Hardly Reassuring

Speaker Mike Johnson is in a bind. His party’s sacrifice of former representative George Santos’s seat in last night’s special election not only truncates the GOP’s already paper-thin House majority, it further confirms that Democrats can rely on a dedicated base of high-propensity voters — a contingent that used to favor Republicans. That’s depressing, and Johnson has to buck up his deflated conference. But the way in which he chose to do that was not at all convincing:

None of this is especially reassuring if you devote any thought to their implications.

If Democratic candidates can easily triangulate on the issue of the border crisis that Joe Biden’s policies incepted only by talking tough, what does that say for a Republican strategy designed to leverage the border crisis into November? Perhaps Biden’s fellow Democrats can seek distance from the president on that issue — Democrats still allow their members to run campaigns tailored to their districts, even at the expense of the president’s ego — but Biden himself will be unable to run away from his own record. Maybe. But if Johnson is right, that bodes ill for the GOP’s tenuous House majority, their senatorial candidates, and the party’s prospects at the state level.

If Johnson is attributing the Democrats’ victory to the resources they committed to this race, that’s also not especially comforting because the GOP will not be able to match that performance. At the end of November of last year, the Republican National Committee had just under $10 million on hand — less than half what their Democratic counterparts had in the bank. In 2023, the GOP’s governing committee’s fundraising haul was the lowest in ten years, but the committee still took in tens of millions of dollars. But so much of that was funneled into Donald Trump’s efforts to fund his legal-defense expenses, and that is unlikely to change. In an interview with Newsmax, Trump’s daughter-in-law, who is also his handpicked candidate to serve as the next deputy chair of the RNC, promised to create the “leanest” political operation possible so as to devote “every single penny” to the committee’s “one and only job,” “electing Donald J. Trump.” Omens, auguries, and portents dire.

Lastly, the idea that a snowstorm that abated by the early afternoon in Queens and Nassau County boosted the Democratic candidate’s vote totals is unlikely. Yes, Election Day turnout favors Republicans, but Republicans have suffered unduly from Donald Trump’s unfounded hostility toward early voting. What’s more, Republicans — forgive the expression — plowed resources into the effort to neutralize the weather as a deficit. “The Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, hired its own snow plows to clear the streets and make it easier to drive to the polls,” Politico reported. “They’re plowing around key Republican precinct areas,” said one Fund spokesperson. “Good illustration of how far we’re going to help with turnout today to win!” Democrats did not invest in snow plows, but their candidate nevertheless outperformed in the polling on Tuesday night.

Johnson has to make do with what he’s got, but his unconvincing spin confirms that he hasn’t got a lot.