GOP Pollster Reads Party the Riot Act Over 2024 Losses

Frank Luntz foresees disaster for Republicans if they don’t course-correct following the brutal New York special election that cost them a House seat.

“Tonight is the final wakeup call for the @HouseGOP. If they ignore or attempt to explain away why they lost, they will lose in November as well,” the Republican pollster tweeted. “The issue agenda is on their side. Their congressional behavior is not.”

Democrat Tom Suozzi on Tuesday handily defeated Republican Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip to reclaim his House seat after it was vacated by George Santos.

While it’s fair to question Luntz’s analysis that Republicans have winning issues, it’s hard to disagree with his comment on their recent actions in Congress.

On the campaign trail, Suozzi hit at Pilip for opposing the border deal brokered in the Senate, a position Pilip shared with House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Trump. In doing so, some say, Suozzi outflanked Pilip on the issue of immigration, even as House Republicans have attempted to portray Democrats as overly soft on the border. The GOP Congressional Leadership Fund’s $1.5 million ad buy aimed to tar Suozzi as dismissive of the “migrant crisis,” but those attacks didn’t seem to stick.

This isn’t the first election postmortem to forecast doom for Republicans after disappointing results. In the aftermath of Democrats’ surprising fending-off of a predicted Republican bloodbath in the 2022 midterms, analysts blamed the GOP’s extremist slate of candidates and their doubling down on a cruel anti-abortion and anti-trans platform for their historic underperformance. Then Republican candidates did the same in 2023 and lost again.

Now, though, with Luntz, the call is coming from inside the house, and it’s not anti-trans hysteria but recalcitrance on passing bipartisan legislation that threatens to hurt Republicans in 2024.

The smart money is on House Republicans continuing to fearmonger about immigration, but will these attacks land now that their vote against a harsh border bill is on the record? Will House Republicans get their act together before November? Whatever the answer is, they won’t be able to say Luntz didn’t warn them.

After spending years attacking what he calls the “fake news media,” former President Donald Trump is now literally sharing fake news. In at least two instances, he has shared edited versions of Newsweek articles, quietly snipping away tidbits that he deems unnecessary.

On Wednesday, the former president shared a screenshot of a Newsweek story—though something was undeniably off about its contents.

Trump’s version, shared on his Truth Social account, omits a lede reference to the outcome of the 2020 election (which Joe Biden won), and cuts a line about the “81-year-old” Biden being seen as too old to run for president. Trump is 77 years old.

And on Tuesday, MeidasTouch caught him altering another piece by the weekly news magazine, posting screenshots of an article titled “Donald Trump Poised to Be First Republican to Win Popular Vote in 20 Years,” removing several sections from the original story that referenced Biden’s strengths as a candidate, Biden’s predicted wins, and Trump’s failures. The only indication that he heavily edited the piece was some ellipses.

Among Trump’s myriad revisions included the exclusion of a line stating that Newsweek had reached out to Trump representatives for a comment. He also conflated two paragraphs from the original into one. In the process, he removed a detail that he “notably failed to secure” the popular vote against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election; removed another line on how George W. Bush was the last Republican president to secure the popular vote; and snipped comments from several academics, including one by University of Surrey professor Dr. Mark Shanahan dubbing Trump’s goal of winning the popular vote a “pipe dream.”

Further into the article, Trump removed an NBC poll reference that found Biden will be seen as “competent and effective” and lead with two points if Trump is convicted of a felony.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly shared content onto his social media platform from far-right outlets like Newsmax and Right Side Broadcasting Network. Considering his 91 criminal charges, recent major trial losses, and rickety political platform, perhaps media manipulation is the only way the GOP front-runner can get the kind of press he desires in well-regarded outlets.

Be still, my heart: Donald Trump’s Valentine’s Day card to Melania has leaked. It’s a fundraising email.

“Dear Melania, I LOVE YOU!” writes Trump. “Even after every single INDICTMENT, ARREST, AND WITCH HUNT, you never left my side.”

It’s heartwarming stuff from the former president, whom Melania has “always supported … through everything,” according to the email.

That includes two impeachments, four indictments, and other sundry legal troubles to which he presumably alludes. A modern-day Bonnie and Clyde they are not, but who among us doesn’t list our various criminal cases in our love letters?

“You will always mean the world to me,” says one-half of America’s favorite couple. “I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness, and warmth.”

A judge recently ruled that Trump owes writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her after he was found liable for sexually abusing her in the 1990s.

“From your husband with love,” Trump closes, “Donald J. Trump.” An interesting pet name, to be sure.

People are really starting to tack the hate onto Taylor Swift—namely, Republicans.

According to a Monmouth University Poll, 32 percent or roughly one in three Republicans believe a conspiracy theory peddled by far-right influencers about the singer, agreeing that Swift is a CIA psyop and part of a covert government effort to help president Joe Biden win re-election in 2024. That’s against 57 percent of Republicans who responded that they didn’t believe the theory, and 11 percent who responded that they don’t know.

Conversely, of those who said they believed in the conspiracy theory, 71 percent identified with the Republican Party, while 83 percent said they were likely to support Donald Trump in the upcoming general election, according to the survey.

Equally telling, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of those who believed in the Swift conspiracy theory also believed the 2020 election outcome was fraudulent.

Conservative respondents were also equally split on whether they supported Swift encouraging people to vote, with 47 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving.

“The supposed Taylor Swift PsyOp conspiracy has legs among a decent number of Trump supporters. Even many who hadn’t heard about it before we polled them accept the idea as credible. Welcome to the 2024 election,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs captain Travis Kelce, had just one thing to say for the outlandish theory’s believers.

“They’re all crazy. Every last one of you are crazy,” he said during a segment that aired during Super Bowl 2024.

In total, 1 in 5 Americans believe the Swift psyop conspiracy theory.

Take note, there are other, totally legit reasons to condemn the “Bad Blood” singer—perhaps most egregiously for topping a list of celebs with the highest carbon emissions, or for recently bringing her mighty team of lawyers down on a college student who tracks celebrities’ private jet usage on Twitter via publicly available data.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the Trump family gravy train is running on schedule. Its next stop: the Republican National Committee.

Speaking with Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt on Tuesday evening, Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, criticized the leadership of the RNC under chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as wasteful and behind the times, and promoted her own candidacy for the chair.

“If I am elected to this position, I can assure you there will not be any more $70,000—or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was—spent on flowers. Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC. That is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country,” she said.

Lara Trump’s pledge to “play chess, not checkers,” and to focus entirely on the candidacy of her father-in-law, who has not yet officially been named the Republican nominee for the presidency, conspicuously comes in the wake of his endorsement of her for the position of RNC co-chair. Trump on Monday announced a slate of endorsements—made up of his biggest fans—to take over the RNC.

McDaniel has not yet stepped down from her role as chairwoman, but she has faced intense criticism in recent weeks for her stewardship of the RNC, especially from former president Trump and his allies. McDaniel has reportedly informed Trump she intends to step down, but no announcement has been made.

Lara Trump’s candidacy for the chair, a power-sharing agreement that would see her split duties with North Carolina GOP chairman and election-denier Michael Whatley, represents a new frontier in the complete takeover of the Republican Party infrastructure by explicitly pro-Trump partisans. Securing his daughter-in-law a highly influential position in the party machine would be another crowning achievement in Trump’s years-long effort to build a “counterestablishment” to rival legacy institutions like the RNC under McDaniel. This also follows the announcement of Project 2025, a sweeping initiative to clean house of civil servants and replace them with Trump loyalists should the former president be elected in 2024.

Procuring sinecures for family members was a priority of Trump’s presidency; it often got in the way of policy objectives preferred by conservative establishment members. And with Trump facing legal battles both personal and political, not to mention abysmal approval ratings from his time as president, the future RNC chair has their work cut out for them. Evidently, family ties remain a priority. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see how it pays off for them.