Saw a Lincoln Project ad today and in the comments it was suggested by some random dude that the LP actually take the next step and form an actual honest-to-goodness third party. Since trump and trumpists now dominate the regular Republican party could a third-party aimed at traditional center-right folks get traction. I can see a lot of opportunities there to primary trumpists within the Republican party and, failing that, hitting them with a third party challenge in the fall. They could even, in some states, nominate the same candidate as the Republicans in the fashion of the old Conservative party in NY. What do people think?
I think they certainly have an opportunity here but I think they will be more dangerous to democrats than they will to republicans.
The extreme wing of republicans has that party in a death grip and show no signs of letting go. The more “moderate” republicans, the Eisenhower republicans, voted with the dems this time. But there are not enough of them to overthrow current Tea Party republicans. They’ll just split the ticket for the left.
I believe we discussed on here before that the Lincoln Party’s ads were almost always shown to liberals and were not being placed for republican voters to see.
I think they are hewing toward fence-sitters who don’t identify as Democrats but are struggling to hold their nose to vote Republican, or were just planning to sit the election out. But let’s not fool ourselves; 74 million people signed a ballot that had a vote for Donald Trump despite the fact that he literally accomplished nothing that he set out to do and has managed to make the United States a global laughing stock at best and a pariah at worst. That is 7 million more votes than any Republican candidate for the presidency has ever gotten before, and nearly 5 million more votes than Barack Obama got in 2012. A “Lincoln Party” without an equally popular leader just isn’t going to draw off enough votes to matter, and may even serve to draw away enough moderate votes from a more liberal Democratic contender (we can assume Kamala Harris but it would really be difficult to go more moderate than Joe Biden, and of all of the leading candidates in the primary field he was by far the most centrist) to actually hurt the DNC more than it would a GOP candidate.
With apologies to Aaron Sorkin, the Tea Party has truly become “The American Taliban”, and like the Taliban they inspire a dedicated base that recruits anyone in their orbit, with very little room for a middle ground. They have yet to literally behead anyone (although the day is figuratively young) but they have pursued and destroyed the chances of Republicans who dared to defy the establishment in any way. The recent attack on the reputation of Cindy McCain and attempt to ‘censure’ her out of nothing more than petty spite tells you everything you need to know about these people and their ethics, and how much pressure they’ll put on anyone claiming to be conservative or an “Eisenhower Republican” to join up or shut up.
Stranger
I’ve seen research indicating that their ads were popular with people already predisposed to their point of view, but that materially speaking they changed essentially zero votes. That’s why I consider them a borderline grift: they don’t have any real impact on elections but they soak up money that would be better donated to genuinely effective organizations.
For this reason, I would be deeply skeptical of any suggestion that they transform their marketing operation (which is essentially what it is) into a policymaking and governance organization.
Yeah but, as you suggested, there aren’t enough votes here to form a third party base. They may know what they are agin, but they don’t know what they are for. There is no consistent platform which they would hold to.
Unless this much speculated 3rd party on the right can peel off above 50% of the voting GOP base it’s a pipe dream.
I don’t think they need to get 50%.
I see where you are coming from but they only need to be able to reliably peel off enough of the electorate to stop another party from winning. Given our last few elections that is not much (I have not done the math).
No.
Won’t be effective.
They should continue to play free floating spoilers aimed at the Trumpist Zombies.
Trying to build yet another third party is a waste of money and surrenders The GOP to neo-Confederates.
Strategic backing to Centrist Democrats and to non lunatic Libertarians, particularly 2nd where the Republican hijacker Trumpist zombie is in a competitive race and peel off on the margins hursts.
The Leftists here kept and keep thinking this was about converting to Democratic Party.
I know the Lincoln Project as were very popular in my circles, among what I am going to call Schwarzenegger Republicans. It helped build a solid consensus that we exist that we are not the traitors but rather Trumpism is treachery. I believe that was important to the centrist vote helping reinforce the acceptable choice, since unlike Lefty side Democrats it’s not our practice to play Purity Pony.
And I was happy to donate to them. No way am I giving to Left oriented Democrats but for center and having my money support that, Lincoln Project is a good choice. What Leftists do with their money is their business. As a Lincoln Project donor I have been perfectly happy.
I think that folks are concentrating too much on the possible impact at the presidential level. I was thinking that they could play a role at the Congressional and/or state level by strategically running folks in this race or that in a manner calculated (and, boy, do these fellows know how to calculate) to bring maximum hurt to trumpist Republicans.
I am under no such illusion and I will thank you not to lump me into some imagined mob.
My perception of the Lincoln Project is simply to take them at their word: “We want to defeat Trumpist Republicans.” Nothing more and nothing less.
And at that, they were a failure. They changed next to no votes and they changed the result in precisely zero elections.
What they were very effective at, though, was sucking up money.
I’m glad you enjoyed giving it to them. But don’t try to convince me it had any tangible electoral effect. It was just feel-good messaging for like-minded people. That’s not politicking. That’s marketing. And what they were marketing was themselves.
If the only purpose of the LPP is as spoilers to hand electoral victories to the DEMs they will be ephemeral and be remembered as a spoiler advertising campaign.
If/when they start picking up gubernatorial and House wins then they will come to be seen as a viable third pathway.
Compared to whom? My understanding is that almost no tv ads change votes, from any candidates. They are following the trajectory of many advocacy groups - make a name among donors during a high-profile election, show their target demographic that people like them exist for immediate encouragement, then with name recognition keeping the funding going while supporting candidates with their view (perhaps in the early stages where a few $ make more difference).
Of course they’re only in the early stage and may fizzle or lose direction in transition, but what makes them “more” of a money suck than any such organization? (maybe you’d consider all such orgs to be money-sucks, that’s fine but I don’t see evidence for singling out this one).
That’s a false claim.
The data say otherwise for Presidential.
But both the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), the other major Never Trump organization, shared with me preliminary data to show that their work actually played a critical role in Biden’s victory. Their numbers are in line with publicly available exit polls showing that nationally 7 percent of 2016 Trump voters and 8 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters backed Biden. The share of independent and moderate voters supporting the Democratic nominee also increased from 42 percent of independents and 52 percent of moderates in 2016 to 54 percent of independents and 64 percent of moderates in 2020.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/12/did-republicans-vote-against-trump/
But since you’ve been convinced since day 1 by their background they’re grifters expect no change.
Umm, I dont think so. Look, there is a lot of people who just vote automatically for the guy with R (or D) next to their name.
I dont believe that was ever proven. I saw a lot of them on Youtube, which , at least around here) otherwise dominated by GOP ads. Mike Garcia, that seditionist traitor, ran constant non-stop lying attack ads on his opponent.
Yes, some Moderate republicans bolted to Biden, but trump still had more votes this time than last.
Precisely three elections. Biden, and two senators from Georgia. In fact the three most important elections. Now, how much did their ads change votes? That we can never know. But they were vicious in those three fields and in those three fields all three dems won a very close election.
From my naive and distant POV, I just think that for any third party to get any traction within the US political system is a tremendously heavy lift. It would be a lot easier – and far more likely – for the GOP to distance themselves from Trump and his followers while pursuing some of the same policies, and nominating a candidate extreme enough to appeal to present-day wingnuts while still being at least nominally sane.
Yes, it’s hard to impossible to know advertisements real impact. That said one can look at specific sub demographics and counties movements in vote pattern as compared to priors.
Various data reported do indicate that there was a key move on order of 5 to 10 percent among Republican voters to Biden, although much less down ticket. As the principal focus of the anti Trump Republican groups was Trump and not broadly supporting Democrats… it is coherent with the ads.
Do political ads ever change many minds? I think the general data science view is no, but there can be effective change on the margins. If one is realistic about these goals, then the targets make sense. For me among my circles the Lincoln Project ads were helpful in reinforcing the view that we should break, and Trump not us was betraying the GOP.
More recent state level data ‘We’ve had enough’ — Moderate Republicans ditched Donald Trump for Joe Biden in the party’s key Bexar County strongholds. But the defections didn’t help down-ballot Democrats
I will thank you again to not ascribe words or beliefs to me that I do not hold.
I enjoyed the Lincoln Project when they first arrived on the scene and I supported their gadfly heckling of the Trump cult. My skepticism accrued slowly, over time, when I saw how they were targeting their messaging and promoting their own activism.
If you make assumptions about where other people are coming from and then attack those assumptions, you are not debating in good faith.