I was asked by POLITICO Magazine to contribute a snap reaction to the off-year election results, and what Republicans can take away from the experience. It’s a good variety of perspectives, though I think I’m the only one who went the realpolitik route.

Read the full piece here.

My take:

Democrats had a strong night on Tuesday across the board, a morale-boosting affair that will sooth concerns over the increasingly shaky Presidential polling. While the results largely lined up with survey data, Republicans failed to live up to outsized expectations predicated on expanding from their 2021 success, which now registers as a blip in retrospect. The unmistakable pattern of the Trump era is that of Democrats becoming the party that excels in low turnout elections, while GOP fortunes are increasingly tied to low propensity voters who only tune into national elections.

What this off-year success can’t assuage — and at some level serves to exacerbate — is the creeping sense that, despite a favorable environment and galvanizing issue matrix, the growing public malaise surrounding President Biden leaves him singularly vulnerable to defeat. For the time being, voters are telling pollsters that they’d even prefer former President Trump, despite his own immense baggage and unpopularity. Age, inflation, and disaffection among key voter groups all have taken their toll, and an overwhelming share of Democrats profess to want someone new as their nominee, even if they can’t agree who that should be.

As we hurtle toward the primary season, Republicans continue to wrestle with the same paradox that has gripped them since that fateful ride down the escalator — Donald Trump is at once the cause of and solution to all of the party’s problems. If he behaves himself, acts rationally, and keeps the attention on Biden and his myriad issues, Trump could maintain his current advantage, turning out unlikely voters without turning off the persuadable habitual voters who decide elections. Of course, that’s not who Donald Trump is, and a campaign punctuated by high-profile courtroom drama will place him front and center in voters’ lives in a way we haven’t experienced in nearly three years. So long as Trump is the presumptive nominee, no lead is safe, even as Biden’s manifest weakness makes the race a true toss-up. If they’re not prepared to move on from the former president — and the base is clearly inclined to double down — Republicans have to harness Trump’s red state strength and capitalize on a favorable Senate map, where wins in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio would ensure control of at least one lever of power for years to come.

I wrote a piece for the New York Times today breaking down Republicans’ three week demolition derby, what, if anything, the election of Mike Johnson solved (beyond a personnel problem of their own making), and the ongoing streak of win-win propositions engineered by the chaos caucus.

The upshot:

Taking a cue from Mr. Gaetz, the hard-liners have decided to take the win, at least for the time being. There are early signs that Mr. Johnson may be treated with a level of political grace not afforded to other hopefuls. Asked about a potential stopgap spending measure, the House Freedom Caucus chairman, Scott Perry, acknowledged as much to CNN’s Manu Raju. “It’s a different situation now. There was a trust factor with leadership last time,” Mr. Perry said. “I think you’re going to see a different viewpoint now.”

To the extent Mr. Johnson does find himself quickly in hot water, he can simply blame McCarthy and promise better outcomes in next year’s fiscal negotiations. But the underlying dynamics remain the same, as does the balance of power. While a narrow House majority offers negotiating leverage at the margin, anything that can become law must go through a Democratic-controlled Senate and be signed by President Biden. No hard-line tactics or clever strategies can compensate for the fact that Republicans need to win more elections to carry out their agenda.

Which is all to say that the continuing functioning of government requires the same leadership behavior that felled Mr. McCarthy and that as long as the wing of the party that precipitated this month’s bedlam maintains de facto veto power over the speaker and his ability to bring legislation to the floor, the incentives remain the same.

High-stakes tests are rapidly approaching, with a deadline on government funding and decisions about Ukraine and Israel aid, among other supplemental requests. Whatever happens, it will take bipartisan cooperation. And as long as modest bipartisan outcomes are enough to paralyze the legislative branch for weeks at a time, stability remains at the mercy of nihilist whims.

I hope you’ll read the whole thing (unlocked link here) and let me know what you think. We discussed all this and more at length on this week’s episode of The Lobby Shop.

So where do we go from here?

Speaker Johnson comes in with more goodwill, credibility, and room to maneuver than we might have guessed three weeks ago simply by virtue of how the process played out. And that may be good enough to get him through the mid-November deadline unscathed.

But at some point there will come a need to do long term (and supplemental) funding, so eventually these issues will come to a head. Whatever becomes law will happen with significant Democratic support by definition, and beyond changing who sits in the big chair it’s not clear why the Problem Causers will look more kindly on bipartisan apostasy more kindly when it’s coming from a bona fide conservative.