Victor Davis Hanson: How Trump Came Back From Rock Bottom | Midterm Report Ep. 1

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Welcome to The Daily Signal Podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take.

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Victor Davis Hanson (0:34)

It's a 70-30 proposition they're going to lose the House. I think it's 50-50 on the Senate, and that's because I'm looking at historical precedents. And if they drive home two things, the good things they're doing and how crazy these socialists are, that was a great gift too. Then I think they can up their odds.

Rob Bluey (1:03)

Welcome to the Midterm Report. The Daily Signal's new election-focused podcast will be coming to you every Saturday between now and Election Day, covering the biggest stories that are happening in the world of politics with interviews, insights and analysis. I'm excited for today's first show as we talk about one of the biggest stories of the week, which was the first ever Republican National Committee midterm convention in Dallas, Texas. Plus, I have an interview with Victor Davis Hanson, author of the new book, The Counterrevolution, The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. But first, we're going to turn to that big story and we have pollster Brent Buchanan of Signal with us. Brent, of course, is the founder and CEO of that firm. And Brent, you had an interesting insight heading into the convention this week when you said that there is a segment of the Republican base that's sitting on the sidelines.

And as we know, in these midterm elections, when turnout can be so crucial, that can be a determining factor in races across this country. So why are those Republicans not necessarily as engaged maybe as they were in 2024?

Brent Buchanan (2:14)

Well, it's important to realize that the Republican coalition is two coalitions. You have Trump Republicans who identify with the president, and then you have traditional Republicans who more so identify with the party's values and the Republican brand as itself.

And if you listen to the mainstream media, you would think that MAGA is 80% of the Republican base. But it's actually around 45% of Republicans consider themselves Trump Republicans, and a majority consider themselves traditional Republicans. So when you look at what the convention was geared towards, it was geared towards trying to get Trump Republicans who aren't even currently considering the midterm election.

And what our data shows is, yes, you could do that, but getting people off the sidelines when Donald Trump's name is not on the ballot, they can't go bubble in beside Donald Trump. They don't care about the Republican party. They don't care about Republicans in Congress. That's why they're not participating in this election. The real value is being able to close the enthusiasm gap that traditional Republicans have. We currently show, as of last week, that Trump Republicans are 77 percent excited about the election, and traditional conservative Republicans are only 51 percent excited. That's a 26-point gap within the own Republican party, and that is what we have been raising the alarms on for the last couple of months, that we have to get traditional Republicans back on board. We could actually close the gap on the generic ballot, which is currently at Democrats with a 9-point lead nationally, if we just were able to get these traditional Republicans back on board.

Rob Bluey (3:50)

Brent, the two days of programming in Dallas focused a lot on President Trump and obviously his accomplishments over the course of the past 18 months or so.

There obviously has been some frustration in Washington that Republicans haven't been able to do more, pass the Save America Act, pass the Third Reconciliation Bill. You can go down the list of things that are still sitting on the docket waiting to get done. Are those the types of things that voters might be mobilized and energized about or are there other things that Republicans need to do between now and election day to make sure that they're connecting with those individuals?

Brent Buchanan (4:28)

A lot of what these traditional Republicans are focused on is affordability, which is what swing voters are also focused on. They want to know that the Trump White House is every hour, every day thinking about, how do I stop runaway cost? How do I make health insurance not be 12% more? We just renewed or in the process of the renewal at our company, and we're 12.6% annual increase from last year to this year for our company's teammates. And they want to know where their auto insurance and housing insurance costs that are exploding. They want to know what's being done to rein in local government spending, like Governor Abbott's doing in Texas, that is causing runaway property taxes. They're just getting pounded from every angle, and then you layer on top of that the price that every one of us see multiple times a day, and that's the cost of gas. And it's not that people are totally unable to make ends meet because gas is at $4 a gallon. It's just that constant reminder that everything is getting more expensive. There are very few people who believe that deflation was going to happen by electing Donald Trump, but they did believe that it was going to stall the price increases. And so when we looked at another group of voters, because only 88 percent of Trump 24 voters are currently saying they're going to vote for a Republican for Congress. That's 12 percent of defaction of the Trump people who are saying they're going to show up for this election.