There was a time not so long ago when Jon Huntsman Jr. and Jeff Sessions were wildly popular politicians. Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, once posted a 90 percent approval rating in his home state. Sessions, in his last Alabama Senate campaign in 2014, won reelection essentially unopposed.
But that was in the pre-Donald Trump era.
Both fell short in recent efforts to regain their former offices, casualties of a new Republican Party that Trump continues to remake at every level even as he struggles in his own reelection bid.
Regardless of the president’s fate in November — Trump trails Joe Biden by double-digits, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released Wednesday — the 2020 primary season is ensuring that the GOP will be imprinted with his political DNA for years to come.
After steamrolling many of the GOP’s biggest national stars to win the nomination in 2016, Trump’s first term has seen scores of other one-time presidential prospects sidelined or defeated since then — Huntsman, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford among them. A new presidential bench has taken shape, filled with candidates like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who are more attuned to Trump’s style of politics.
The House and Senate have been similarly overhauled.Since Trump took office in 2017, according to the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, nearly half of the House Republican conference “have either retired, resigned, been defeated or are retiring in 2020.” Many of the GOP newcomers to Congress will be MAGA through and through, having won primaries where fealty to Trump was a determinative issue.
“Whether the president wins or loses, his policy views and style have firmly taken over the Republican Party – nationalism and white grievance, those kinds of things,” said Matt Moore, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “I don’t think that Trump-y politics will be leaving the stage anytime soon.”
The drubbing of Sessions,the former attorney general who drew Trump’s ire, in the Alabama Senate primary runoff Tuesday served both as a punctuation mark on four years of chaos for the party’s entrenched class — and as a reminder that the humiliation is likely to endure.
“He got Trumped,” Jonathan Gray, a Republican political strategist based in Sessions’ hometown of Mobile, said on Tuesday night, even before as the race was called for Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach backed by Trump. Sessions had been the first senator to endorse Trump in 2016, then saw Trump turn on him, transforming him into a pariah.
Sessions succumbed to Trump’s direct rebukes — what Gray called “brutal punches to the face from the president of the United States.” But his defeat also appears to have reflected a sea change that Trump has accelerated — and that will outlast him — elevating personality politics over platform-based campaigns.
Within that environment, there was no room for a textbook conservative like Ryan, who elected not to run for re-election in 2018. Nor was there any space for Sanford, a one-time South Carolina governor,who embarked on a quixotic primary campaign against Trump after being abandoned by his party. He said he hoped to “raise and elevate a discussion and debate about where are we going as a country” but quickly abandoned the effort.
Concluding the obvious, Sanford said at the time, “There is no appetite for a subtle discussion of issues on the Republican side.”
Then there was Huntsman, who failedto get his old job back this year, losing in Utah’s Republican primary last week to Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox.
“[Trump] has transformed the party in his image, for sure,” said Bill McCoshen, a Republican strategist based in Madison, Wis. “The base is a little bit different than it was even one or two cycles ago, and Trump has a lot to do with that. These are people who are impatient, they are looking for stuff to get done … If you are not an agent of change, they’re going to look for a different option.”
Trump didn’t directly torpedoHuntsman, who had served as his ambassador to Russia, the way he did Sessions. But the anti-establishment hostility that he has foisted upon his party is not abating at all as Trump falls behind in his own re-election campaign. If anything, it is worse for the Republican institutionaliststhan it was before.
Asked what happened to Huntsman and Sessions, Brent Buchanan, a Republican political strategist with years of experience in Alabama politics, said, “Huntsman and Sessions are boring … Nobody said, ‘Oh, that guy hits me in the feels.’ But they did about Trump and Obama and Bernie [Sanders].”
“The whole person-over-policy is only exacerbated in the Trump era,” he said, predicting campaigns across the country in 2022 and 2024 in which “we’re going to see a resurgence of personality-based candidates.”
The current election cycle has already provided a glimpse of what’s to come. Cotton, the 43-year-old Republican from Arkansas, drew national attention for his controversial op-ed in The New York Times calling for the deployment of U.S. troops to stop riots following the death of George Floyd.
In Colorado, Lauren Boebert, a restaurateur and gun-rights activist, defeated Rep. Scott Tipton, who had Trump’s endorsement. She is one of a growing class of Republican candidates who have expressed at least some support for QAnon, the conspiracy theory about deep state forces in conflict with Trump. At least two of them, Boebert and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, are favored to win House seats in November.
The Republican Party after Trump — whether that’s in 2021 or 2025 — will still have familiarRepublican heavyweights like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley. But it is difficult to know what flavor of Republican candidate will sell — a looming uncertainty that is in large part a function of Trump, a politician who has not yoked his political fortunes to ideology in the way that previous presidents have.
“The thing that I think is interesting about [Trump] is that his brand and the defense of his brand goes beyond a party platform or a set of principles,” said Brett Doster, a Florida-based Republican strategist who served as the state’s executive director for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential reelection campaign. “When we do get beyond Trump … the question is, ‘What is the Republican Party?’ I don’t know that anyone’s really looked at the platform beyond Trump’s Twitter account for the last four years.”
He said, “For the last four years, it’s been easy for people to say, ‘Are you for Trump or are you not for Trump,’ and that litmus test is not going to be there” when Trump is gone, whether that happens next year or four years later.
Ed Brookover, a partner at Avenue Strategies who managed Republican Ben Carson’s presidential campaign in 2016 and later was a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, described the GOP as undergoing a “slow changing of the guard” that is “bigger than one person,” dating back at least to the beginning of the Tea Party movement in 2009. He sees a Republican Party tilting increasingly to politicians who “came of age a little bit later in the process, since 2010, 2012.”
“Those who have been around for a while,” Brookover said, may not be perceived to “accurately reflect the Republican electorate.”
Calling the political landscape unfavorable for “the more traditional, elite part of the party,” Pat McCrory, the former Republican governor of North Carolina, suggested that the GOP has become a more blue-collar-oriented party under Trump, with his trade policies and “America First” messaging. And he suspects that will last.
“I think you’re going to have more populist candidates in the future, and the trick’s going to be getting the populist candidate that also can appeal to the suburban voter, which we can’t lose,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republicans are going to find some future, conservative AOCs.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
