The heartland will be a prop for a national debate
What I'll be looking for at tomorrow's Republican debate
1The Republican presidential candidates will face each other for the first time on a Milwaukee debate stage tomorrow. At least, some of them will. The former president, front-runner, and indictment leaderboard dominator, Donald Trump, is skipping the debate in favor of a conversation with Tucker Carlson. Absent front-runners have historically still had a way of dominating the stage.
But without Trump there, the other candidates might have more of a chance to define themselves. I’m especially interested in the arguments that they might make for the justification and reasoning behind their candidacies – not so much because I think it’ll change the race, but for what it could tell us about party politics.
What will the candidates say about themselves?
First of all, what, if anything, will we hear about the ever-elusive “electability?” At this point, the idea that Republicans are less concerned with electability seems to be an article of faith among the close observers of the party. But we never did nail down what this means, and it might be the key to this difference between the parties. In the 2020 Democratic nomination cycle, a number of people concluded that this term carried a lot of baggage about race and gender, especially coming off Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss and the heavy racial backlash themes of that contest. When Joe Biden emerged out of the most diverse field of presidential candidates in history, it was partly about ideology and name recognition, maybe. But the fact that he looked like most past presidents was never far from the discussion.
Setting aside the merits of this explanation for 2020, if it contains even a kernel of truth, then we have a pretty good explanation for why Republicans don’t seem to care. They might think that nominating a candidate of color could help them pick up a few Democratic or swing votes. They might think it doesn’t matter very much because of the Electoral College advantage. Or they might not worry because they don’t think that nominating a non-white or woman candidate is likely to happen. But there will be several such candidates present on Wednesday, and it will be an interesting opportunity to see if the electability argument comes up, and how it might look different in that context.
I’ll also be interested in whether the candidates “run against Washington,” denounce the party establishment, or brag about grassroots credibility and small donors. Again, not because any of this tends to mean anything in the end, but because it will offer a clue about whether Trump has truly destroyed the establishment/anti-establishment distinction – and at a time when people still distrust political institutions.
Who’s the audience?
The primary/general distinction is always there, but it’s especially notable because the arguably most prominent candidate at this debate, Ron DeSantis, has really doubled down on conservative culture war issues. For DeSantis, this has taken the form of taking on what he calls “woke” (which has been shifted from an adjective to a noun at some point this year – someone please write about that), and has had some pretty severe consequences for public universities in Florida already, as well as a public showdown with Disney, highlighting that classic Republican antagonism against… *checks notes* major business interests.
I’ll take this moment to point out that this Washington Examiner piece puts what I said in a slightly different context: I said that Republican positions on culture war issues are pretty unpopular. I didn’t contrast cultural issues with “kitchen table” ones – I don’t think this is a valuable distinction for most people.
Equally important, this will be the first Republican primary debate since the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. This means that Republican candidates will have to confront the political horror that is specificity. Federal rules or up to the states? Would a federal law establish a standard (say, a 15-week ban, but states could make it 6 weeks), or be the last word? How many weeks? What kind of punishment for lawbreakers? Any exceptions? These kinds of issues are no longer hypothetical for patients and doctors throughout the country, and they’re not for Republican presidential candidates. Given the electoral success of ballot measures protecting abortion rights, even in deep red states, this may be a “you broke it, you bought it” situation for these candidates.
The heartland will be a prop
The other question is the local vs. national audiences. Debate locations are chosen strategically, but this is an interesting one for two reasons. First, while Wisconsin is perhaps the ultimate swing state, shifting narrowly back to the blue column in 2020, Milwaukee is not exactly a Republican stronghold. Tomorrow’s debate will be held in a downtown basketball arena, in an area that abuts Martin Luther King Dr. - a predominantly African American community in a city, state, and nation where race and partisanship are hard to untangle. This area (along with most of the city) is located in Wisconsin’s 4th Congressional district, where Joe Biden won 76% of the vote, running slightly ahead of long-serving Congresswoman Gwen Moore. This is also in a state where partisan and race issues have formed the foundation of an increasingly tense relationship between the city and the state government, recently culminating in some grim debates about county sales tax increases (which passed) in order to fund services.
So as far as the debate location, this might be a case of Republicans wanting to look like they are doing something in Wisconsin more than actually having much of a local impact.
The second reason it’s weird is because while Wisconsin will be important in the general election, it tends to play a much less prominent role in the nomination. It’s worth noting that the Wisconsin Republican Party has had a somewhat strained relationship with Trump. Former governor Scott Walker was against Trump before he was for him, coordinating with other Republicans in 2016 to vote for Ted Cruz in a clear (and too late) “stop Trump” effort. Former House Speaker and 1st district Rep. Paul Ryan has never really warmed to Trump, and been increasingly vocal about it after leaving Congress in 2019. More recently, State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos – arguably the most powerful Republican in the state – has argued that Trump can’t win in November due to his political baggage. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 result proved divisive in the state party. So to the extent there’s a state-level outreach element to this debate, there are openings for other candidates to win over the states’ leaders. The Republican primary electorate, as ever, may be another story.
But overall, the fact that Wisconsin isn’t a key nomination state and the debate isn’t especially strategically situated seem to add up to the likelihood of a debate that’s very much aimed at a national audience. This probably means that any consideration of local concerns will be refracted through a national lens, potentially putting issues in the most enraging culture war terms possible, rather than addressing anything that could ease the economic or social burdens of the urban and rural residents of Wisconsin. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
If you’re looking for a great piece that dives into more of the candidate side of things, Seth Masket has that for you.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore