Republican debate: Republicans crave debate about the economy, not Trump or 2020
Tiana Lowe Doescher
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Nearly a year after former President Donald Trump announced his third bid for the White House, the Republican presidential bid has begun in earnest with the first primary debate on Wednesday — but without the protesting former president. While Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the national polling, it turns out Republican voters don’t want to hear much during the debate about the elephant (not) in the room.
The overwhelming majority of Republican voters polled by Morning Consult, including 4 in 5 Trump and non-Trump supporters alike, said it is “very important” for the candidates to discuss the economy during the debate. Government spending and taxes came in second place of importance, with nearly 3 in 4 Trump supporters and non-Trump supporters agreeing discussion of the topic is “very important.”
DEBATE: WITH FRONT-RUNNER TRUMP OUT, WILL GOP VOTERS TUNE IN?
The average voter has enough common sense to connect the causation between a 40% increase in the money supply to finance the pandemic-era spending bonanza with the 16% increase in prices since President Joe Biden took office. Whereas the pain of the Great Recession was concentrated on the minority who lost their jobs or ruinous amounts in the market crash, the worst inflationary crisis in 40 years has hit everyone — but the middle class the most. Every election is about the economy to an extent, but in this one, it is the story that sucks the air out of the room. It sucks the value out of our paychecks and savings, a crisis when the “do nothing” solution to Social Security, something endorsed by Trump, means a 23% across-the-board benefit cut come 2033.
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Thus, it is not surprising that Republicans are uninterested in Trump’s favorite topic: himself. Only 1 in 3 Republican voters consider Trump a “very important” topic for candidates to discuss, and that includes 2 in 5 Trump supporters! Expand the topic to “election integrity,” which could very well mean relitigating the 2020 election for those still hung up on the matter, and still only half the party deems the topic very important for discussion. (Unsurprisingly, the majority of non-Trump-supporting Republicans do not consider it very important.)
As a matter of strategy, Republicans should focus on the core question of who can beat Biden to pursue the bottom line of these issues, and that includes differentiating oneself from the dump truck’s worth of baggage weighing down Trump. But candidates who choose to fall into the Trump trap of obsessing over Don instead of the dollar and Uncle Sam’s balance sheet do so at their electoral peril.