the get-out-the-vote responsibilities to an outside group with no reputation for election organizing, with a documented history of questionable financial practices, and with a plan to contract the work to a software company owned by the group’s Chief Operating Officer.
Surely, most are afraid at the moment to say anything critical about the choices Trump has made.
But if Trump loses a close race, Republicans would have every reason to point to Trump’s overhauling of the RNC leadership and partnering with Turning Point as the reason.
Maybe then, the outrage will come.
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Best,
Bill Scher, Washington Monthly politics editor
The post Trump’s GOTV Plan Looks Scandalous. Republicans Should Be Outraged. appeared first on Washington Monthly.
