Jul.31

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Project 2025 Director Steps Down...

Donald Trump has come to the realization that while the base loves Project 2025, the rest of the country is repulsed by it. And so, he's spent the last few weeks claiming ignorance of the whole thing. That's not moving the needle, however, and so yesterday Project 2025 director Paul Dans fell on his sword and resigned his position.

We are struggling to see how this changes anything. It remains the case that:

• Dans is still gung-ho about Project 2025, and said as much in the e-mail announcing his resignation.
  
  
• Trump's claim that he does not know about Project 2025 is WAY different from him saying "I would never do any of these things."
  
  
• Even if Trump promised he would never do any of these things, few people would believe him, because he's so truth-challenged, and because he's clearly been trying to hedge his bets here. He LIKES Project 2025, particularly what it will do for him in terms of exciting the base and, potentially, making him a more powerful president.
  
  
• The fingerprints of Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, are all over Project 2025. Not only did he write the intro to the upcoming book promoting Project 2025 but, according to a new report from Media Matters, he's a part of several organizations that helped shape Project 2025, he's friends with most of the key players who helped write Project 2025, and he's been on many different podcasts singing the praises of Project 2025.

We've previously predicted that, once the general election started, it was going to get tough for Trump to keep being all things to all voters—fanatical for the fanatics, but reasonable for the independents/moderates. Project 2025 would seem to be a pretty good example of this; the former president is trying to stake out a middle ground, and is pleasing nobody.

Abortion access is another example of this. Yesterday, Alexandra DeSanctis, writing for National Review, noticed that Trump and Vance have gone a bit soft on abortion access. Referring to the Dobbs decision, she writes:

Evidently convinced that softening on abortion is a wise political move, Trump and Vance have chosen to grossly mispresent the Court's ruling in order to justify their newfound support for chemical abortion. It's buck-passing of the most devious sort, a half-hearted shrug at a ruling that never happened to give themselves cover as they wink at the vast majority of abortions.

She concludes:

It's one thing for pro-lifers to reluctantly embrace the Republican ticket as the only alternative to the abortion extremism. It is another thing entirely to do so while ignoring this egregious shift in favor of legal abortion and pretending that the party and its nominees are as pro-life as ever.

It would not be well for Trump if other anti-choice voters begin to see things similarly.

Obviously, the people who like Project 2025 and Dobbs are never, ever going to be Kamala Harris voters. But if some percentage of Trump's base becomes persuaded that he's now just another politician, and that he won't follow through on his policy promises, they could stay home on Election Day, or maybe vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And if a candidate is running a base-only strategy, they just can't afford too many defections from the base. (Z)