Speaker 1: You wouldn't bank your future on someone you don't know.
Speaker 1: Financial advice is simply better when your banker gets to
Speaker 1: know you. That's what City National Bank believes. The better
Speaker 1: they know you, the better they can help you achieve
Speaker 1: your goals. See what personal can do for you at
Speaker 1: CNB dot com. I'm Carol Masser, our cover story this week.
Speaker 1: Whatever the GOP one stood for voters today associated with
Speaker 1: one thing, Donald Trump. Republican politicians at every level have
Speaker 1: learned that the path to success in the Trump era
Speaker 1: entails praising and emulating the president, and November thirds better
Speaker 1: than expected results are unlikely to drive a reform movement
Speaker 1: with the GOP even without Trump as president, Trump is
Speaker 1: m is here to stay. The biggest wild card in
Speaker 1: the GOP's future is Trump himself and what path he
Speaker 1: chooses next. So don't be shocked to see Trump if
Speaker 1: he ends up losing, turn around and immediately file to
Speaker 1: run for president again. Trump is um isn't going away.
Speaker 1: Neither is Trump. If he's defeated this time, he could
Speaker 1: even run again. In twenty twenty four by Joshua Green.
Speaker 1: As the ballot counting drags on at press time, President
Speaker 1: Trump's fate looks grim but is still unsettled. The fate
Speaker 1: of Trump is um, on the other hand, is clear.
Speaker 1: It isn't going away, and Trump himself may remain in
Speaker 1: the political spotlight even if he loses. As the electoral
Speaker 1: college battle extends into overtime. The results already highlight the
Speaker 1: ways in which Trump's four years in office have imprinted
Speaker 1: his stamp on the American political map. Even if he
Speaker 1: squeaks through with just enough support to secure another term,
Speaker 1: He's changed US politics in a way that is perilous
Speaker 1: for the Republican Party and will be difficult to undo.
Speaker 1: Whatever the GOP once stood for, voters today associated with
Speaker 1: one thing, Donald Trump. Democrats went into the election believing
Speaker 1: this would be an unalloyed disaster for republicans fortunes. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: Instead of a blue wave, the result was a royaling
Speaker 1: cross current that drove GOP gains in the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives and limited Democrats advances in the Senate, even as
Speaker 1: it shifted key states in the electoral map to Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: The clearest sign of why that's a problem for Republicans
Speaker 1: comes in the races that have been called. The election
Speaker 1: results confirmed the movement of suburban voters away from the GOP,
Speaker 1: even though it retreated in some places from Regardless of
Speaker 1: the outcome, the realignment of the suburbs from red to
Speaker 1: blue has picked up astonishing speed during Trump's tumultuous tenure.
Speaker 1: In Even while losing to Trump, Hillary Clinton bested Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's performance in the suburb heavy states of Arizona and Texas.
Speaker 1: Voters outsted Republican incumbents in suburban areas around Dallas, Fort Worth, Denver,
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, Minneapolis, New York, Northern
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and Philadelphia, handing Democrats control of the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives. That eroding Republican support, especially among white college
Speaker 1: educated professionals, looked to be a bad omen for Trump,
Speaker 1: but no one could be certain. In it wasn't really
Speaker 1: apparent how unpopular Trump was in those suburbs because there
Speaker 1: was no presidential race that was being tested on the ballot,
Speaker 1: says David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. On
Speaker 1: November three, there was, and the verdict wasn't great. The
Speaker 1: suburban revolt against Trump and the GOP held up in
Speaker 1: most of the area's Democrats won two years ago, but
Speaker 1: it didn't extend to the smaller red leaning metro areas
Speaker 1: such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and St. Louis that they hoped
Speaker 1: to add this cycle or reach house districts in Texas
Speaker 1: they'd expected to gain, and the blue wave from eighteen
Speaker 1: ebbed costing Democrat seats in suburban districts like Oklahoma's fifth
Speaker 1: and South Carolina's first, where Republicans regained control after the
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen election. A popular refrain among Republican strategists was
Speaker 1: that the suburban voters may not love Trump, but they
Speaker 1: were happy to cast a ballot for their local Republican representative.
Speaker 1: At least in red states. That still appears to be true. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: over four years, Trump has driven the Republican Party to
Speaker 1: near extinction in suburbs across America because most voters there
Speaker 1: find him repellent. This trend is most pronounced in the
Speaker 1: areas of the country that are growing the fastest, places
Speaker 1: such as Arizona's Maricopa County, which encompasses the Phoenix suburbs.
Speaker 1: In twelve, Mitt Romney beat Obama there by forty seven
Speaker 1: thousand votes. In Trump edged Clinton by this year, when
Speaker 1: all the ballots are counted, Biden could cement Arizona, a
Speaker 1: bedrock of the Republican electoral coalition for decades, as a
Speaker 1: new battleground state. Republicans can't build a solid governing coalition
Speaker 1: without first figuring out how to fix their suburban problem.
Speaker 1: It's simple to say, harder to do, says Kirk Adams,
Speaker 1: the Republican former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives
Speaker 1: who represented a suburban Phoenix district. People in the suburbs
Speaker 1: want government to work. They want it to be effective
Speaker 1: and to solve problems. They don't want to be associated
Speaker 1: with anything that has even a tinge of racism. For
Speaker 1: the GOP to win them back is going to require
Speaker 1: candidates who speak to issues that they care about and
Speaker 1: do it in a way that is civil and smart.
Speaker 1: But for the past four years, all the momentum has
Speaker 1: gone the other way. Republican politicians at every level have
Speaker 1: learned that the path to success in the Trump era
Speaker 1: entails praising and emulating the president, and November three is
Speaker 1: better than expected. Results are unlikely to drive a reform
Speaker 1: movement breaking away from him now, even if he loses
Speaker 1: maybe impossible. Currently, many Republican voters evince more excitement about
Speaker 1: Qwan on the pro Trump, anti Democratic conspiracy theory than
Speaker 1: for returning to the sober competence of Amit Romney. Trump's
Speaker 1: approval rating with GOP voters hovers round, and the moderates
Speaker 1: and never Trump Conservatives who oppose him have either left
Speaker 1: or been driven out of the party. There isn't an
Speaker 1: obvious candidate to steer the GOP back to the center.
Speaker 1: Recent history already includes one attempt at broad scale rehabilitation
Speaker 1: that failed. After Romney's loss in the presidential race, the
Speaker 1: Republican National Committee conducted an autopsy of what had driven
Speaker 1: the loss and how the party could recover. It's conclusion
Speaker 1: that the GOP should embrace immigration reform and present a softer,
Speaker 1: more welcoming image to attract minorities, millennials, and LGBTQ people
Speaker 1: was roundly ignored. Instead, Trump emerged as the galvanizing figure,
Speaker 1: yanking the party in the opposite direction. It's a role
Speaker 1: he seems unlikely to yield regardless of this year's outcome.
Speaker 1: I don't see any appetite for an autopsy, not for
Speaker 1: the old one or for a new one, says Tim Miller,
Speaker 1: a former top strategist for Jeb Bush. I think there
Speaker 1: will be a very slim minority of pencil heads in
Speaker 1: d C and a handful of people in Congress who
Speaker 1: want to look at how the party can revamp and
Speaker 1: broaden its appeal. But all the incentives in the small
Speaker 1: dollar donor world, on Fox News and on Twitter still
Speaker 1: point toward Trump's formula of doubling down on white grievance,
Speaker 1: owning the Libs, and pushing anti elite, populous nonsense. There's
Speaker 1: just no appetite for reform. A party that remains in
Speaker 1: thrall to Trump's peculiar obsessions, antipathy to masks, Hunter, Biden's laptop,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's alleged socialism isn't likely to have an easy
Speaker 1: time coaxing back the voters it's driven away. Whether Republicans
Speaker 1: can correct course and appeal to suburban women and others
Speaker 1: who have switched over to the Democrats will depend on
Speaker 1: how the party comes to understand its plight. Even a
Speaker 1: Trump loss doesn't ensure that the GOP will embark on
Speaker 1: the process of making the necessary adjustments. When a party loses,
Speaker 1: especially when it loses big, the question is what becomes
Speaker 1: the dominant interpretation within the party of why they lost,
Speaker 1: says David Hopkins, a professor of political science at Boston College.
Speaker 1: When Democrats lost four years ago, the dominant interpretation they
Speaker 1: took away was don't nominate a woman With Trump. I
Speaker 1: think the question will become was it a personal disaster
Speaker 1: particular to the candidate, or will the interpretation be that
Speaker 1: Trump was a martyr to the left, destroyed by the media,
Speaker 1: the deep state, the phony mail in ballots, China, and
Speaker 1: so on. And the lesson is to fight even harder
Speaker 1: and go further than he did. The biggest wild card
Speaker 1: in the GOP's future is Trump himself and what path
Speaker 1: he chooses next. If he loses, he stands to be
Speaker 1: robbed at the spotlight. He's commanded with punishing consistency since
Speaker 1: he became a candidate five years ago. For someone who
Speaker 1: craves attention and relevancy the way Trump does, that has
Speaker 1: to be a painful thought. But there's a simple way
Speaker 1: to avoid oblivion. He could turn around and immediately file
Speaker 1: to run for president again in twenty twenty four. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, he filed to run for re election
Speaker 1: on the day he was inaugurated. Doing that would guarantee
Speaker 1: him a platform, since he has enough support to credibly
Speaker 1: pursue the nomination, and would present a daunting obstacle for
Speaker 1: any other Republican hopefuls. Defining Trump's base is tricky, but
Speaker 1: there's a clear group of die hards, says John Sides,
Speaker 1: a political scientist at Vanderbilt University who helps oversee the
Speaker 1: Democracy Fund u c L a Nationscape poll. We've been
Speaker 1: interviewing the same people over time, and those who have
Speaker 1: a consistently high view of Trump is maybe twenty of respondents.
Speaker 1: That's more support than any other Republican has. Declaring his
Speaker 1: candidacy could also appeal to Trump for reasons that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with wanting to get back to the
Speaker 1: White House. He has privately expressed anxiety to allies about
Speaker 1: scrutiny from prosecutors in New York and possible federal probes
Speaker 1: into his business empire that could arise once he leaves office.
Speaker 1: One Democratic lawyer notes that if Trump were to lose
Speaker 1: and declare him self a candidate for four, he could
Speaker 1: claim that any investigation was politically motivated and designed to
Speaker 1: thwart his return to the presidency. Some Trump allies envisioned
Speaker 1: no scenario where he willingly leaves the stage regardless of
Speaker 1: the election outcome, a possibility that would greatly complicate the
Speaker 1: party's effort to move beyond him and renew its appeal
Speaker 1: to the broad swaths of the electorate that have defected
Speaker 1: to Democrats. Only two things can happen. Trump wins or
Speaker 1: it's stolen, says Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist in the election.
Speaker 1: Presumed Republican presidential hopefuls Josh Holly, Tom Cotton, Nicky Haley,
Speaker 1: and Mike Pompeo may not realize it, but they're running
Speaker 1: for VP on Trump's ticket. In Without a crystal ball,
Speaker 1: no one can know if Trump will return to the
Speaker 1: White House next year or in the future, or if
Speaker 1: he'll leaven try. Bannon has added incentive to tout Trump's
Speaker 1: strength and belittle his rivals, since he was indicted for
Speaker 1: fraud in August, and would ben of it from a
Speaker 1: Trump pardon. But one prediction from him seems like a
Speaker 1: safe bet and one sure to induce Migraines and Republican
Speaker 1: leaders eager to move on from Trump. He's not going away,
Speaker 1: and that's the Bloomberg Business Week cover story this week.
Speaker 1: Check out more in the current issue of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Magazine. It's on newsstands, it's online at Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: and of course always on the Bloomberg I'm Carol Masser,
Speaker 1: and be sure to also check out Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Radio that is live Monday through Friday starting at two
Speaker 1: pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio, and catch our
Speaker 1: daily podcast feed, and also check us out on YouTube.
Speaker 1: How is remote work impacting work life balance and employee
Speaker 1: barrel without regular commuting and socializing? The concept of burnout
Speaker 1: has taken center stage. Joy Tammy Irwin, CEO of Verizon
Speaker 1: Business and Joey Fitzgerald, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer in
Speaker 1: Eli Lilly on November twelfth at the Bloomberg Breakaway CEO
Speaker 1: town Hall to hear how they are bringing strong leadership
Speaker 1: into focus and ensuring employees are getting the support they
Speaker 1: need during these unprecedented times. Chester Now at Blueberg Live
Speaker 1: dot com. Slash the New Normal