When the Best Campaign Strategy is to Just Shut Up

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Something strange is happening.

I don’t know if you were paying any attention to the election results coming out of Wisconsin and Florida last night, but some early takeaways are beginning to emerge.

First of all, Republicans got a wake up call.

In Wisconsin, Democrat-backed Susan Crawford beat Trump-endorsed Brad Schimel to tip the balance of the state’s Supreme Court toward the left. But what’s more fascinating is where Crawford made her gains relative to Trump: everywhere.

Every county, every region, and every partisan affiliation voted more for the Democrat-backed candidate than they did just six months ago. And while the totals are all still to be tabulated, it looks like the same exact thing shifts happened in Florida, where Mike Waltz’s deep-red former constituency was actually competitive for once.

This is partially because Trump’s agenda is wildly unpopular with most Americans:

But it’s also because his right hand man Elon Musk is even more unpopular among Americans of all political stripes:

Crawford’s campaign took full advantage of this reality. Their campaign strategy was effectively to link Schimel to Musk and then shut up about everything else.

And this makes plenty of sense! Because currently, Democrats are the least popular (among their own voters and the rest of the electorate) they have ever been throughout modern history:

As I wrote in the aftermath of the November Presidential election, Democrats need something to run on. Oppositional partisanship is helpful in the short term. It’s getting them wins. And Trump and Musk are making it very easy to do (be on the lookout for a recap of the “Liberation Day” fiasco currently unfolding next week).

But that’s not enough.

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Many analysts are keen to point to these election results and draw a comparison to the 2017 special elections that foretold the 2018 blue wave. I understand the urge.

But 2018 Democrats didn’t just have opposition to Trump to run on. They had environmental policy. They had a hold of the culture on LGBT issues. DEI was ascendant. Now, the culture has turned. The pendulum has swung against the Democratic Party. They no longer have a hold of the zeitgeist.

The Democratic Party of 2025 is facing the terrain of 2017, but with the toolset of 2014. The bench has evaporated, and the issue set on which Democrats align most with voters is opposition to Trump and Musk. The oldest members of Congress are almost all Democrats:

The only voices in the Democratic Party today that are presenting a clear, compelling, forward-looking message that resonates with the average voter are the likes of AOC and Jasmine Crockett. But when it comes to the economy and issues that matter to your pocketbook and mine, they’re barely any better than Trump.

Left-wing populist wishcasting cannot be an antidote to right-wing populist follies. The party cannot rely on AOC and Jasmine Crockett. Its reliance on “The Squad” as its face of the future is the very thing that helped to radicalize voters against Democrats and put Trump back in office.

No, Democrats need to start figuring out how to present a common-sense economic and social policy that the average voter can resonate with if they want to keep winning, and they need to do it quickly.

Trump has destroyed almost every norm in the book. He’s now suggesting he might run for a third term. Any and all voters who would be repulsed by this behavior have already been unceremoniously booted from the party. Pointing at the embryonic fascism festering inside of the GOP is not enough to keep it at bay.

Democrats need to grow up, and grow up now. Otherwise, their best political strategy will remain shutting up and letting Trump make his own enemies.

But at what cost? How much does your 401k need to shrink? How many enemies do we need to make out of allies? How much do we need to ensure a CCP-dominated century and watch all of our institutions burn to ash before the median voter decides enough is enough?

We’re well past the Rubicon.