For a decade, President Donald Trump has held an iron grip on Republican politics. A Trump endorsement remains the likeliest way for a candidate to win a primary, and nominees who incur his wrath risk enraging the GOP’s base and depressing turnout on Election Day.
Nonetheless, Republican Senate nominees in key states are distancing themselves from the administration’s policies in their closing pitches. With the president’s approval rating sinking, it makes sense for candidates to back away. The sluggish economy and international crises dominating the headlines hardly make it seem like Trump’s second-term agenda is ushering in his promised “golden age.”
The most fundamental shift on display is a pivot away from a populist ideology to a more traditional conservatism. Campaigns are still running plenty of ads on culture-war issues and immigration, but the loudest Republican rallying cries are against socialism. The White House and many of the right-wing think tanks in the Washington establishment have spent years trying to move the GOP left on economic issues, but the candidates in the trenches are returning — at least rhetorically — to old Reaganite orthodoxies such as small government, free markets and low taxes.
Take Senate candidate Mike Rogers of Michigan. He recently released an ad calling for an end to the administration’s futile protectionism. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” he declares. “We need to end this tariff war now.” At the height of Trump’s powers, a Republican candidate breaking with his trade policies so decisively was almost unheard of. What Rogers understands, though, is that tariffs hurt far more Americans than they help, and it’s showing in the polls — especially in a state like Michigan, where exports fuel the economy. Rogers may not be willing to call Trump out by name, but the message is clear.
Read more in The Washington Post.
