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A few thoughts on New Hampshire


Well Barflies, we have a bit to unpack from Tuesday's results from the Granite State.

First, let's start with the GOP.

Here's a little message to Donald Trump:


Yes, he won. But he didn't win by a commanding majority. And, well, take a look at this from Steve Kornacki:
Trumpists take this and crow: "See! Haley's voters weren't Republicans!" That's the wrong piece of information to take from that exit poll. The thing which should frighten the utter fuck out of the GOP—not Trump, because he's a goddamned moron—is that if he is their nominee the only people who will vote for him will be his base. Anti-Trump Republicans and, more importantly, independents will either vote for Joe Biden, or stay home. There is no earthly way that he can win a general election relying only on his cultists.

This, of course, will have knock-on effects down the ticket. People who won't vote for Trump won't come out to vote at all. There is no incentive for them to do so, especially if the congressional GOP is in lockstep with Trump. Why vote for a senatorial or House candidate if all they'll do is enable Trump? They will either vote for the Democrat, or stay home, which will bleed votes away from the GOP.

Far from being a glorious night in which Trump reasserted his dominance over the party, Tuesday was a dire warning to the party: Donald Trump is a weak general election candidate. The independents who gave him a pass in 2016 and 2020 are tired of his shtick. As evidence:

The Republican Party of 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 would have seen data like this and taken corrective measures. But the GOP of 2024, as I wrote yesterday, is not that party. It is no more than a vehicle for Trump's vengeance fantasies. The professional campaigners have no influence in the party. It's "ride or die" with Trump, and by the looks of it the latter possibility is becoming more probable. 

Parties are born by choice and die by choice. I'm not saying that we have this in the bag, but the auguries are decidedly unfavorable for the Trump GOP right now.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, President Biden handily won as a write-in candidate. Let's discuss "enthusiasm", shall we?
I mean, I'm no highly-paid election analyst on MSNBC or CNN. But to my untrained eye that sure seems like a lot of enthusiasm. Going out on a frigid Tuesday to write in Joe Biden's name in a contest which didn't count does appear like New Hampshire Democrats and independents wanted to send a message to the nation. Combine this with Pres. Biden's record money haul, and it's safe to say that reports of Democratic disenchantment with him have been greatly exaggerated. As a purple state, New Hampshire is a bellwether. And the forecast looks quite fair for the good guys.

I won't bother to spend much time on Dean Philips' quixotic campaign. He spent $6 million in an election which didn't matter for delegate allocation out of hubris and an inflated sense of his self-worth. As I commented yesterday: many of our problems as a culture stem from mediocrities not going away when their time is up. Philips is this, red in tooth and claw. He vowed to press on to South Carolina, where he will be lucky to make it above five or six percent. If he couldn't get more votes than he did in lily-white New Hampshire, majority-Black South Carolina will be even more of a humiliation.

So, friends, tack the sails and go on. We are not the ones in the bubble.

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