Feehery: GOP must focus on the concerns of the voters, not the pundits

As the various factions of the Washington political establishment indict former President Trump, seek to impeach President Biden and inch towards another government shutdown, the public wonders whether anybody inside the Beltway is listening to their concerns or coming up with solutions to improve their lives.  

 The hallmark of a winning political campaign is to find popular solutions to the problems that vex the biggest share of one’s constituents.  

 Neither throwing shade at Trump nor spending much political capital investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden, is going to motivate the average voter to head to the polls.   

According to the Wall Street Journal, 86 percent of registered voters believe that the two political parties are more focused on fighting each other than achieving results for them. Pew Research, which conducted the poll, also found that 65 percent of those surveyed are exhausted by the mere thought of our political system. 

David Winston, a Republican pollster, noted that neither party has exactly nailed it when it comes to the two issues voters care about most, which according to his research are inflation/the economy and crime/safety. According to Winston, Republicans spend most of their time talking about the border and Hunter Biden, which respectively rank 6th and 16th in a list of the top 18 issues, while Democrats talk most about climate change and Trump, which according to those surveyed rank 11th and 15th among the issues most important to voters. 

 It should be pretty easy for Republicans to calibrate their messaging to appeal to more voters. After all, the Biden record on inflation and crime has been abysmal, and Republicans, if they were smart, would spend the bulk of their public messaging on their efforts to get rid of Biden’s wasteful spending while bulking up efforts to put more criminals in jail. That would be more consistent with the concerns of voters of all stripes, especially independent voters.  

When Republicans moved forward on an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton in 1998, they believed impeaching Hillary’s husband would deliver them a huge election victory. But it turned out that voters didn’t care that much about the partisan political games or the president’s sexual indiscretions. But they did like that the economy was roaring and the crime rate was going down.  

 Instead of enjoying the fruits of a bigger majority, the GOP only narrowly kept their majority, and Republicans took the Speaker’s gavel away from Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and gave it to somebody else.  

 Democrats fell into the same trap in 2019. They moved to impeach Trump instead of talking about issues that most voters cared about. They narrowly kept the House, only to lose it two years later, in part because they could never get over their almost maniacal focus on the 45th president.  

 It seems likely that Republicans’ inability to come up with a coherent message on abortion was the only thing that kept them from a big victory in 2022.  

 The bottom line is this: The political party that can best present itself as the solution to the problems that most concern voters will win in 2024. Democrats are mired in a left-wing echo chamber, preoccupied by the dual threats of climate change and Trump — issues that most voters don’t care much about, despite the media’s best efforts. 

 Republicans get closer to the concerns of the average voter when they talk about government spending (which drives up inflation) and Biden’s open border policies (which leads to a more lawless America). But wasting time on Hunter Biden is not going to deliver the White House or the Congress to the GOP. Republicans have a great opportunity to do well in the next election, but they must keep their focus on the concerns of the voters, not the pundits. 

Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).