AMAC Exclusive
As Democrat lawmakers return home for the Easter recess and escape the beltway news bubble, major problems are already apparent for the party of big tech, big media, big corporations, and big government. The short-term issues amount to one of the least successful beginnings of any presidency in the modern era. But even worse for Democrats are the long-term indications: one of the Democrats’ top data scientists is predicting enduring Republican strength in the years ahead – and major setbacks for his own party.
First, the short-term issues: By any objective measure, President Biden has blundered through the first three months of his administration. His inauguration was accompanied by collapsing small business optimism and consumer sentiment, and his early actions did nothing to soothe economic concerns. He eliminated 42,000 jobs on day one by terminating the Keystone XL pipeline. He rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, which does nothing for the environment but will send millions of American jobs to China. Mr. Biden then finished January by siding with teachers’ unions over parents to keep America’s children out of school. In February, the Democrats failed to impeach President Trump for a second time, squandering any bipartisan goodwill that might have existed for the new president. The Biden administration then provoked a major humanitarian crisis on the southern border, which is getting worse by the day. Having dismantled the Trump administration’s proven border security measures, the Biden administration is now spending $86 million to put illegal migrants up in American hotels – even while Mr. Biden has imposed harsh travel restrictions on American citizens.
Biden has also returned to the failed foreign policy of the Obama administration. Within weeks, he gave away all the leverage President Trump had painstakingly accumulated against Iran, lifting sanctions in exchange for nothing. He adopted a notably cold posture toward one of America’s top allies, Israel. His negotiators were publicly mocked and humiliated by China on American soil at their recent summit in Anchorage, Alaska. To cap it all off, President Biden announced that he intends to impose the largest tax hike in over half a century in the middle of a pandemic-driven economic downturn.
A series of high-profile scandals have made the outlook even worse for Democrats. President Biden’s son is the subject of a federal investigation concerning money laundering and influence-peddling for hostile foreign powers. At the same time, the Democrat governors of two of the largest states in the union are engulfed in public relations crises of their own. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall petition for his wanton destruction of the state’s economy and way of life through excessive lockdowns even while he flouted COVID lockdowns himself. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing a federal investigation after forcing more than 9,000 COVID-infected nursing home residents into assisted living centers and then covering up the more than 15,000 deaths that followed. The New York State Assembly has also initiated an impeachment investigation over numerous allegations of sexual harassment.
After two months, the short-term problems for Democrats are showing no signs of letting up. But as one of the party’s brightest minds recently admitted, their long-term troubles may be even more serious. Top Democrat pollster David Shor sat down with New York Magazine to discuss the outlook for the 2022 House and Senate elections. Shor is by no means a moderate. He is an avowed socialist. But he is also a veteran campaign expert who, at age 20, created an election forecast model for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign that accurately predicted the results within less than 1 percentage point in every state. Shor currently works as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He had this to say about the future of the Democrat Party:
“[E]ven if we have an exceptionally good midterm, the most likely outcome is that we lose one or two Senate seats. And then, going into 2024, we have something like seven or eight Democrats who are in states that are more Republican than the country overall.”
Shor argues that Democrats’ only hope of success lies in radically transforming American democracy:
“Basically, we have this small window right now to pass redistricting reform and create states. And if we don’t use this window, we will almost certainly lose control of the federal government and not be in a position to pass laws again potentially for a decade. In terms of putting numbers on things, I think that if we implemented D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and passed redistricting reform, that would roughly triple our chance of holding the House in 2022 and roughly the same in the Senate.”
In short, Shor does not think that Democrats can win the 2022 election without rigging it.
It is no surprise that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have been frantically trying to ram through Congress a bill known as H.R. 1, the so-called “For the People Act.” The legislation is an 800-page monstrosity that would affect a leftist takeover of federal elections, usurp the constitutional powers of state legislatures, expand voter fraud opportunities, and put unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats in charge of drawing Congressional districts. Shor’s analysis also explains why Biden recently announced his support for reforming the filibuster to allow for passage of H.R. 1.
As for the future of President Trump and the GOP, Shor says:
“I think the Trump era has been very good for the Republican Party, even if they now, momentarily, have to accept this very, very, very thin Democratic trifecta. Because if these coalition changes are durable, the GOP has very rosy long-term prospects for dominating America’s federal institutions.”
These are statements that the Republican establishment and conservatives across the country would do well to listen to and consider. One of the Democrats’ top data scientists has concluded that President Trump set up the GOP for future success, expanded the Republican coalition, and left the Democrats’ hopes dependent on drastic changes to election law. If Republicans in Congress can hold the line against this sweeping radicalism, then 2022 may spell the end of total Democrat control in Washington D.C.