On paper, the mid-midterm elections yesterday should have produced bountiful results for Republicans. A Democrat president has proven very unpopular; Joe Biden is now plumbing the 30s on overall job approval and even lower on some issues. The impacts of sustained inflation at rates not seen in 40 years have pounded American households. A paroxysm of anti-Semitism on the hard Left has split Democrats and made at least a few of them look like terror sympathizers. The crisis on the southern border has now become a top issue in blue states as well as red.

The table could not possibly have been set better for the GOP. And yet, they largely flopped, even in red states like Ohio and Kentucky. The only clear wins they got came in Mississippi, where Republicans swept the constitutional offices, but that’s in a state where a Democrat win in one of those elections would have made national headlines.

Earlier this morning, Jazz attributed it to “one word,” in a smart, must-read post: Abortion. Clearly that played a role, explicitly in Ohio and close to explicitly in Virginia, too, which was Jazz’ focus. It has become clear that the GOP still cannot campaign effectively on the issue, not without giving Democrats tons of ammunition by which to drive their base to turn out. Ben Shapiro made a good point this morning after Jazz’ post went up:

With that said, Republican messaging on abortion on a state-by-state level is going to have to change. Being pragmatic about political reality does not mean abandoning the good and true. Achieving more pro-life wins requires, you know, winning.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 8, 2023

Indeed — and keep that last point in mind, because we will return to it.

But abortion doesn’t explain everything that happened last night. In Kentucky, a reliably red state for presidential elections, incumbent Democrat governor Andy Beshear unexpectedly sailed to an easy re-election over Republican AG Daniel Cameron, by five points. Four years ago, Beshear barely edged out Matt Bevin in a relatively good national political environment, 49.2/48.8. Granted, Beshear has a strong family name in Kentucky politics and has managed to govern as a moderate Democrat, but in the current environment, Republicans should have beaten him. And abortion wasn’t a top issue in the campaign in Kentucky, either.

Something else was, however. Or rather, someone else was. Late in the evening, when the scope of disappointment became clear, Dan O’Donnell offered an eight-point analysis of the failures. He cited both abortion and marijuana (the other issue on the Ohio ballot), but a larger problem that motivates and unites Democrats even more:

3. That problem, as much as many don’t want to admit it, is largely in voter hatred of Donald Trump as the larger-than-life standard-bearer of the Republican Party. Beshear tied Daniel Cameron to him often and it worked. …

5. This continues a trend of Democrat over-performance from pretty much every special election this year. The liberal won by 11 points in a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, where vote margins are normally razor-thin, and according to analysis by the New York Times have outperformed expected vote totals by an average of 11 points in each race.

7. How is this possible when Joe Biden is polling at historically low levels? Biden himself is seen as senile and incompetent, but his Democratic Party is still generally preferable to Trump’s Republican Party.

8. On issues like abortion and marijuana, Republicans are not with the majority of Americans, and as a result voters are rejecting them. Add to that the general dislike of Trump, and it has all the makings of a bona fide disaster for Republicans next year.

For evidence of this, we can go all the way back to 2018, when the current Republican losing streak started. At that time, Trump was wildly popular with his base but deeply unpopular everywhere else. The midterm losses were not historically large, and perhaps even somewhat limited given the Russia-collusion hysteria whipped up by the Democrats.

But the losses continued in 2019 elections, including in Kentucky where a Trump ally contended for the governor’s office. They continued in 2020, resulting in the loss of Senate control as well as the presidency, although Trump’s allies insisted the elections were illegitimate. All of that took place before the Supreme Court even agreed to hear the Dobbs case and reverse Roe and Casey.

The specter of Dobbs and abortion clearly overshadowed the 2022 midterms, but then again, so did the specter of Trump and the January 6 riot. Trump-endorsed candidates that campaigned on the 2020 election lost winnable Senate races. If it hadn’t been for a revolt against Bidenomics in New York, of all states, Republicans would have fallen short of control of the House in 2022’s midterms as well. The only place where a midterm red wave materialized was in Florida, even with DeSantis backing a heartbeat-based abortion bill.

And now we have last night’s results to add to the list of disappointments. Given the turmoil within the Democrat Party, this might be the most surprising of them yet. Abortion certainly contributed to their unity of purpose yesterday, but so did their use of Trump and the “ultra-MAGA” betes noires they used effectively in 2020, 2022, and will certainly exploit in 2024 if given the chance. Even with polls that say Biden’s losing to Trump, which raises big question about just how predictive those polls will be, those attacks were very effective. Biden’s voters came home with a vengeance last night.

And that was in Ohio and Kentucky, two reliably red states in presidential elections. What do you suppose will happen in Pennsylvania? Michigan? Wisconsin? Georgia?

All of this points to a fundamental disconnect in the GOP about their brand. They see the Trump/MAGA brand as a useful attack on the establishment and the status quo, which it certainly was … until COVID-19 and January 6. The Trump administration largely caved to the ‘establishment’ on COVID-19, which negated that part of the brand. The January 6 riot painted the MAGA movement as a violent and despotic faction, an image that Trump supporters reject but Democrats and some independents internalized to a depth to which Republicans still have not come to grips with.

Those factional politics keep getting played out over and over again as well. Republican candidates in the 2022 election in key states kept refighting the 2020 election rather than focus on the future. Even as late as last month, the same battle erupted in the House Speaker meltdown. Eight Trump allies deposed their own leadership in an attempt to impose their will over 200-plus House Republicans, leading to an unprecedented three-week disruption. That did nothing but prove the point Democrats now routinely make on the campaign trail about the scariness of “ultra-MAGA Republicans,” and routinely succeed with that messaging, too … as last night demonstrated again.

In this environment, the impact of abortion goes beyond the policy disputes. It’s a signifier for Republican ‘extremism.’ It’s that argument that won in Kentucky, even without abortion policy in the mix. As long as Republicans refuse to grasp the damage that January 6 and the hardball tactics do to their ‘brand,’ they will continue to see voters go to Democrats, even with Biden and Harris as the incompetent leaders of that option.

Does that make the policy agenda of the GOP and even its populist wing unachievable? Not at all. Ron DeSantis proved that in Florida last year by campaigning on the agenda but without the branding, and winning a historic 19-point landslide. Abortion was explicitly part of that campaign too, but the Florida GOP easily overcame it. But as long as the party keeps Trump and the MAGA brand at the forefront of its campaigns, and especially keep choosing candidates who insist on fighting the battles of 2020 all over again, they will continue to help Democrats turn out in elections.

Do I expect this to suddenly end support for Trump? Not at all. Politics are largely emotional, not rational, and a large number of voters have an understandable and strong emotional bond with Trump, especially given some of the persecution he’s experienced. But at some point, Ben’s point will become acute: do Republican voters want to advance their agenda? If they do, they have to start winning elections again, and winning elections requires convincing voters to put their trust in you. And that means changing the brand enough from 2018-2023 to give voters some reason to consider that an option.