The only thing holding the GOP back is the GOP

Jeff Landry’s surprisingly easy victory over the weekend in Louisiana is part of a global trend moving generally in the direction of conservative governance.

In New Zealand, voters punished the ruling Labor Party and handed over the reins of power to a coalition of nationalist and libertarian political parties. Inflation and lingering anger at the COVID-19 shutdowns were the main drivers of voter angst. 

Two weeks ago, in Slovakia, the conservative populist party, Smer, beat the progressive party.

Earlier this year, in Paraguay, conservative economist Santiago Pena, 44, easily won the country’s presidential election, while conservatives won a majority in Finland.

We will know a lot more about the relative health of the two political parties in the United States after the November elections in Virginia. One of the reasons that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) decided to keep the government open was because a government shutdown would have hurt the GOP’s efforts to recapture the legislature in Richmond. 

But if you look at all the polls and Joe Biden’s approval ratings, it is clear that the voters don’t want to keep going down the path laid out by our octogenarian president. According to an NBC news poll taken three weeks ago, voters trust Republicans over the Democrats by wide margins on issues like border security, crime, the economy and immigration, which also happen to be the issues that voters most care about.

Despite all of his obvious flaws, former President Donald Trump is either tied or has an advantage over Mr. Biden in most national polls. And in critical swing states, like in Pennsylvania, he has a substantial lead. 

The current president’s age is causing substantial concern with the average voter. Bidenomics, thus dubbed by Team Biden, has actually soured the voters on the economy and has become albatross around the president’s neck. The world in on fire politically and few trust the president to be able to control international events. In other words, Republicans are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the 2024 election.

There are two things that can screw things up for the GOP. One is inconsistent and unpopular messaging on abortion policy. Republicans are still all over the place on the issue. Some want a six-week ban, while some would settle for 20 weeks. Some want to leave it to the states, while others want a national policy. A few want to take on the morning after pill. According to the polls, though, abortion is a political loser in the post-Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization world and it had a substantial impact on 2022 election. Even President Trump, who conservatives credit for gutting Roe v. Wade, has been warning all who will listen that as an issue, abortion is hurting the Republican Party. 

The second thing is if the Republicans prove incapable of getting their act together in the House of Representatives. The sacking of Kevin McCarthy was unnecessary and an unforced error. He was the most popular congressional leader according to the polls and he had done a decent job of proving that Republicans could reach honorable compromises that stopped the excesses of the Biden administration while keeping the government mostly functioning.

Their inability to select a replacement (which hopefully will end later today) only confirms the folly of the exercise. The voters didn’t give Republicans nominal control of the House while keeping the Senate in Democratic hands so that they could impose a “my way or the highway” approach to governance. If the voters wanted to do that, they would have given McCarthy a much bigger majority while giving the GOP control of the Senate. 

What the voters wanted was divided government. What they are getting is a divided Republican Party. That divided party better get its act together soon or it will lose a historic opportunity to win and chart a better path for the country in 2024.

Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).