Tornado Alley (PROG)

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BOREALIS, Trump owns a shrinking Republican party

"My Party's Over: Why I Quit The GOP
AUGUST 31, 2018
By Michael J. London"

Elaine Kamarck, Alexander R. Podkul, and Nicholas W. Zeppos
Thursday, June 14, 2018

Most American presidents come into office seeking to expand their support beyond their most loyal voters. But among the many peculiarities of the Trump presidency is his lack of interest in expanding his base, a fact that is even more surprising for someone who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million and carried his key electoral college states by less than 100,000 votes. The story of Trump and his base has two sides.

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In 2016, Primaries Project exit polling showed that 15.2 percent
of Democratic voters participating in competitive primaries were
aged 18–29, compared to just 8.3 percent of Republican voters.
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So far, the Republican primaries have illustrated Trump’s strength in the base of the Republican Party. The defeat of Congressman Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), only the second incumbent to lose a primary this year, was attributed to his criticisms of Trump and a last-minute endorsement by the president of his opponent, Katie Arrington. In the second congressional district in Alabama the incumbent Martha Roby was forced into a runoff, and most press accounts claim that she didn’t win her primary outright because she rescinded her endorsement of Trump after the Access Hollywood tape was made public in advance of the 2016 presidential election. In Virginia, a pro-Trump Senate candidate with alleged white supremacist leanings, Corey Stewart, won his race to take on incumbent Democrat Tim Kaine. And a few weeks ago, in the West Virginia primary, Trump succeeded in getting a recently imprisoned coal executive out of the race in order to clear Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to run against Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Loyalty to Trump among the Republican base is looking so strong that it led Republican Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a Trump critic who is not running again, to tell reporters “It’s becoming a cultish thing, isn’t it?”

Continued - https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/14/trump-owns-a-shrinking-republican-party/

To link: The Number Of Republicans Jumping Ship Thanks To Trump Continues To Rise
[...]
This week in the news it’s George Will, a prominent conservative journalist and commentator, who broke ranks and dropped the Republican ticket for one that’s “unaffiliated.” Will told The Washington Post he registered as unaffiliated several weeks ago, but officially announced his decision to switch at a Federalist Society event Friday.
P - Several elected officials are now registered as independents or are unaffiliated thanks to Trump’s ascension, including Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse Jr. and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino in New Jersey; Charleston Mayor Danny Jones in West Virginia; and Iowa state Sen. David Johnson.
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Steve Schmidt hammers ‘imbecilic’ Trump for undoing American democracy with a ‘blizzard of lies’
[...]
The former Republican strategist appeared Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to explain why he left the GOP last week.
P - “There is only one requirement now to be labelled a conservative in good standing — absolute, total obedience to Trump,” Schmidt said.
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