Well the thread “the decline of the GOP” was originally made because many on here believed that Trump killed the Republican Party in 2015 and there was noway in hell they were winning. However I would argue that the DNC is closer to death than the GOP because they are far too broad of a political party and they can satisfy no one.
Well, ever since the 2006 midterms, one can easily find the declaration that the GOP has died and will never return because it's an all-white political party.
I arrived in Texas on August 19, 2001. Except for an 18-month assignment to Beale AFB, I've basically been a resident here ever since (though my road job has taken me to Boston twice, Wyoming, and now Chicago). On my first day out and about San Antonio, the newspapers were full of stories about how the 2002 governor's election was when Texas was maybe turning blue. And it was gonna turn blue forever because "as the Hispanic population increases," Hispanics are going to vote down the line Democrat like so many other immigrant classes upon arrival as well as that solid 90% of the black vote Democrats get just by existing.
Here we are now -
nearly a quarter of a century later - and Democrats haven't done jack squat at turning the state blue. In 2002, Rick Perry (former Democrat himself) won office by 812K over Tony Sanchez. In 2022, Greg Abbott beat the most popular Democrat in Texas in the last 30 years (Beto O'Rourke) by 883K votes. In the elections between then and now, the Democrats have lost by 416K (in a four candidate on the main ballot race), 636K, nearly a full one million (Wendy Davis), and 1.1 million.
Democrats are no closer to turning Texas blue now than they were in 2001, and yet "just wait until we turn Texas blue" is still a news story.
And when they ran Wendy Davis, they ran the national poster child for legal abortion (she'd had two), the one who got national attention for a stirring speech she gave. She began her campaign by saying that Governor Abbott - who is in a wheelchair mind you - "didn't have a leg to stand on", and her campaign pretty much peaked years before she was nominated.
I think a serious look at Shapiro
My suspicion is that Harris was going to choose Shapiro except:
1) polling showed he would not guarantee PA
2) polling showed he would cost them MI for sure
3) both
If she didn't at least consider that reality, she deserved to lose.
and Beshear should be the way the Democrats should approach 2028. Stop dying on “they will be the first” candidates, “it’s their turn” candidates, and issues that aren’t major national issues.
The thing we have no way of knowing at this point is how Beshear or Shapiro would come across nationally.
But take this one to the bank: Pete Buttigieg is going to be the 2028 nominee and when he loses because of their fixation on the first, they'll say he lost because a country that went from disapproving gay marriage by a majority in 2004 to favoring it in about ten years is unredeemably homophobic.
