Chilling the House GOP

Rachel Bade reports at Politico:

Since the election, numerous congressional Republicans have refused to publicly weigh in on any Trump proposal at odds with Republican orthodoxy, from his border wall to his massive infrastructure package. The most common reason, stated repeatedly but always privately: They're afraid of being attacked by Breitbart or other big-name Trump supporters.

"Nobody wants to go first," said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who received nasty phone calls, letters and tweets after he penned an August op-ed in The New York Times, calling on Trump to release his tax returns. "People are naturally reticent to be the first out of the block for fear of Sean Hannity, for fear of Breitbart, for fear of local folks."

An editor at Breitbart, formerly run by senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon, said that fear is well-founded.

“If any politician in either party veers from what the voters clearly voted for in a landslide election … we stand at the ready to call them out on it and hold them accountable,” the person said.

Republican Hill staffers have wrestled in recent months with how to respond to inquiries from Breitbart or other pro-Trump bloggers. Engage them or ignore them? One GOP aide told POLITICO members are “damned if you do, damned if you don't." Another said it's having a "chilling effect" on GOP lawmakers.

And they've co-opted the ones they haven't chilled.  Tim Alberta reports at National Review:

[Mick] Mulvaney is one of them. In June, he conceded there had been surprisingly little conservative opposition to Trump, but promised that Freedom Caucus members would hold the Republican nominee to the same standard as Obama — particularly on the issue of executive power. “I’m not concerned about Donald Trump shredding the Constitution, because I know the people who stand in the House between him and the Constitution,” Mulvaney told me at the time. “We’ve been fighting against an imperial presidency for five and a half years. Every time we go to the floor and push back against an overreaching president, we get accused of being partisan at best and racist at worst. When we do it against a Republican president, maybe people will see that it was a principled objection in the first place. So we actually welcome that opportunity. It might actually be fun, being a strict Constitutionalist congressman doing battle with a non-strict-Constitutionalist Republican president.”

Instead, he’s joining Trump’s administration.

Mulvaney was recently named director of the Office of Management and Budget, the powerful agency that supervises and coordinates the government’s financial planning. The week before he was chosen, I asked Mulvaney whether he stood by his promises about congressional Republicans’ holding Trump accountable. He declined to comment, because he was waiting to hear back from New York about the OMB post. Freedom Caucus members — and Ryan, notably — issued ecstatic statements lauding Mulvaney’s selection as a sign of Trump’s commitment to fiscal responsibility.

That’s one way of looking at it. Another way is this: Trump just sidelined one of the House’s most outspoken conservatives, someone who repeatedly stood up to Republican leadership, thereby weakening potential intra-party resistance to his administration’s initiatives.

"Landslide" Trump is Still 46th

The final electoral tally was 304-227. Trump lost two faithless electors in Texas. Clinton lost four in Washington State, one in Hawaii.

Trump's official statement:

“Today marks a historic electoral landslide victory in our nation’s democracy. I thank the American people for their overwhelming vote to elect me as their next President of the United States. The official votes cast by the Electoral College exceeded the 270 required to secure the presidency by a very large margin, far greater than ever anticipated by the media. This election represents a movement that millions of hard working men and women all across the country stood behind and made possible. With this historic step we can look forward to the bright future ahead. I will work hard to unite our country and be the President of all Americans. Together, we will make America great again.”

Nope, no landslide. Clinton won the popular vote by more than two percent.  With 304 electoral votes, Trump has 56.51 percent of the electoral vote, a slight shrinkage from his immediate postelection total, and still 46th of 58 elections.

Presidential Election Winners, Ranked by Percentage of Electoral Vote 

1. 1792          George Washington                100%
2. 1789          George Washington                100%
3. 1820          James Monroe                         99.57%
4. 1936          Franklin D. Roosevelt             98.49%
5. 1984          Ronald Reagan                       97.58%
6. 1972          Richard Nixon                         96.65%
7. 1804          Thomas Jefferson                    92.05%
8. 1864          Abraham Lincoln                    90.99%
9. 1980          Ronald Reagan                       90.89%
10. 1964          Lyndon B. Johnson                 90.33%
11. 1932          Franklin D. Roosevelt             88.89%
12. 1956          Dwight D. Eisenhower           86.06%
13. 1852          Franklin Pierce                        85.81%
14. 1940          Franklin D. Roosevelt             84.56%
15. 1816          James Monroe                         84.33%
16. 1928          Herbert Hoover                       83.62%
17. 1952          Dwight D. Eisenhower           83.24%
18. 1872          Ulysses S. Grant                     81.95%
19. 1912          Woodrow Wilson                    81.92%
20. 1944          Franklin D. Roosevelt             81.36%
21. 1840          William Henry Harrison          79.59%
22. 1988          George H. W. Bush                79.18%
23. 1832          Andrew Jackson                     76.57%
24. 1920          Warren G. Harding                 76.08%
25. 1868          Ulysses S. Grant                     72.79%
26. 1924          Calvin Coolidge                      71.94%
27. 1904          Theodore Roosevelt                70.59%
28. 1996          Bill Clinton                             70.45%
29. 1808          James Madison                        69.71%
30. 1992          Bill Clinton                             68.77%
31. 1828          Andrew Jackson                     68.20%
32. 2008          Barack Obama                        67.84%
33. 1908          William Howard Taft              66.46%
34. 1900          William McKinley                   65.32%
35. 1892          Grover Cleveland                    62.39%
36. 1844          James K. Polk                         61.82%
37. 2012          Barack Obama                         61.71%
38. 1896          William McKinley                   60.63%
39. 1860          Abraham Lincoln                    59.41%
40. 1812          James Madison                        58.99%
41. 1856          James Buchanan                      58.78%
42. 1888          Benjamin Harrison                  58.10%
43. 1880          James A. Garfield                   57.99%
44. 1836          Martin Van Buren                   57.82%
45. 1948          Harry S. Truman                     57.06%
46. 2016          Donald Trump                       56.51%
47. 1960          John F. Kennedy                     56.42%
48. 1848          Zachary Taylor                        56.21%
49. 1968          Richard Nixon                          55.95%
50. 1976          Jimmy Carter                           55.20%
51. 1884          Grover Cleveland                    54.61%
52. 2004          George W. Bush                     53.16%
53. 1800          Thomas Jefferson                    52.90% (tie with Burr, went to House)
54. 1916          Woodrow Wilson                    52.17%
55. 1796          John Adams                            51.45%
56. 2000          George W. Bush                     50.37%
57. 1876          Rutherford B. Hayes              50.14%
58. 1824          John Quincy Adams               32.18% (draw, went to House)

Very Little Vote Fraud

Michael Wines reports at The New York Times:

In an election in which more than 137.7 million Americans cast ballots, election and law enforcement officials in 26 states and the District of Columbia — Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning and in-between — said that so far they knew of no credible allegations of fraudulent voting. Officials in another eight states said they knew of only one allegation.

A few states reported somewhat larger numbers of fraud claims that were under review. Tennessee counted 40 credible allegations out of some 4.3 million primary and general election votes. In Georgia, where more than 4.1 million ballots were cast, officials said they had opened 25 inquiries into “suspicious voting or election-related activity.”

But inquiries to all 50 states (every one but Kansas responded) found no states that reported indications of widespread fraud. And while additional allegations could surface as states wind up postelection reviews, their conclusions are unlikely to change significantly.

Trump Flips Off Congressional GOP

At The New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns report that Mitch McConnell had been courting Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) to run against Senator Jon Tester.  But Trump had different ideas.

Mr. McConnell learned early this week that Mr. Trump had grown interested in Mr. Zinke to be secretary of the interior. Mr. McConnell quickly contacted both Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, in an effort to head off the appointment, according to multiple Republican officials familiar with the calls.

Mr. Trump was not moved. He was so taken with Mr. Zinke during their meeting on Monday at Trump Tower that he offered him the position. Mr. Trump’s son Donald Jr. quashed a competing candidate, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State, because of her support for selling off public land, a senior Republican official said.

. Mr. Trump’s defiant selection of Mr. Zinke, 55, dismayed Republicans in the capital and raised suspicions about how reliable an ally he will be for the party. Even as Mr. Trump has installed party stalwarts in a few cabinet departments, he has repeatedly shrugged off the requests of Republicans who have asked for help reinforcing their power in Congress.

Trump's camp had earlier floated the name of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the House GOP Conference.

With just one appointment, Mr. Trump snubbed the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House, Ms. McMorris Rodgers, imperiled the party’s chances in a key Senate race and likely triggered a special election for Mr. Zinke’s House seat.

...
House and Senate Republicans had little warning about the decision to select Mr. Zinke and pass over Ms. McMorris Rodgers. Indeed, some House Republican leadership aides believed that Ms. McMorris Rodgers already had the job in hand.

But Donald J. Trump has never been a party guy. In June, as CNN reported, he made his attitude clear:

Donald Trump slammed GOP leaders on Wednesday for not lining up behind him, implying that he's willing to go forward without their help.

"We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself. I'll do very well. I'm going to do very well. OK? I'm going to do very well. A lot of people thought I should do that anyway, but I'll just do it very nicely by myself," Trump said, though he did not elaborate on what doing it "by myself" would mean.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also accused his party's leaders of being weak and told them to "please be quiet."

A Good Year for Incumbents

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley write at Rasmussen:

With Republican Sen.-elect John Kennedy’s triumph in the Louisiana runoff last weekend, victories by two other Republicans in Louisiana House races, and Gov. Pat McCrory’s (R) concession last week to Gov.-elect Roy Cooper (D) in North Carolina, the winners of 2016’s House, Senate, and gubernatorial races are now set. This allows us to do a little housekeeping. Kennedy’s win confirms that this is the first cycle in the history of popular Senate elections that every state that held a Senate election in a presidential cycle voted for the same party for both president and for Senate (34 for 34 this year). Also, finalizing these results permits us to give a final assessment of our down-ballot Crystal Ball projections for 2016: We picked 32 of 34 Senate races correctly, along with 10 of 12 gubernatorial races and 428/435 House races.

Looking over the down-ballot outcome, there’s one inescapable conclusion in a year that was defined by a political outsider, Donald Trump, winning the presidency: It was still a really good year to run as an incumbent in 2016, all things considered.

This election cycle, 393 of 435 House representatives, 29 of 34 senators, and five of 12 governors sought reelection (several of the governors were prohibited from seeking another term). Of those, 380 of 393 House members (97%), 27 of 29 senators (93%), and four of five governors (80%) won another term. These members of Congress and governors not only won renomination, but also won in November.

See the chart at OpenSecrets 

Outstate

At AEI, Michael Barone writes:

• Hillary Clinton lost the election because of voting results in the outstate Midwest—counties beyond the region’s million-plus metro areas.
• The 50 electoral votes Donald Trump captured in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were responsible for his victory.
• In the future, the 2016 election results might draw more politicians’ attention to voters in the previously disregarded outstate Midwest.

At The Washington Examiner, he wrote a couple of weeks ago:

These are all places with many non-college whites and few blacks, Hispanics or Asians. Trump's stands on trade and immigration — distinctly different from those of other Republicans — were surely partly responsible for his outstate margins, and it seems unlikely another Republican nominee could have matched them.

Two other factors were in play, factors which led to sharp Democratic gains in these same areas in the 1970s. One was honesty: The outstate Midwest recoiled against Richard Nixon's Republicans in the Watergate years and against Clinton email lawbreaking and lies. That helped Trump, and probably would have helped any other Republican nominee.

The other factor is dovishness. The upper Midwest has long been the most isolationist part of the country. In the 1970s, voters there reacted against Republicans' support of the Vietnam War. This year, they seem to have moved toward Trump, who opposed military interventions supported by other Republicans. It seems unlikely another Republican nominee could have duplicated this appeal.

Whites Lost Jobs

Thomas B. Edsall writes at The New York Times:

Eduardo Porter, a Times colleague, raised the same basic issue in a column earlier this week, “Where Were Trump’s Votes? Where the Jobs Weren’t.” Porter wrote that

less-educated white voters had a solid economic rationale for voting against the status quo — nearly all the gains from the economic recovery have passed them by.

Since Nov. 7, 2007, according to Porter, Hispanics have gained nearly 5 million jobs, African-Americans and Asian-Americans have each gained over 2 million jobs, but whites have lost nearly 1 million jobs. Those job losses were heavily concentrated in those Rust Belt and, relatively speaking, more rural states where Trump racked up his Electoral College win.

The credibility of the Democratic Party generally among Trump voters is at an all-time low, as Democratic candidates discovered on Nov. 8.

This Democratic vulnerability was explored in depth by Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, in a book on voters in that state, “The Politics of Resentment,” which came out in March. In her study, Cramer described the three elements of “rural consciousness”:

First, a belief that rural areas are ignored by decision makers, including policy makers, second, a perception that rural areas do not get their fair share of resources, and third a sense that rural folks have fundamentally distinct values and lifestyles, which are misunderstood and disrespected by city folks.

The result, she argues, is the creation of a rural identity “infused with a sense of distributive injustice,” much of it focused on liberal policies directing tax dollars to urban racial minorities.