Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Brutal red-state losses are raising alarm among Republicans about the 2028 presidential battlefield.<\/p>\n
Democrats\u2019 midterm blowout is upending the political calculus for future presidential campaigns, more than a dozen strategists on both sides told POLITICO. Republicans are stressing the ramifications of a major tranche of once-reliably Republican Electoral College votes being in jeopardy, while Democrats are weighing how much surprise wins on red turf should reshape their electoral strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast night undoubtedly made the mechanics of winning in 2028 harder for Republicans,\u201d said former Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Stepien lamented that Republicans had lost both once-swing Midwestern states like Ohio that Trump had brought toward the GOP, as well as formerly red Sunbelt states like Georgia and Arizona that have moved steadily left in the Trump era.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Texas.<\/p>\n
“Waging a campaign for president in Texas is big, expensive, and not something Republicans have had to do for a long time,\u201d he added. \u201cThe impacts of last night are real.”<\/p>\n
Trump had rearranged the electoral map for the past 12 years with a blue-collar coalition that moved Ohio and Iowa safely into Republicans\u2019 ledger, turned Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania into true swing states and did enough in the Sun Belt to keep Texas from being in play. But that all fell apart this week as Democrats romped across the map. If things don\u2019t change fast after Tuesday\u2019s results, Republicans fear that the party\u2019s next nominee will confront a bleak map akin to 2008 or 2012, when the GOP had an excruciatingly narrow path to victory.<\/p>\n
Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, compared this year\u2019s GOP gutting to Republicans\u2019 2006 midterm shellacking, which foreshadowed Democrats taking the White House and building massive majorities two years later.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Republicans] didn\u2019t bottom in 2006, you bottomed after 2008,\u201d said Short.<\/p>\n
Democrats know that recreating their historically large estimated 14-point national popular vote blowout<\/a> isn\u2019t likely in the 2028 presidential election, and that Trump\u2019s historic unpopularity was a major factor in the midterms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not fait accompli that any of those voters that came over will stay with us, in the same way that they didn’t stay with Donald Trump after this last cycle, or they didn’t stay with Joe Biden after 2020,\u201d said Dan Kanninen, former battleground states director for former Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 2024 campaign. But the electoral map suddenly looks a lot different to strategists than it did a few days ago.<\/p>\n “In this environment, every state eventually becomes a swing state,\u201d said Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist who advised Hakeem Jeffries this cycle.<\/p>\n Democrats’ Texas Triumph<\/p>\n Democrats are particularly excited about their breakthrough in Texas, which \u2014 like Arizona and Georgia before it \u2014 has been trending to the left for years, driven by demographic change and suburban voters\u2019 realignment. The state\u2019s rapid Hispanic growth meant the swing in Hispanic voters back toward Democrats pushed the state especially hard towards them this cycle. \u201cIf we weren’t already considering Texas a swing state in 2028, we are now,\u201d said Melissa Morales, the executive director of SOMOS PAC, a Latino voter engagement group.<\/p>\n Democrats swept Texas\u2019 statewide offices on Tuesday despite being massively outspent, with Sen.-elect James Talarico leading the way with a 12-point blowout victory.<\/p>\n