Republican parties in important swing states are falling behind
STANDING ON A podium in a pink hotel ballroom Kristina Karamo, the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, addressed a group of Republican university students. “I first got my start in politics on a college campus,” she said. “I picked up a book called ‘The Politics of Population Control’, and I learned that…the abortion movement…was a plot to lower the human population.” So began the 35th Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference.
As recently as 2015, six presidential hopefuls ventured to the quaint, car-free island known for its sickly-sweet fudge to campaign at the regular gathering of party bigwigs. This year the lone presidential candidate in attendance was Vivek Ramaswamy, who is polling at less than 7%. The rest of the programme, with mostly obscure speakers who railed against evolution, the deep state and “stolen” elections, reflected a populist makeover and descent into conspiracism that has come to characterise many state Republican parties since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016.
Nowhere will the MAGA-fication of local parties have bigger implications for 2024 than in swing states. According to data that The Economist retrieved from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Democratic state parties are raising more money than their Republican counterparts in six of the seven states where the presidential race is expected to be tightest (see chart 1). In Wisconsin the gap is an astonishing $8.8m, because of a competitive race for control of the state Supreme Court in April, which the Democrat-endorsed candidate won. Together, these six states account for 77 electoral votes, nearly 30% of the total needed to win the presidency.
2023-10-05 07:47:55
Article from www.economist.com