The Mid-Terms According to Newt
He knows a thing or two because he's seen a thing or two
Republicans must learn to talk about a New American Majority – not a Republican majority. The current crises of the American system, and the Big Government Socialist-Woke Left assault on American values, require big solutions with broad support.
Newt Gingrich
Voter frustration with President Biden and Democrats is building a political tsunami, according to Newt Gingrich. “If we’re right, then the scale of the defeat may resemble 1920.” That’s when Republicans won 10 Senate seats, 63 House seats, and the presidency (Harding, with 404 electoral votes). Take him seriously, because he authored the “Contract with America” that wrested Congress from Democrats in 1994.
Gingrich gave his take on the mid-terms to Newsweek and the Washington Examiner. He said there is a “consensus” the GOP will retake the House and “confusion” about the Senate, where Democrats are “hopeful” and Republicans are “handwringing.” He blames that on the habit of seeing control of the House and Senate as a “series of small elections.”
Gingrich is bullish because of his research for a new white paper (“New American Majority”) and work with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to build a coalition of Republicans, Independents and Democrats, who are frustrated by partisan politics. “They want a movement dedicated to practical, workable solutions that will improve their lives.” Already, both parties acknowledge crossover voters are accruing to the GOP.
Gingrich cites six Democrat-made problems eating at the electorate that need common-sense solutions:
Inflation (9.1%) that’s far worse than under President Trump (1.4%)
Petrol prices that have doubled since Trump left office.
Rising murder, rape, and robbery rates
Taxpayer-funded benefits for millions of illegal immigrants
Labor and supply chain disruptions worsened by Democrat management
Unpopular cultural policies enforced by federal bureaucrats
If GOP candidates present these “big problems” as the result of the 2018 and 2020 elections, then their local races become “big nationalized races.” In the examples of 1980, 1996, and 2010, Gingrich finds two big lessons: “Political tsunamis occur late and build momentum rapidly. Campaigns designed [as] big race choices ride the crest of the tsunami.”
In 1980, Ronald Reagan hosted an event with a contract and almost every Republican senate candidate. This nationalized individual races and doomed 12 incumbent Senate Democrats. Reagan won the largest Electoral College landslide against an incumbent president in U.S. history, and his team effort led to GOP control of the Senate for the first time since 1954. What came next was the Reagan Revolution.
Prior to the 1994 mid-term elections, Democrats held a 74-seat House majority and 12-seat Senate majority. Gingrich authored the “Contract with America” to nationalize the election, and humbled Democrats to House (-24) and Senate (-4) minorities. What came next was Clinton’s famous Pivot to Center and six good years for most of America.
Those were base-broadening elections that happened again in 2010 with the Tea Party Revolution. All three were successful because leaders rejected the base-mobilization strategies recommended by political consultants. This is why Gingrich is so bullish, predicting a “sizable pickup in House seats, between 25 and 70.”
Democrats are trying to mobilize their base by running against former president Trump; televising the January 6 hearings, voting in primaries for Trump-backed candidates, and using Trump memes. To wit, the Democrat (loser) in Virginia’s gubernatorial election used “Trumpkin” to demonize the Republican (winner), and President Biden uses “ultra-MAGA Republican” to smear anyone opposed to his policies.
In contrast, the Gingrich white paper advises Republicans to avoid “small race” campaigns and run “big race” campaigns against Biden and his failures. That’s his advice to the new and different candidates for Senate; Dr. Mehmet Oz (PA), Herschel Walker (GA), J.D. Vance (OH), Blake Masters (AZ) and Eric Greitens (MO). Gingrich uses Georgia to explain the big-race-campaign advantage.
Walker faces incumbent Ralph Warnock, an “extraordinarily well-funded, professional preacher” who wants to run a small race campaign. That would make Walker “fight over trivia” and allow liberal media to cover for Warnock.
He’s right, because Thursday, as Walker spoke in rural Georgia about gas prices, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter asked, “You think people aren’t concerned about abortion?” Out of the blue and probably for Atlanta eyes, so Walker answered, “Well, I didn’t say that. People here are concerned about gas, groceries, baby formula, and crime.” Bam! Mr. Walker understands the big-race-campaign playbook (for the record, Walker supports abortion up to the second trimester).
His response (“I did not say that”) tactfully exposed liberal media bias that fires up the GOP base AND tied Warnock to Biden’s failures which Gingrich says forces the incumbent to defend “inflation, gas prices, crime, and radical social values that are infuriating Georgians. In a big race campaign, Walker will win by an amazing margin.”
Of course, Gingrich is a frequent guest on Fox News and (still) on good terms with Trump. So what? That makes him a hard-right Republican and ABD (Anyone But a Democrat) conservative.
He is also a historian and political scientist, who surprised the experts in 1994 by leading the big-race-campaign that did what the GOP had not done since 1949: control both chambers of Congress. Read his white paper: it will probably make a believer out of you.