Their success should put to rest the myth that the only way to fire up the base is by alienating swing voters or swearing blind allegiance to a former president. Mr. Youngkin outperformed Donald Trump even in many rural Republican areas. Something similar happened in Maryland when I sought election in 2014 and re-election four years later: Our ticket made dramatic gains in Democratic parts of the state while achieving historic numbers in Republican areas.
As former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour likes to say, successful politics is addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division. If we recognize that, 2022 could be a historic wave for Republicans. There’s no doubt the opportunity is real. President Biden wasn’t elected to move the country to the far left. He was elected because voters hoped he would lower the political temperature and seek common ground.
That should have been obvious. Though the country rejected Mr. Trump a year ago, Republicans gained seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures. Mr. Biden misread his narrow victory as a mandate for far-left policies. Instead of quickly passing the bipartisan infrastructructure bill and finding other common ground with Republicans, he let the far left hold his party hostage in an effort to jam through their partisan and extreme agenda. Instead of addressing the issues voters are concerned about, the Democratic majority is narrowly focused on spending as much of our money as quickly as possible.
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