Americana

Republicans won a historic urban upset last week. Can they repeat it?

THE NEWS

Last Tuesday, for the first time in nearly 150 years, Charleston, S.C. elected a Republican mayor. But when former state legislator William Cogswell declared victory, Democrat Mika Gadsden was there to celebrate. The next day, on her Twitch stream, Gadsden played the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme over incumbent Mayor John Tecklenburg’s concession speech, playing up her own role in beating him.

“You keep rolling up that DNC bus like it means something, in a city that has displaced the Black voting bloc that you need and want and desire,” said Gadsden, who ran for mayor, won 1,057 votes, and then endorsed Cogswell in the runoff. (His win margin: 569 votes.) “You can bring in all the fish frys, all the Clyburn, all the Cory Bookers, all the Kamalas … but you’ve eroded that bloc, and now you’re looking to them like, oh, where you at?”

Cogswell’s victory, right before the Thanksgiving holiday, was a highlight in a mediocre Republican year. In Kentucky, Republicans lost a winnable race for governor; in Virginia, Democrats recaptured the state legislature. From Indianapolis to Spokane, when Democrats tied GOP candidates to Donald Trump or the religious right, their coalition — college-educated liberals, non-white working class voters — prevailed.

But in Charleston, and in the other places where Republicans won upsets this year, they broke that coalition.

They ran candidates whom Democrats struggled to link to the far right, or to unpopular limits on abortion, tactics that worked for President Joe Biden’s party in other races. They reached out to Republican voters who always show up for presidential elections but usually skip local races. And they channeled urban voters’ frustrations about high housing prices, homelessness, and crime — not enough to vote for a candidate like Trump, but just enough to reject a flawed Democrat.

“Republicans would be silly to ignore this,” said Logan McVey, who managed Cogswell’s campaign — and who, in 2021, helped elect a Republican mayor of Columbia, the state’s capital city. Both are Democratic strongholds in presidential elections. “Yes, we’re Republicans,” McVey added. “Yes, we believe that government shouldn’t be in business; it should be the other way around. But we’re not so into divisive social issues and these problems that everybody else is wrapped around the axle about.”

In the two South Carolina races, noted McVey — both nonpartisan, but with the major parties endorsing candidates in runoffs — the Republicans used the phrase “potholes aren’t partisan.” And in both races, Republicans picked up some working-class Black voters who felt that development was leaving them behind.

“Black folk just can’t afford to live here,” Gadsden told Semafor. “How had he let down the black community? He’d done little to nothing to create truly affordable housing options for working class Black residents.”

DAVID’S VIEW

Republicans were in a lousy mood this month, bickering over why they did so poorly in off-year elections. This was supposed to be the cycle when some candidates cracked the post-Dobbs abortion code — and even as Virginia Republicans made progress on that front, they lost.

Their wins, as dramatic as they were in places like Charleston, revealed a strategy that can work in some races, but is not yet scalable at the federal level.

In Manchester, N.H., Republican Jay Ruais was elected mayor in the same sort of two-stage, non-partisan (or not entirely partisan) race as Cogswell. In an all-party election, he consolidated the GOP vote; in the runoff, he drove up turnout among Republicans and peeled votes from Democrats, prevailing in a city that backed Biden over Trump by 14 points.

“We did not talk about national politics,” said Ruais strategist Ethan Zorfas. “We did not get into fights on social issues, or any of these big issues that we see pop up in these federal and state elections. Jay essentially ran a one-issue campaign on the homeless crisis.”

Democrats had been in power while homelessness increased in Manchester; that issue resonated, and attacks on Ruais’s Republican brand didn’t. In Charleston, when Cogswell had served in the state legislature, he’d voted against two “heartbeat” abortion bans — prohibiting the practice after six weeks of pregnancy — and didn’t support “constitutional carry,” which allows gun owners to carry firearms without restrictions or permits.

Tecklenburg, the incumbent, was in trouble before the race began. Murders in the city had surged after the 2020 pandemic, and while the rate came down this year, Cogswell ran ads invoking May 2020 riots (“the mayor’s office did nothing”) and promising to “give police the support that they need.” Democrats attacked Cogswell over his support from culture warriors Moms for Liberty, but those ties were tenuous; the same attack connected better in cities and states where Republicans had worked with the conservative “parental rights” group, or had clear conservative voting records.

After the first round of the election, Cogswell also surprised Democrats by winning over Gadsden, sitting down with her for a 40-minute interview about development and housing issues where they could find agreement.

“We don’t agree on everything,” Cogswell told her. “Two opposing sides can come together for progress.”

Tecklenburg won majority-Black precincts anyway, and added to his vote total in the runoff, after a boost from Democratic Rep. James Clyburn. But he didn’t unite Democrats, and other candidates who’d challenged him in the first round said he’d played a weak hand poorly.

“There’s been a lot of development, increased traffic, increased housing costs — you fill in the blank,” said Clay Middleton, a Democrat who placed third in the first round of voting and endorsed the mayor afterward. “When you’re seeking a third term, you have to address all of those things.”

THE VIEW FROM DEMOCRATS

Republicans celebrated their November wins as proof that the party could compete anywhere. Democrats added a caveat: Those campaigns and candidates did not have the vulnerabilities that a Trump-led GOP will in 2024.

“Cogswell was Republican enough to unify the Republicans, but also non-partisan enough to attract some defectors from the mayor’s coalition,” said Sam Skardon, the chair of the Charleston County Democratic Party.

But what if Trump wasn’t the nominee? Skardon saw an opening for Republicans, with fresh evidence that “open-minded” Democrats could support a GOP candidate if they were convinced that they had no MAGA DNA.

“I actually think if lightning struck, and somehow Nikki Haley ended up being the Republican nominee, we could have a similar problem,” said Skardon. “I think some Democrats might say, ‘she’s not Trump, she’s not as crazy,’ and would give her a look.”

In a Tuesday interview on Fox News, Cogswell endorsed Haley for president.

NOTABLE

• In the Post & Courier, before the election, Emma Whalen looked at how Republicans navigated the Moms for Liberty issue.
• In the Washington Post, Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey surveyed the problems facing RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who’s gotten attacked by GOP candidates for the party’s weak off-year win record.
• And Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reported on how Haley’s new Americans for Prosperity endorsement came together, and how a major conservative group decided she was “the strongest non-Trump alternative.”

Arkansas. Attorney Gen. Tim Griffin rejected a liberal group’s proposed language for an abortion rights amendment that, if passed, would reverse the state’s near-total ban on the practice. (Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a “trigger law” in 2019 that went into effect after the 2022 Dobbs decision.) Arkansans for Limited Government pressed ahead, crediting Griffin’s “thorough review of and impartial response to the amendment’s language” as it writes new language for a potential 2024 vote.

Never Back Down, “Ron DeSantis is Focused, Principled, and Results Driven.” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has cut two straight-to-camera spots for the DeSantis super PAC to run in her state. They’re all positive, with Reynolds describing the Florida governor as a friend and political dynamo who it would be foolish not to support — “a leader, a veteran, a winner, a father, and a husband.”

Pass the Torch USA, “Pass the Torch.” In its first ad, the super PAC supporting Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips mostly quotes John F. Kennedy, whose inaugural address gave this whole operation its name. (President Biden’s own use of the “pass the torch” line has been deployed against him before.) Biden appears briefly, looking lost, in a montage of right-wing victories, before the New York Times/Siena poll appears onscreen to warn that “Trump is winning” — and before Phillips himself quotes Kennedy.

David Trone for Maryland, “Oh Beautiful.” Maryland Rep. David Trone is one of the wealthiest Democrats in the House. His opponent, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, has far more endorsements from party leaders, including Gov. Wes Moore. But Trone has out-spent Alsobrooks 10-1 so far, and has the resources to run different ads on varied issues. Here, it’s climate change, with a child choir singing a dystopian version of “America, the Beautiful” (“for mudslides down from mountain tops / above the flooded plains”) to dramatize Trone’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

One nagging problem for the Biden campaign has been voter nostalgia for the Trump years — their sense that life was less stressful, and prices were lower, when the “former guy” was president. This poll finds the nostalgia runs even deeper than that. Most Americans don’t think “the American dream” holds true anymore, and a near-majority say that things were better 50 years ago, a time most registered voters weren’t alive to live through. (This may be the first time that 1973, the year of the first OPEC oil embargo, is recalled as the good old days.)

There’ll be a West Virginia primary in six months, but Sen. Joe Manchin’s retirement has drained the drama out of that race. Democrats saw Mooney, a MAGA congressman supported by the Club for Growth, as the easiest candidate to beat. He polled close to Manchin, while Gov. Jim Justice ran ahead of him by double digits. But Trump endorsed Justice in October, and Manchin quit the race this month, which closed off Mooney’s path to victory and choked off Democratic money in a state the party can’t compete in anymore.

White House. Trump surprised Democrats on Saturday with a Truth Social post resurrecting his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He criticized Republicans who blocked the 2017 repeal effort and, to Democrats’ amusement, said he was “looking at alternatives” to the 2010 healthcare law; Trump has never released a bill that would replace the ACA.

“My predecessor, once again — God love him — called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans on Medicaid,” Biden said on Monday.

Trump’s primary opponents said nothing; this year, the only exchange about the ACA at a GOP primary forum was a round of questions at the second primary debate, hosted by Fox Business, where neither DeSantis nor Haley said whether they would seek to repeal the law.

Haley and DeSantis were more focused on the endorsement of Americans for Prosperity Action — which, in 2010 and for years after, organized tens of thousands of conservatives to protest and repeal the ACA. In a memo shared with reporters, AFP Action ran down its polling of Iowa and New Hampshire since August. In both states, Trump’s support had grown since the summer, hovering in the low 40s. In Iowa, Haley’s support had tripled from 6% to 17%, while DeSantis remained stuck in the mid-teens; in New Hampshire, Haley’s support had grown from 6% to 25%, and DeSantis had fallen to 9%.

DeSantis’ team immediately attacked the endorsement as an “in-kind endorsement to the Trump campaign,” insisting that Haley could not defeat Trump one-on-one. “The establishment has broadly endorsed Nikki Haley,” Vivek Ramaswamy told CBS News after a stop in Iowa, asking why the Koch network, critical of funding the war in Ukraine, had endorsed the Republican most supportive of it. (Stand Together, the group founded by Charles Koch, is an investor in Semafor.)

On Thursday, DeSantis will head to Georgia for a Fox News-hosted debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom. On Sept. 25, when Fox News announced the program, the Florida governor was polling at 16% in an average of Iowa polls, and at 10% in New Hampshire; as of Tuesday, he was polling at 17.3% in Iowa and 7.7% in New Hampshire.

Senate. Since last week, two Michigan Democrats claimed to have turned down money to quit their Senate bids and challenge Rep. Rashida Tlaib — and the offers came from different donors.

First, actor Hill Harper’s campaign claimed that Bloomfield Hills ad executive Linden Nelson offered $20 million to kickstart a race against Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress — $10 million in bundled donations, $10 million for a PAC. The alleged offer was first reported by Politico, which contacted Johnson, only for him to drop their call.

Next, on Monday, activist Nasser Beydoun claimed that he’d been offered $20 million, too, in a video released by his campaign. “The pro-Israel lobby’s only tool, and what they use to threaten politicians, is the amount of money they’re going to spend against them or for them,” said Beydoun. His campaign linked that offer to former state Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson, who denied it.

The only public polling on the Democratic primary, conducted by Emerson College over the summer, put Rep. Elissa Slotkin (34%) far ahead of Harper (8%) and Beydoun (2%). Michigan State Board of Education president Pamela Pugh, who hit 1% in that poll, left the race on Monday to run for retiring Rep. Dan Kildee’s Flint-based House seat.

House. Two more Democrats announced their retirements over the Thanksgiving holiday: California Rep. Anna Eshoo, who’s leaving politics at age 80, and Dean Phillips, who’s running for president.

“Seven years have passed, each presenting historic opportunities to practice a brand of optimistic politics that repairs relationships and improves people’s lives,” Phillips said in a Friday statement. “We have met those moments, and after three terms it is time to pass the torch.”

Both Democrats were already facing primary challengers — in Phillips’ case, challengers who saw an opening once the congressman started running against Biden. In Minnesota’s 3rd district, which went for the president by 21 points in 2020, Hennepin County-based state Sen. Kelly Morrison and DNC member Ron Harris are seeking the DFL nomination; no Republicans had filed to run when Phillips retired. In California’s 16th district, which Biden carried by 53 points, Saratoga city councilman Rishi Kumar was making his third run, after getting into the 2022 runoff with Eshoo; three other Democrats, and two Republicans, had entered the race before Eshoo got out.

• two days until the Newsom-DeSantis debate
• eight days until the fourth Republican presidential primary debate
• 48 days until the Iowa Republican caucuses
• 56 days until the New Hampshire primary
• 88 days until the South Carolina Republican primary
• 342 days until the 2024 presidential election

• The most tradable security in the world, and a sign of the U.S.’s global economic might, is badly out of favor — with serious consequences for taxpayers and financial markets.
• Argentine President-elect Javier Milei, a Trump-like populist who won on promises of economic reform, is set to meet with a top Biden official.
• Members of the country’s largest journalist union, NewsGuild, are resisting calls to release a statement supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.
• South Africa’s government is betting on its deployment of 3,000 soldiers to crush illegal mining gangs and disrupt connected crime syndicates.