The last day of the old GOP order
Byron York
THE LAST DAY OF THE OLD GOP ORDER. This day eight years ago, July 13, 2015, marked the last day that old-style Republican politics dominated the GOP presidential race. The day saw Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and third Bush to run for the Republican nomination, firmly in the lead in a highly fractured GOP field, with 17.8% of the national vote in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. That was 8 points ahead of Wisconsin’s then-Gov. Scott Walker and 8.5 points ahead of a candidate who had never run for office before, Donald Trump.
A week later, on July 20, 2015, everything had changed. Trump shot from being 8.5 points back to 3 points ahead of Bush. By the end of August, that lead was more than 20 points. Trump led the race the entire way after that, with the exception of a minute or two in November 2015, when rival Ben Carson briefly took a lead of 0.2 percentage points.
Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
Trump had declared his candidacy, famously coming down the escalator, on June 16. That started a slow rise in his poll ratings, which was followed by a fast rise in his poll ratings. Trump’s rapid ascent was attributable to his brash, entertaining style, his unprecedented ability to take control of a news cycle, and his willingness to speak frankly about one particular issue, immigration, that many Republican voters felt strongly about.
This is from a Washington Post article on July 20, 2015, headlined, “Trump surges to big lead in GOP presidential race.” In the piece, reporter Dan Balz noted that “Trump has dominated campaign news since he announced his candidacy. His comments about illegal immigrants have drawn strong responses, pro and con. … Through nonstop media interviews and some high-profile appearances, including a big rally in Phoenix on July 11, he has drowned out his opponents.”
Balz added that Trump’s rivals had been “tentative in taking issue with his immigration comments.” But they saw an opportunity and pounced when Trump famously counterattacked then-Sen. John McCain. It didn’t work. “Trump has struck a chord with at least a part of the Republican electorate,” Balz wrote, although it was not clear at that time just how big a part of the GOP electorate would come to support Trump.
In any event, this day eight years ago was the last day when a Reagan-Bush era Republican was measurably at the top of a Republican presidential contest. Now, another race is underway, with a renewed battle between Trump and old-style Republicanism — representatives of what might be called the Reagan-Bush-Romney-Ryan era GOP. The aftereffects of the change that took place in June and July of 2015 are still roiling Republican presidential politics.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on Radio America and the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found.