In the immediate aftermath of the midterm elections, Washington Post conservative columnist Ed Rogers declared victory for the GOP.
“Democrats won the House, but Trump won the election,” Rogers declared on election night.
“Some of what you write doesn’t age well,” he now says. “My post on election night said that Democrats won the House, but Trump won the election. I need to walk that back. As the days have gone by, the election results have gotten worse for Republicans, and the analysis of what went wrong includes many bad omens for the GOP in 2020.”
Rogers said that he’s been talking to GOP campaign staffers and looking deeper at the numbers. Republican campaign pros are terrified, he says.
“Why did we have 43 retirements this year? Trump. Why did Democrats raise so much money? Trump. Why doesn’t anyone with a college degree want to vote for us? Trump,” one campaign operative told him.
Rogers says that suburbanites defecting from the party are a serious issue, and that it could actually worsen for his party.
“If the Democrats don’t act crazy for the next two years, many traditional Republican voters may feel more confident in supporting Democrats in 2020,” he writes. “[Trump’s] negatives and the energy that he provides to the Democrats could alter some of the laws of political physics.”
Read the full column here.