Elections are unfair for the GOP because both Democrats and Republicans do their best to make sure Republicans lose important races.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, is currently embroiled in a controversy involving things he allegedly said on the message board of a pornographic website, including allegedly calling himself a “black NAZI.” The account on the website listed an email address known to belong to Robinson that had also been registered on Ashley Madison, a website for married people seeking to cheat on their spouses.
Robinson has denied all of this, and his campaign suggested the email was compromised in data breaches.
Robinson’s big problem is that, even if this is completely false and nothing more than an unfortunate example of the importance of protecting your digital security, his reputation makes it likely these accusations will stick. That is because Robinson already has a public history of antisemitic comments on his social media, which Seth Mandel described as “a conspiracy-addled rabbit hole of paranoia, a blackout cocktail of crazy statements about Jews, women, abortion, Muslims, Communism, Communism, and Communism.”
The reality is that, even if this is nothing more than a liberal media hit job, Robinson was a poor candidate with visible red flags even before he was nominated. He hasn’t led in a poll against his Democratic opponent since the end of May. He is currently trailing by 9.4% in the RealClearPolitics polling average in what is supposed to be a competitive swing state with a GOP tilt.
This is the problem Republicans have in major races. GOP primary voters continuously offer up weak candidates that make life easy for Democrats and make elections harder for Republicans down the ballot. The difference in quality between 2022 governor candidates Doug Mastriano, the election truther who lost swing state Pennsylvania by 15 points, and Lee Zeldin, the savvy but otherwise generic Republican who lost in Democratic stronghold New York by six and a half points, showcased how the top candidate on the ticket can help or hurt Republicans in House races.
Meanwhile, GOP primary voters in Arizona nominated Kari Lake to run for the Senate after Lake blew the governor’s race in 2020 and made herself toxic by claiming she won. Lake is currently losing to her Democratic opponent by 4.3 points in the RealClearPolitics average and hasn’t led a poll since January.
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And then there is former President Donald Trump, who is making the 2024 presidential election harder than it needs to be for Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris would have been rolled in a debate with a competent Republican, given that she had to recite scripted answers and ignore the questions asked by the moderators. Instead, Trump allowed himself to get baited into dumb arguments, couldn’t articulate just how abysmal Harris’s record is, couldn’t effectively fight off ABC News’s biased moderators, and has allowed Harris to stay close in a race Democrats have no business winning based on their chosen candidate and President Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure.
Elections are hard enough for the GOP without nominating terrible candidates who waste resources that can be used elsewhere. At some point, GOP voters need to prioritize candidates who can win over voters and win elections rather than daring independent and swing voters to choose Democrats by nominating weak, unpopular, scandal-ridden Republicans.