The leaders followed; who led?
A look at a year of county party chairs surveys
My latest piece at Politico is out today. I report on who Republican county chairs are now supporting after the first three contests (see graph above), and also look into where supporters of previous candidates ended up. I also look back at the overall patterns of county chairs, and it looks like the party’s leaders were the ones doing the following:
Last February, the county chairs were less supportive of Trump than Republican primary voters as a whole. Yet as time went on, and Trump consolidated support among rank-and-file voters, the chairs fell in line. It’s a reflection of the state of the GOP that has existed since 2016 when Trump first snatched the nomination away from the establishment and took over the Republican Party.
I hope you’ll check it out! And then feel free to go to bed because there’s definitely no more news happening today.
Perhaps its because the founders got it right; it's about We the People. It's just one expression of "populism," which if it's to right of center is characterized as "authoritarian populism," if that's even a thing.
Your N is way way to small. 2,300 surveyed and only 104 returned, that is an unusable response, but you would have to know that. And even if it was how did you control for the difference in geography (Local republican committees are made up of completely different populations in say DC and WV. Likewise how did your respondents differ from the total population of committee chairs? Gee come on, I realize that not everyone can be James Q Wilson or Gerald Pomper but I don’t even think Larry Sabato would try to make data that thin support a conclusion.