The Brownback Effect, and why Donald Trump and those associated with cannot win in 2024.


 As it stands, Donald Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination for President in 2024. Even Governor Ron DeSantis (FL) likely cannot beat him. He cannot win the general. A bold statement, though if thought about seems perfectly logical. As a reminder, it was when the Republicans in the Senate caved in December of 2015 on an Omnibus Spending Bill (sound familiar?) That on this very blog, it was predicted that not only would Donald Trump win the GOP nomination (The Lib supported at the time, Senator Rand Paul, then Ted Cruz, Gary Johnson (L), before supporting Trump), but that he would win the General Election.

Sam Brownback served as an Ambassador in the Trump Administration, after being on the outs in Topeka as Governor. He had successfully been elected to the 2nd District in the House, moved to the Senate when Dole resigned to run for President, then ran as governor. He proposed significant tax cuts, which the state house went along with, but school districts were not prepared to cut their budgets accordingly. While tax cuts are important (after all, it is your money), only in la la land do they generate sufficient income from economic growth to overcome revenue shortfalls. Instructionally, the Laffer curve does indicate a sweet spot on it, when tax cuts can essentially be revenue neutral with economic growth. Suffice to say, the tax cuts passed by the state legislature and signed into law were a little too aggressive. 

Most states, unlike the federal government, have Balanced Budget Amendments to their constitutions, or state laws. This triggered the draconian cuts in spending that caused the basis of what I call the Brownback Effect.

What does Sam Brownback have to do with Trump not being able to win?

In Kansas in the 2022 elections, statewide:https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/results/kansas

Governor Kelly (D) won re-election over Derrick Schmidt. The overall state totals were 499,849-477,250.

Senator Moran (R) beat Holland 602,976-372,214

Sec of State Schwab (R) defeated Repass 580,908-386,661

Attorney General, Kobach (R) beat Mann 506,817-490,925 

Senator Moran and SecState Scwab easily won re-election. Governor Kelly won by about 5%, and you will see why in just a moment. AG Kobach has his own issues, but eked out a victory. I want to highlight where  the "Brownback Effect" comes into play. In the 3rd District which is a center district with blue Wyandotte Co, neither left nor right Johnson Co, and then Miami, Franklin, and Anderson Counties, sparsely populated, but "red" in the binary political scheme. The 3rd District most likely reflects how many battleground states will go in the future. Especially when the ability to tar a candidate factors in.

In the 3rd District, one would have thought that Governor Kelly was running against the former Governor, Sam Brownback. Every commercial painted the once associated with Brownback Schmidt as Brownback 2.0. And while the 3rd District was redrawn after the last Census to favor Republicans (adding all of Miami Co, as well as Franklin and Anderson Counties, taken from the 2nd District). The incumbent, Sharice Davids, easily won re-election, defeating Amanda Adkins. Of course, in advertising, not only was Brownback 2.0 Derrick Schmidt running for governor, but it was also a former associate of Brownback, the GOP candidate Adkins, running for the House. The final total?

Davids defeated Adkins 165,527-128,839. What impact did that have on the other races?

In the Governor's race, the difference was Kelly by 60,807, or in other words, subtract the 3rd District, and Kelly loses.

Senator Moran lost the 3rd District by 194 votes

SecState Schwab lost by 7,500

AG Kobach lost by 6,000.

To recap, never discount the GOP's ability to screw things up. The party nominated Schmidt and Adkins, but in the opinion of the Lib, the successful transposition of those two into Sam Brownback was key not only to their losses, but to the margins in the other races as well.

If this is accurate, what does that mean, if anything for 2024?

Not only is Donald Trump, the current favorite to win the GOP nomination, likely to lose even against a brain dead President Biden, (or any other Democrat) but anyone associated with the former President. That means that VP Mike Pence, former SecState Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, and even, to some extent, Governor Ron DeSantis, are tarred by Trump. Each one of those, and anyone else associated with Trump, will suffer, particularly in Battleground states, as Adkins and Schmidt did in KS. Not only did the candidates lose, but it drags anyone else, candidates for the House, Senate, and state and local elections.

Let this be a buoy of warning in the sea of the 2024 election. 

You read it here first.


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