Never Trumpers played a critical role in beating him. The numbers prove it.

[Gothmog]

Thank you to the Lincoln Project

Link to tweet

It’s too early for a definitive evaluation of what happened, because exit polls are no more reliable than pre-election polls. But both the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), the other major Never Trump organization, shared with me preliminary data to show that their work actually played a critical role in Biden’s victory. Their numbers are in line with publicly available exit polls showing that nationally 7 percent of 2016 Trump voters and 8 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters backed Biden; currently, Biden is leading in the popular vote by 3.4 percentage points.

The Lincoln Project contends that 85 percent of the counties it targeted in 10 states moved away from Trump — and that doesn’t even include Arizona, where ballots are still being counted and endorsements from Republicans such as Cindy McCain undoubtedly contributed to Biden’s lead. The Lincoln Project concludes that, across the top battleground states, Biden flipped an average of 6.8 percent of voters who cast a Trump ballot in 2016. Nationally, it believes, 5 percent of voters who voted for a Republican congressional candidate voted for Biden.

In the battleground states, Lincoln Project asserts that 7 percent of 2016 Trump voters switched to Biden in Pennsylvania, 6 percent in Michigan, 7 percent in Wisconsin and 6 percent in Georgia. The swings among independent voters, moderate voters and college-educated White voters away from Trump were even bigger in some cases. Given the narrowness of the outcome in these battleground states (Biden’s biggest margin so far is a 2.6-point win in Michigan), those numbers, if accurate, suggest that Republican and Republican-leaning voters helped deliver the election to Biden.

RVAT’s numbers tell a similar story. In Wisconsin counties where RVAT spent the most, it asserts, Trump underperformed Republican House candidates by seven points. In Pennsylvania counties where RVAT spent the most, it asserts, Trump underperformed Republican House candidates by five points. Again, those are decisive margins in such close states.

While RVAT focused only on the presidential contest, the Lincoln Project also tried to defeat Trump enablers in Senate races. Obviously, the Senate campaigns did not go as well — only two Republican incumbents have lost so far. The reasons vary from state to state, but one common theme is that moderate Democrats had trouble winning in red or purple areas when so many progressive activists were talking about defunding the police, socialism, Medicare-for-all, expanding the Supreme Court and banning fracking.

[betsuni]

1. K&R

[redstatebluegirl]

2. In a lot of ways they gave them permission to hate this guy and vote against him.

Love them or hate them, and I happen to like what they have done, they made a difference!

[Blue Owl]

3. K&R

[Zambero]

4. If anything

The LP made a clear distinction between conservatives who put their country first and the neo-fascists who had effectively taken over the Republican party. And yes, I believe it made a difference in the election result.

[Budi]

5. K & R ..so much for the howls of "they're only in it for the money!"

Actually Rick Wilson's warning of Trump, in his book "Everything Trump Touches, Dies" was published back in 2018. He began writing the draft prior to that year.

So yes, The Lincoln Project's agenda was to warn & inform early on.

Kudos to their success.

Thanks

[DinahMoeHum]

6. There's no going back to the GOP for the LP people. . .

The LP folks burnt their bridges way back.

And they've mentioned that they were not only against Trump, but Trumpism. That means they'll be there to take on the GOP Senators up for re-election in the 2022 and 2024 cycles (and in between).

[Budi]

7. They stated just that on the Cnn interview.

That they realize they'll never be welcomed back to the Trump RW Republican Party.

And nor do they want to. ~

[theaocp]

27. Did they join the Democratic Party? n/t

[Spazito]

29. LOL...

Are you saying the only people that can work to support Democrats and the Democratic Party are registered Democrats? Really?

[theaocp]

30. No, I fail to see the downside

And I may have missed it.

[Spazito]

32. To put it bluntly there are not enough registered Democrats...

to win elections which is why Independents are courted by both parties. Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face really isn't beneficial.

"Overall, 34% of registered voters identify as independents, 33% as Democrats and 29% as Republicans. The share of voters identifying as Republicans is now the same as it was in 2016, after having ticked down in 2017; Democratic identification is unchanged. Slightly fewer voters identify as independents than in 2017 (34% vs. 37%)."

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/02/in-changing-u-s-electorate-race-and-education-remain-stark-dividing-lines/

[Budi]

31. Thank you. Why would they have to? They moved enough Repubs to vote against Trump

They threw down the gauntlet to Extremism.

And we'd have Trump for 4 more years without their help & the amazing assist from all around the country.

& a Thank You to our longtime ally Rep Clyburn as well.

[joshcryer]

40. They have their niche. And it's 100% useful to us.

The left will never accept them because they're tainted. The right will never accept them because they're damaging. They are going to be this middling NGO that just helps good people. They may over time recooperate the Republican party but it's highly unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. The Republican party is simply too corrupt.

[BeyondGeography]

8. No doubt about it

Trump underperformed the Republican Party in battleground states. That’s all the proof you need.

[Submariner]

9. Any chance the Lincoln Project or Bloomberg

will be funding the Georgia senate races and/or run ads for the Democratic Party, or were they just Trump focused?

[Budi]

10. Yes. TLP has said this week they will see us in Georgia!

Link to tweet

[Budi]

11. Interesting as to How they did it:

How they did it:

Link to tweet

[betsuni]

25. +1

[Owl]

44. +2

[aidbo]

12. The Lincoln Project successfully divorced Trump from the Republican Party.

In doing so they saved the Republican Party from being held accountable for Trump.

We got a Democratic president yes, but with not much coattails to speak of and lost all the momentum of the Blue Wave of 2018.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am elated that Trump is gone, but I feel that we could have played our political cards better by tying down ballot republicans to Trumpism. Or by labeling them as Trump enablers. Now centrist party members are trying to blame progressive party members for the poor showing down ballot. When the decision was the Biden campaign’s to elevate and promote the idea of ‘good’ republicans by having the likes of John Kasich(!) at our party convention.

Claire McCaskill and James Clyburn can complain about down ballot dems being tied to AOC and ‘Defund the Police’. But why did we not tie the down ballot republicans to Trump, or Stephen Miller, or family separation at the border, or any other number of vile things that the Republicans aided and abetted Trump in doing?

[Spazito]

13. Actually, no, they did not save the repub party...

from being tied to trump, one only has to take note of how many repubs are NOT speaking out against him to see your analysis is wrong.

As to the rest of your post, well, I hope you will soon begin to realize how this kind of crap enables the right and does nothing to address the real issues in front of everyone.

[aidbo]

16. They aren't speaking out against trump and trying to distance themselves from him..

..because they don’t need to. We and the Lincoln Project did it for them.

The right is enabled by never having any kind of unified push back against it. Kasich is an anti choice Republican who helped pave the way for Trumpism and yet we had him at our Democratic convention thereby legitimizing him and the Republican Party?

[Spazito]

17. Geez, give it a break...

The Dems won a historic elections and, believe it or not, some repubs voted for them too. Purity tests in politics fail each and every time.

[aidbo]

19. Sure let's just go back to brunch, I'm sure everything will be fine now that Trump is gone...

[Spazito]

21. It's certainly a hell of a lot better, is it not?

I know there are those who want to downplay the positives of this election but they are a very tiny minority thank goodness.

[JI7]

38. Three ones who wasn't too downplay the wins are the ones who have been upset

since the primary when Biden took what they thought was someone else's.

[George II]

14. Actually they divorced themselves from the republican party. They've already stated....

...that they left the party on their own and will never go back.

Based on the overall election results, there wasn't going to be much of a coattail effect at all, if any.

As of now we've flipped three House seats and republicans have picked up nine seats (all in red districts that were previously lost to Democrats recently) With all the seats we flipped in 2018, there weren't many remaining to be flipped.

That "defund the police" did indeed cost us votes - maybe not enough to lose many seats but that had an effect on the electorate. And from what I saw throughout the campaign, Democratic campaigns also tied republicans to trump, separation at the border, pandemic cases and deaths, loss of jobs, trump enablers, etc.

I'm not going to sit here and dwell on what negative things happened in this election, but concentrate on the overwhelming number of positive things that happened.

[aidbo]

18. And you believe them.

Based on the overall election results, there wasn't going to be much of a coattail effect at all, if any.

I was told that coattails was the reason we couldn’t choose someone like Bernie Sanders in the primary, but now we were never going to have any coattails anyway so it doesn’t matter?

We lost seats in the house, the best we can hope for in the senate is a tie (I hope) and we have lost the Supreme Court for generations and we aren’t going to do anything about it. But at least the Bad Orange Man is gone.

I’m happy trump is out and that we still have a (bare) majority in the house, but I reject any assertion that the left in our party had anything to do with poor showing down ballot when everyone who ran on M4All won their race. And when progressive priorities ($15 min. wage, felon voting) pass in a red state like Florida, but people running in our party run away from those popular positions rather than embrace and fight for them.

We have been given a mandate by young and progressive voters to pursue their priorities so we should. Green new deal, root out voter suppression, universal health care (not universal health insurance), and we need to do something about the courts (pack em!).

Or we could just go back to brunch.

[George II]

20. Yes, I believe them. I don't go through life questions the motives of everyone I come across.

Moving on, have you ever heard of reverse coattails? Remember, for the most part a candidate's coattails apply to winning candidates.

[LanternWaste]

26. You certainly made a large number of presumptions unsupported by evidence

I get it... my disagreement with your positions gets me sentenced to this melodramatic brunch as well.

How disappointing, as I ate a large breakfast.

Check, please!

[betsuni]

28. Maybe brunch is a centrist coastal elite thing?

Brunch as an insult, never seen that one before.

[JI7]

39. Is brunch the new "oligarch" and "status quo" ?

[betsuni]

41. Brunch is the new canapes.

"You have some of the wealthiest members of the political establishment hiding behind closed doors -- with their canapes -- plotting how to defeat our political revolution."

[Gothmog]

45. You are wrong

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

49. Two cheers for the Never Trump conservatives

Link to tweet

The shameful complicity of Republican leaders in President Trump’s torrent of deceit about our election tells us there is little hope for a more reasonable post-Trump GOP. But what about conservatism as a philosophy? Is it equally discredited?

Let’s begin by just saying it: The country owes the Never Trump conservatives a debt.

Yes, many progressives have been uneasy with these unusual allies. They insist that Trump was not some alien imposition on conservatism but rather the product of long-standing trends in Republican politics. Trafficking in racial division and racism, nativism, extremism, conspiracy theories and voter suppression did not start with Trump.

Progressives are entirely right about this. But the Never Trumpers deserve our respect precisely because so many of them stood against these tendencies and, in more cases than not, undertook a deeper critique of their own side......

Of course, I’d like the anti-Trump conservatives to admit the error of their ways and fully join my side of politics. But failing that, I still appreciate what they did. And I hope at least they can now champion a brand of conservatism that is about more than making the rich richer and the powerful more powerful.

[OnDoutside]

43. To back up what you said,

Charlie Dent talks about the influence Defund the Police and Fracking had in Pa

[Cha]

33. No TLP did Not.. you're Wrong, aidbo..

The Lincoln Party has been an immense HELP in our Democracy.. and now they're helping in Georgia.

[Cha]

15. We knew It! Of course the did.. TY for verification

Goth!

[Gothmog]

50. Thank you Cha

[AmericanCanuck]

22. Extremely grateful to The Lincoln Project

[Cha]

23. Bookmarked! & TY TLP!!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

34. TLP recognized the toxic nature of trump's party and went all out to get voters to see it, too.

[mcar]

35. This is good news

I posted a Charlie Pierce blog post shortly after the election that claimed differently. He's one of my favorite political writers, but I'm happy to know he was wrong.

[Gothmog]

36. The Lincoln Project was very successful

Link to tweet

[Cha]

46. Rt.. that's a Lot.. "10-12%".. the difference betwween

defeat and Victory.

The Navajo Nation & Latinos helped in Arizona, too..adn POL in Atlanta!

Thank you, Goth!

[radius777]

37. The lesson to take from TLP was their toughness

and clarity of messaging. They didn't really put forth an ideological stance (in terms of liberal vs conservative) per se, but went about attacking the ugliness and undemocratic core that animates the modern GOP.

They fought hard, didn't mince words etc - and we need to allow our side to message like that without getting scared - as what Americans like most of all is a fighter.

[OnDoutside]

42. There's no doubt that most of TLP were hoping that they could get rid of Trump and that there would

be a total repudiation of Trumpism within the Republican Party. I think it was fair to say that while they were delighted Trump was beaten, they were genuinely stunned by the increased Republican vote. I think that alone has resulted in Tara Setmayer to officially announce she has left the Republican Party.

Am watching LPTV - The Breakdown, at the moment, and Charlie Dent is still the old school Republican, who is probably the only one who is still in the GOP. Actually, it is worth a listen to what he said about the Philly vote and the influence of "Defund the Police" and Fracking had.

[Hekate]

47. KnR. There's a couple of those guys I really would like to have a beer with...

And that’s certainly something I never said before!

[brer cat]

48. K&R