Right now, today, pronto the head of the RNC needs to on the carpet in front of the man explaining how we lost the House. It is probably not her fault but in speaking aloud the reasons we lost the new plan for taking it can go into operation by the middle of NEXT week.
It starts with candidate recruitment and fund raising. There were too many close races lost in GOP Districts. Let’s roll this back next cycle.
1. The GOP's biggest obstacle this year wasn't the historical trend of mid-term elections. It was the 40+ Republican House incumbents who were vacating their seats. Incumbency is powerful in Congressional elections, and this put a whole bunch of seats in play. It's impossible to defend that many open seats.
2. This election may have been about Trump in many ways, but not the way we might instinctively think. There's way too much positive spin here on FR today about all the "RINOs" who are no longer in office. These people aren't RINOs because they refuse to toe the party line, folks. They're RINOs because they represent "purple" or even "blue" districts in liberal states. Maybe the party is more pure today with these RINOs on their way out, but there's no way in hell a Trump clone is ever going to win in those districts.
3. Along the lines of #2 ... The Democrats came into 2018 with a clear strategy to win the House, and they executed it to perfection. Starting in 2017, they concentrated their efforts on all the GOP House seats in districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that the GOP lost at least 90% of those races this year.
4. If the GOP wants to win back control of the House, they have to come up with a game plan that has broad appeal across a lot of different regions and demographic groups. This was the amazing needle they threaded in 2016, when they won the White House with a populist agenda and yet still maintained control of both houses of Congress despite facing a daunting Senate map with many vulnerable Republicans. A "Rust Belt" MAGA agenda is not going to appeal to affluent suburban voters. The MAGA agenda is fine, but what is the GOP going to hold out as a national strategy to win back suburban voters?
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