Republicans have a moment to seize. While President Trump may have lost, the election unveiled several insights that can dramatically reshape the future of the party. The next four years have started with a second round of polling blunders and the failure of a “blue wave” to materialize. Instead, the country saw a tepid reshuffling at the margin and support for Trump, despite his loss, across a record number of Americans. Republicans experienced gains in the House and may still control the Senate, potentially leaving Biden as the first Democrat president entering a first-term White House without unified party government since the 19th century.
Whether the climate of Trumpism will fade remains to be seen. But his trailblazing in the electorate, successful down-ballot performance and a transition in office presents the GOP unique opportunities. If Republicans are both aware and quick to act on demographics and messaging, they can steal key tactics from the Democratic playbook in order to bolster the viability of the party and control the political long game.
The first avenue is through young people. Exit polls revealed Trump faring worse than Biden, and young voters sided with the president-elect more so than any other age group. But there was a bright spot in the election for the GOP, and it arrived in one newly minted representative: Madison Cawthorn. The third-youngest ever member of Congress, he has already branded himself as the Republican response to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Cawthorn has already begun refining the image of the party, arguing he represents “an emerging generation of Americans who are tomorrow’s leaders, most of whom think that Republicans don’t care about the disenfranchised, the hurting and those less fortunate. But nothing could be farther from the truth.” With the average age of about 59 for members of Congress, the youthful energy of faces like Cawthorn are essential to connecting the party with Generation Z and millennials, voting groups who are already skewing left. If Republicans fail to recognize this trend, they may risk losing an entire generation. Making the worthy investment now means cultivating leaders like Cawthorn and recruiting young folks across the country for elected positions.
Another essential way to spark Generation Z and millennials support for the GOP is climate change. Pew Research reports the issue as a top concern of young people with growing support among the group’s Republicans. Nearly twice as many young Republicans than their elders believe the government is doing too little to reduce climate change, and a similar ratio exists on investment in alternative energy solutions. Another poll reveals that 77% of right-leaning individuals aged 18 to 35 believe climate change is an issue personally important to them. In response, organizations dedicated to tackling climate change through conservative principles have sprung up in recent years, like RepublicEn, Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends and Benji Backer’s American Conservation Coalition.
In short, the Republican institution has been silent for too long on climate. This complacency over the years has allowed Democrats to control the narrative through radical programs like the Green New Deal, and it will only continue hemorrhaging young voters away from the GOP. But now is the opportunity to course correct. Detecting shifting winds earlier this year, Republican leaders like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida declared “climate denial is a bad political strategy” and Rep. Dan Crenshaw acknowledged “it’s absolutely true a lot of people have concerns about the environment, and we do need a message for them.” Rep. John Curtis of Utah, a self-avowed “climate conservative,” often finds himself stuck between the radical proposals of the left and denial on the right, but believes strongly “that if Republicans don’t make it an issue, we will lose the upcoming generation of Republicans.” These sentiments are a healthy start. But if the party wants to bridge a generation of young people, it must institutionally coordinate and present a serious, comprehensive alternative to the Democrat-dominated climate conversation. With Trump out of the way, Republicans may inch even closer to this reality.
The second avenue lies in the working class. Trump set the stage in 2016 by breaking the “blue wall”: states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania firmly held by Democrats since the 1980s. A departure from the flagship free trade rhetoric of past Republicans, his “America First” campaign and protectionist policies struck a chord. Despite losing these regions in 2020, the races were lost on thin margins and continue to speak volumes about his inroads in manufacturing communities. Exit polls in Ohio reveal voters in union households favoring him by fourteen points, and he was further accompanied by strong support in Pennsylvania despite Biden’s fervent effort at blue-collar appeal. A similar trend follows for those without a college degree. On election night, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley accordingly tweeted, “We are a working class party now. That’s the future.”
Even more, Trump has given the Republicans a receptive and captive audience — an audience that will only become more consequential as automation displaces jobs and the economy is increasingly globalized. For the Democrats, this development is especially threatening. After all, this novelty of Trump’s working class support implies a lack of appetite for the progressive agenda of universal basic income, free college and free healthcare among the very people these policies should be intended to cater. However, this open door may not stay open for long. Republicans have the opportunity to control the narrative and present conservative alternatives on the coattails of Trump.
More than potential exists. Trump, as a character himself, has proven bridges can be built between the billionaire celebrity elite and the working class “little guy.” If Republicans paint themselves as champions of the working class and continue hitching strains of his policy and rhetoric in this arena, Hawley’s forecast of a promising future awaits.
The third and final strategy accompanies racial and ethnic diversity. One salient revelation of the 2020 election was the performance of the Republican ticket among people of color, especially Latinx communities, with Trump winning the greatest proportion of non-White voters since 1960 for any Republican president. From Florida to Texas, Trump experienced hefty wins in places along the Rio Grande Valley like Zapata County, bordering Mexico with a 94.7% Hispanic and Latinx population and per capita income of about $17,000, which Clinton carried in 2016 by 30 points. Trump only lost by five points in Starr Country in 2020, another border county that Clinton swept by 60 points. Across the board, he saw support rise from 28% to 32% within the demographic, even in the face of COVID-19’s disproportionate impact, dubious ICE policies and inflammatory rhetoric. More broadly, Latinx and Hispanic Americans have grown more than any other group as a proportion of eligible voters in battleground states since 2000 and remain the largest minority community in the United States as of 2019. Among Black voters, he even pulled modest improvements, rising about 2% from 2016. It certainly helps that Trump also presided over record low minority unemployment prior to COVID-19.
Trump’s performance is nothing to sneeze at. For a party whose 116th congressional representation was 95% White, Republicans need to pay attention. With an increasingly cosmopolitan electorate, the GOP can no longer afford to meet pleas for diversity with stagnancy. The Latinx and Hispanic communities are anything but a Democrat monolith, and such inroads, if acted upon, will provide a crucial link between the party and the rest of American reality.
How might this best be accomplished? Republicans need to begin a coordinated and active campaign on two fronts. The first is to recruit candidates of color everywhere to reshape the face of the party and to resonate their message with the entire country. Leaders like Secretary Ben Carson, former Rep. Will Hurd, and Sen. Tim Scott can no longer be singular actors. Republicans already performed surprisingly well with elected women, breaking new records for their representation in Congress. The party must continue this trend and find ways to apply it similarly to people of color. This is not to promote “woke” intersectionality and identity politics, but an effort to reflect the diversity of a nation under the big tent of limited government and free market principles — a universal ideal all should be able to see themselves represented by.
The second front is to maximize turnout. Latinx individuals have lagged in voting compared to Black Americans and White Americans, trailing by 12 and 17 points, respectively. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the GOP should push to get out the vote under their own narrative and not simply react against the effort by Democrats. Not only does the future of the party’s viability depend on such a two-pronged strategy, but the Democrats have sizable territory to lose.
Even with a loss in the White House, the GOP is in a prime position. Republicans cannot afford to fall into “opposition complacency” — offering no coherent strategy or platform of their own while only reacting defensively to Biden for four years. That approach governed the party for eight years under Obama, and by the time control fell in their lap in 2016, the GOP was caught flat-footed. Now, the Republicans have an opportunity: to seize the best of Trump’s bounty and a new beginning in the White House.
Is a racially diverse, working-class oriented, climate-conscious, youth-engaged, women-led and suburbanly-polished party grounded in cross-cutting conservatism a future for the GOP? Perhaps — but only if party elites refrain from denying these trends. If Sen. Marco Rubio is any indication, “The future of the party is… a multiethnic, multiracial working class coalition.” Its fruition would be a nightmare for Democrats, but it will take discipline, awareness and coordination by party leadership over the next four years and a dynamic figurehead in 2024 and beyond to make it a reality.
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