Introduction to Midterm Elections and the Future of the GOP
Jenna Ellis: Welcome to On Demand. This is our AFR exclusive podcast where we do a deep dive into issues you need to know about from guests you love to hear from. And it's all things midterms right now. So with the GOP midterm, convention that happened, just yesterday and Wednesday, as we are recording this podcast, we want to talk about, where the future of the GOP is going and how much of this, after the midterms, of course, is going to be focused on the next leader of the gop, when President Trump, of course, is not going to be on the ballot again, and where the polls stand. Because, Although, of course, you know, we've seen how polls, can. Can be bandwagon fallacies in some regards. They can give us an indicator in, if they're done well, where people are standing, what they're thinking, and kind of give us an indication of, where all things stand. So let's welcome in Mark Mitchell, who is the CEO of Honest Polls and has been doing this for a really long time. And Mark, I know that you'll have some good insights, into where we stand with the midterms.
Candidate Viability and the Role of Primaries in the GOP
And you know, the way that, that I see a lot of this, and I've been saying this actually on the radio side, this week, that, you know, there are some candidates, in the midterms, like, the biggest example right now, I think, is Ken Paxton, out of the state of Texas, who is not, a lot of people's favorites. they think that he's a weak candidate for various reasons. I think, you know, he's great on policy, and I think he will do well in the Senate. But, there's kind of this feeling among some, at least on social media, if that's an indication at all. you know, that's. That's an informal poll for sure, that this is going to be a very, very close race. And there are some projections even among Republicans that, Texas will lose that Senate seat, which I think is wild. but, you know, there's this kind of feeling. Why should, the voters coalesce around candidates that they didn't necessarily select in the primaries? Well, the GOP writ large, everyone who participated did select those candidates, just like Byron Donalds in the state of Florida. I didn't, personally support him as the best candidate in the primary. but now that he is the choice for my team, I'm going to support him. And I think overall he will do a Way better job than the radical leftist Democrat. So, I mean, it should seem obvious at this point to people what primaries are for, what general elections are for. But, where do you think things stand for the gop?
National Polling Trends and Trump's Impact on the GOP's Electoral Performance
Mark Mitchell: Well, let's start nationally. And I just got my first generic ballot poll back as my new, company, the Honest Poll, and it has Democrats up 10 right now. And for everybody to, you know, take a breath, that's what would happen essentially if the election were held today. And there is a lot of time between now and November. But what that tells you is that essentially the House popular vote has gone 12 points to the left nationally since the 2024 election. Then there's no escaping the fact that, yes, it's because Donald Trump's approval mostly, and as a referendum on Trump's inability to govern towards the big, broad coalition that he built and won with in 2024. That doesn't look like past traditional Republican electorates. He got a lot of young people, he got a lot of minorities, he got a lot of Hispanic voters. He got actually some socialist votes. He got a lot of crazy new votes. And those people mostly wanted to focus on affordability. As I told him to his face a year ago, that that's what all of 2026 should be spent on. And objectively, it hasn't been. So if you play 12 points out nationally, you're going to see places like Ohio, Trump won by 13 points. Well, a 12 point shift shows you that, yeah, Ramaswamy is going to have problems there and I think Texas with a very similar margin. So it makes sense that those are going to be relatively tied Senate polls. They're reaffirming the national picture that not just me, I mean, Rich Barris has the Democrats up 11 2. Emerson's last two polls were negative 12 and negative 8. I think Zoghb. And I also even heard Fabrizio, internal polling is pretty close to mine too.
Texas Senate Race and Internal GOP Divisions Over Candidate Support
So it's just the reality of what we're seeing now. As far as you take a state like Texas, you take a race like Paxton in the Senate, there's a lot of other things that could happen. You know, polling can't predict for between now and November, the Democrats or the Republicans have a really good ad that just hits everybody, or a wave of funding comes in, or all of these other things that could and might get reflected in later polling, but as of yet, have not now. I mean, it is also sometimes just smart to ignore the polling and say, you know, Texas is a pretty conservative state, less so than normal, but like, pretty conservative. And you know, the establishment there is, is Republican leaning. They control the elections. They probably have a pretty good get out the vote game. Like these things might lend a tailwind to Paxton. But what you're really seeing with these races in the primary, as we've talked about, is basically a growing fracture within the MAGA coalition because remember Jon Clinton, who in my opinion would have been a weaker candidate than Paxton, I mean, years ago, like a few years ago, Paxton would have been a MAGA darling and would have sailed towards a Trump endorsement. And you could say, well, he's a weak candidate or he's got personal problems. But it's like, okay, so have many people in the MAGA movement. Like, that wasn't really a requirement. A requirement was focusing on Americans first, basically. Right? So now you have a situation where Cornyn already had $100 million pumped into his primary campaign by the Republican establishment before even Trump considered potentially picking a side in that race.
Establishment Strategies and the GOP's Inaction on Key Economic Issues
And, you know, I think that's like the establishment loves to fund the establishment. They make money off of vendors and contractor relationships. And the second person got picked up, everybody said, well, we're taking our money home and we're not playing anymore. And thankfully, finally he has some money coming in, I guess from places like Elon Musk. But, you know, I think you're seeing basically establishment preparing itself for a loss, you know, retrenching itself around maybe, you know, two decades old talking points, preparing itself to have essentially a period of hyper blame game where everybody points at each other and says, it's your fault that this whole coalition fell apart. And, you know, I think the establishment will say that they won and I think they'll be wrong. I mean, look, look at people like Tim Scott out there who's now going on Fox News and saying that we need to focus on affordability as the Republican Party. It's like, where's your Senate been for the last two years, bro? What have you been doing? Like, literally, the Senate is the one place that the MAGA legislative agenda has gone to die for the last two years. And now it takes them being down 10 points, less than two months from election to have any introspection about what we should or should not have been focused on. Like, these people could have laid out a beautiful, two year plan of economic populism and government reform and gotten people engaged in it and had a unified message. And instead what the Republican Senate seems to have been is just, you know, a bunch of, a Bunch of people undercutting each other because of their own funded special interests. And, you know that that's people, people were voting against with Donald Trump. And obviously a lot of this is outside Trump's control.
Trump's Messaging Strategy and its Evolution Post-Presidency
Although I do think Trump had a much better capability to message than he's actually done in the last year, at least, like we've seen. Essentially what I think is Susie Wiles moratorium on people really out there signaling the core MAGA platform. And then Trump's true social posts have been filling a vacuum and they, get a little bit different than 2016, let's just put it that way. So, again, it's not looking good right now. A lot of stuff can happen. I think it's really tough to look at the convention and predict how it will go at all. I mean, there's a lot of people saying, oh, it's empty, it's going to be all about Trump, it's going to look terrible. And then there's actually a lot of people that have enthusiasm about the message, you're going to say. But it's tough to know if any of that stuff will break through too. So we'll just have to wait and see.
Analyzing Trump's War Chest and its Underutilization in Key Races
Still a lot of time between now and November.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, it's always kind of the wait and see game. but, you know, a lot to unpack there. But the really big question I think as well is why hasn't Trump yet broken open his own war chest to help some of these candidates, specifically like, Akin, Paxton or even a Vivek? because those are really important seats, even if, you know, the candidates, were not necessarily the strongest and maybe, you know, Trump's view or others, I mean, they're both endorsed by him. So, why, why hasn't he put more of his own, money behind this?
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, I, that's a tough one to answer. I really don't know. I can only conjecture. But I mean, the context we're talking about here is that Trump has been uniquely capable of raising small dollar donations over the last decade, way more than other Republican candidates.
Trump's Fundraising Capabilities and Historical Approval Ratings Compared to Current Trends
And I mean, remember we were talking about that quarter billion dollars that Trump raised just on the 2020 election theft that Ronan McDaniel did not put towards election integrity. Let's just put it.
Jenna Ellis: Oh, I remember that, yes, very well.
Mark Mitchell: So he's got this money now. Some of it's coming from new places now. He has, you know, there are some new patrons to the Trump movement for sure. But I mean, the real question mark is like, okay, well, if that money is not going to get spent like, what on earth is it going to be used for? And one could say, well, maybe he wants to back one of his sons in the 2028 cycle, or maybe he wants to keep dry pow. So that he can act as a kingmaker in the 2028 cycle. But I hate to be, I hate to be like, people don't like some of these honest takes. But if you look at Trump's approval rating, very different situation than the first term. The first term he came in low. I mean, he came in above 50, but it immediately plunged to high 30s because everybody thought he was a Russian asset. And then the job market heated up and he got some of these wins, these deals that he was making, overseas, and he was generally doing a good job. His approval rating got up to 48, 49, 50%, which is pretty crazy for a president to come in and then have a structurally higher approval rating the second half of his term. It usually doesn't happen well. So this time he came in above 50. And my latest poll, he's sitting at 41. That's probably about right. I think he's about 40.
Midterm Election Predictions and the GOP's Need for New Strategies
There's a lot of people putting out 33 right now. Doesn't make a ton of sense because it doesn't match the generic ballot polling. But, you know, that's enough to put him exactly where George W. Bush was in 2006. And as we know, that was a pretty bad midterm election for Republicans. It lost 30 seats. I think in many ways this midterm, you know, looks like that midterm. And what happened to Bush after that, and I'm not predicting a 30 seat pickup for Democrats, but we certainly might see double digits for sure. What happened after that midterm is, that George W. Bush's approval, you know, in the last two years of his time as president was just absolutely terrible. It got down to 30% on his way out the door and people were just sick of him because he was waned up. They wanted something new. They were getting impatient. And so that's, I think, probably the environment we're going to be looking at. So everybody talks about the Senate. I think it's important to look at those races because they're symbolic. But at the end of the day, again, we've had a Republican Senate that's basically done nothing. So it doesn't really matter, in my opinion, if the Democrats took up the Senate. It all comes down to this football over whether Democrats gain control of Congress. And the biggest Thing they're going to get there is an ability to block Trump and an ability to investigate and subpoena. So I think that, I mean, just look at the betting markets. If you don't believe the polling, it's basically a 90% chance at this point the Democrats are going to pick up at least a slight margin in the House. So that means Trump's really only capability to do things is going to be foreign policy. And people are sick of foreign. They've had enough. They're done with foreign policy.
Jenna Ellis: I am so tired of talking about the Strait of Hormuz, I cannot even tell you. Yeah, it's so true.
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, that's everybody. That's everybody. Nobody wants this to continue. and so what that environment is, is people, I think are going to turn a page on the Trump movement and start looking forward.
The Future of the Trump Movement and Shifting Voter Priorities
And I don't know if Trump's going to be able to gracefully transition into that kind of period. And, I guess we'll see. You know, because I think you're looking at true social and you're seeing massive, massive fall off in traffic there. Like, I, I used to be a member of the Donald on Reddit before it got canceled. And then I went and followed it over to Patriots Win. That's kind of a ghost town now too. And yet he's still pumping out like red meat to a base that does still exist. There still is a Trump base. It's like 20, 21% of the electorate. But they want success, not memes anymore. I mean, he's putting up Zelda Ocarina of Time memes on the White House account now. And it's like, I'm sorry, like millennial nostalgia isn't going to make up for the fact that people can't buy houses. And it's just so frustrating. And we talked about it, I think the last time I was on just the capability to do so much better messaging than they have. So I'll give you a really good example is the H1B thing.
Critique of H1B Visa Program and Trump's Missed Messaging Opportunities
So the H1B component of the immigration law of 19, I guess it was 92 or whatever that George H.W. bush signed into law. He has this huge program that's essentially been brutally scammed by the nation state, of India. And they nepotistically hire and have taken over most of the engineering departments of our Fortune 500 companies. Now, we love our Indian legal US citizens, but we don't like the idea of body shops, you know, scamming white collar American workers out of high paying jobs, which is Going on to the tune of millions. Right? So now if you poll on H1B, it's generally popular because people don't work in corporate America technology and don't really understand the way it's been abused. Although if you ask follow on questions, they do suspect corporations are abusing the program. But everybody under 40 that's going to college has dealt with this. They know that they have to apply for 1,000 jobs. They might get one interview and usually the hiring manager is going to pass them over for an H1B because either DEI or they want the lower salary or they're going to get a kickback. So this is a huge, huge issue basically for all these people who are also relatively new to voting Republican. And so this is one of the most successful areas of Trump's administration so far. He launched Project Firewall. His new Department of Labor Secretary is investigating these companies. They've installed this H1B fee, they've increased the administrative processing time and made it prohibitively long in order to apply for H1B or extensions. You've had hundreds of thousands of people apparently like caught in India, stranded because they can't get, you know, the approval to come back and work at their employer. And you literally now have people in some of these H1B hotspots like Dallas, who are desperate to sell the house that they bought with a 30 year mortgage when they were here on a three year temporary visa program. And so you're seeing like, areas of neighborhoods to the housing prices are starting to collapse. So this is, these are all beautiful signs. The problem is I've never once heard Trump ever, ever counter signal the H1B program. I don't even, I don't even think he understands that it's a problem for people under 40 because he's been so fixated on the stock market and on the needs of these big corporations. In fact, like the one time he was pressed on this with Laura Ignoram's show, he basically said, well, Americans don't have talent and we need this program. And so this is something that he could be parroting. It would be super popular.
Trump's Second Term Focus and Strengths versus Domestic Policy Weaknesses
It would build that kind of momentum that is lost and they have other wins like this. And the problem is, is it with the lack of messaging, it's basically left to people fighting on Twitter over whether he deported enough people or not. And it's like, well, you know, like, great. But that's not going to move the needle. It's just infighting. And infighting is not going to improve momentum.
Jenna Ellis: Do you think that maybe this second administration has, or the second term has exposed the kind of the cap of where Trump's expertise genuinely lies. Because the first administration, when Trump was talking about building, he was talking about the economy, bringing manufacturing back to the United States and was so focused on, you know, these domestic issues, even build the wall, I mean, that was inherently a domestic sort of focus. That, that was what really gained his momentum. And you know, we wanted someone who was anti establishment, who, you know, came from outside of Washington, who had some other expertise and that played totally into everything that he had done in his NewSong York career. But now in this second administration, he hasn't focused on those things and we're kind of left questioning. I mean, I've questioned, very openly on air, you know, what exactly is he doing in Iran, what are the goals here? And, and for a lot of these things that maybe not that he's out of his depth, per se, but, you know, but that this isn't really where his strengths lie. And so we're seeing less of this ability to negotiate well with the Senate and some of these other things because genuinely, these, these aren't the issues that he most concerns himself with. And so we're seeing kind of this, you know, what I would, I would typify as maybe even a lame duck sort of second administration that all of us thought, okay, he is loaded for bear. You know, coming in in January 2025, it was like, okay, he is going to take all of this by storm, head on. Finally drained the swamp.
Mark Mitchell: We thought we were gonna get retribution, Jenna.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And I mean, I was almost like, okay, somebody better restrain him and make sure he at least does this within the confines of the Constitution, you know, but it's like that wasn't actually what we should have been concerned about.
Voter Expectations for Trump's Second Term and White House Strategy Deficiencies
It was that he would actually deliver on those things. So, you know, where, where do you think his, his mindset is? Because overall this has kind of been, I mean, generally, and it's not to, you know, frame it totally negatively by any means, but overall the things that I excited about basically have been very disappointing.
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, you know, I want to make a finer point there too, is that he actually even had among at least the under 40 voter, like kind of a mandate to ignore the Constitution. So, you know, there was definitely like a one time Republican opportunity there to tiptoe across the Rubicon. And you know, I think a lot of the younger people say, well, why should I care about the Constitution? Clearly the Democrats don't and the Democrats are going to take over and it'll be scary. And, you know, I think that's a valid point. And to be honest with you, if Trump had done some of that stuff, ignoring the judges, I think you probably would have had some more traditional conservatives freak out about it, but ultimately hold ranks and we'll never know because that never happened. Now, I, you know, so I want to give you my this is opinion now. And it's been formed based on very open, that I've been an avid supporter of Trump personally for eight of the ten last years. And, you know, that doesn't affect my polling because I'm very open and transparent and objective. But, and then I met him personally last year and gave him advice. And I've talked to a few people within the administration, especially recently, and, you know, I would be interested in here because I know you talk to them too, like how it fits your opinion. So, Nick Florence was just on Alex Jones recently and he said something I thought distilled it down pretty well, which is that, ah, in the first Trump administration, Trump was ready to go. He had the right platform, he was invigorated, and he came into the White House with a really good team. But his personnel at large, people that got forced on him through the Senate confirmation process, it was largely picked by the Heritage foundation through old Bush ties and, you know, the Krish Christie transition and stuff like that is that those were the people holding Trump back. And so the first administration, you had the White House essentially fighting the rest of his staff. And in this administration you see like kind of the reverse. Like they actually got a bunch of base people in some of these roles. Some of them are better than others, but they're ready to go and they've gotten better staff in. And the problem is, is that Trump and the White House have been the limiting factor here. Their inability to stay on message or have a plan. And I thought that was precious. You know, I sat there and talked to him and I really was telling him exactly how to win. I mean, I don't want to overstate my importance. you know, he meets a lot of important people, but it was like, you are going to lose unless you focus on affordability, domestic policy and reforming the federal government. Visibly you can do other stuff. That's got to be the focus every day. And I think we can all agree that that would have been really good advice if it had been followed. Jenna. I got the feeling he was not even listening to. And what I'm hearing is that basically the White House is the one that shut down project 2025. That would have been really effective. And, you know, I get. I. The feeling I get from talking to people is that the White House didn't have a strategy, doesn't have a plan. There isn't some overarching path to the golden age. It's basically, Susie Wiles is managing Trump's calendar and he talks to lobbyists all day. That's what I heard.
Iran Conflict as a Symptom of Poor Decision-Making and Missed Economic Opportunities
And if you look at that, the Iran conflict becomes a symptom, not a root cause. And it was a symptom of a vacuum being filled by a bunch of people just lobbying Trump to do stuff. And I think that's really what happened with Iran. I think he was lobbied into it. And I, know for a fact that he got polling that said it would be a really bad idea. So they did that despite the polling, and, turned out way worse than I ever could have thought. And again, will it. I mean, is it. Here's the biggest thing of his administration. Like, it is the biggest thing he has done when he ran on retribution with a domestic policy platform so people could say, oh, it was a rug pull. Oh, you know, it doesn't matter, like, if you think it was a betrayal or not. Like, history is going to look at this presidency and say people were begging, crawling over broken glass to vote for this guy because of the surging housing and insurance and grocery costs and the suppressed wages. They needed a workers party. They needed somebody to go after corporations, you know, and we got corporate tax cuts. Right? Like, that's. So the Trump movement is going to have been. People begged for some kind of rationality, the economic system, and reform of a government that had been abused by the Biden administration. And we got a conflict that I think, in retrospect, is going to have had a huge impact on, on the United States's global standing. Like, we have Canada going into the open arms of Western Europe now. We have, you know, we're talking about completely extricating ourselves from Middle east bases. We're talking about, like, China's probably going to go for Taiwan now, our inability to, you know, like, the military is great, I'm a veteran, but it's been shown that our entire modern military doctrine just, like, doesn't really work. And we don't have the forces to actually invade anybody in the scale that we would need to, to even. I mean, it's tough. Like, it's a tough situation. And nobody's talking about that now. They're all looking at the midterms. But these are realizations that people are all going to have in November, December and January. And they're going to be looking at 20, 28 and the front runner who is currently JD Vance, and saying, wow, this guy's got an uphill fight. Like, I don't know how that's going to play out.
The Fractured Conservative Movement and the Decline of Trump's Messaging Effectiveness
Like, you're probably going to see a complete Democrat retard just stumble their way into the presidency just because the situation on the right is so messed up. And there's now deeply entrenched hostilities between different factions within the conservative movement that all need to really be buttoned up if there's going to be any chance. So, you know, I want to see it happen and I'm optimistic about the change that will go on. I think there's going to be a big shift in conservatism, maybe back economically to some of the older roots of the conservative movement into the early 1800s where again, we were very protectionist. The government was very involved in the economy and it was managed for the common good of most Americans and not for the bottom line of corporate profits. Right. So we'll see how it plays out.
Jenna Ellis: But, you know, yeah, and for people listening to this, you know, I mean, this is where we don't sugarcoat things and it's not just saying, oh, well, everything is great because it has, you know, the trau Trump stamp or the Trump endorsement on it. I mean, these are, you know, real problems that we need to confront. And you're not the first person by far, Mark, to, you know, to have these conversations or to, to say, you know, this, this type of questioning of, you know, where exactly is the President's head at? And you know, why isn't the messaging better? I mean, even just, you know, this past week where the White House account is putting up this, you know, this AI generated meme of like Trump as the GRE lantern or whatever. And it's just, it comes across as so brutally childish when you don't have all of the wins behind it. And this, to me is where they're still thinking that the first administration messaging works when it was novel, it was new, it was exciting, and it was also kind of appealing to the people who were outside politics to say, hey, we're going to come and, you know, make Trump this kind of larger than life superhero, showman and play to what you already know, not try to make a political figure who speaks in white paper palatable to, you know, your entertainment based society. And it was A brilliant strategy at the time in, you know, 2015, 16 even moving, you know, all the way forward.
MAGA's Limited Playbook and the Evolving Landscape of Political Memes
But then, you know, when you get to, now in the second term, it just doesn't play the same way at all. And it's like, now we've seen that MAGA really only has one play, and it's not actually any deeper than that. And that's the concern that I have, not only for the midterms, but also ahead for 2028. Because, let's face it, as soon as the midterms are done, you know, either way, however this goes, that all anybody's going to be talking about is 2028. And so do you think that Trump's endorsement will carry the weight within the party for. Because we'll be talking about the primary or, like, you know, our friend Rhyen Gardusky said Trump's endorsement doesn't matter, but his attack does. I mean, is it more about sabotaging? Yeah, sabotaging the guys he doesn't like, rather than necessarily just being pro the guy, whoever it is that he ultimately chooses, to get behind.
Mark Mitchell: That's a good hypothesis I hadn't really thought much about. And also, it's funny you bring up that meme because, like, these things are important. Like, Trump won the first time because of memes. But if you think back to 2016, what was that environment like? Well, one, comic book movies were popular, and two, it was millennials doing the memeing and not Gen Z. And so what you have is basically this fallback where they dusted somebody out of the closet and said, hey, you're. You were doing good memes 10 years ago. What do you got now? But the problem is, is, like, Gen Z are the people that, they're very different. They're very different than millennials, and they're done with this. So, like, if you see, like, if you're going to be successful at Meme M Warfare, this. And this is really a thing, you actually have to have moral authority and objective truth behind you. And that's why memes are so. We're so devastating to the left, because most of the left positions were just, like, comically illogical. you know, and they were just savage. They didn't know how to deal with it. Right.
The Power of Endorsements and the Growing Rift Within the Republican Party
Jenna Ellis: This is like, why the Babylon BE is funny right now and the Onion isn't. Right. Because you can't just have humor for humor.
Mark Mitchell: Babylon B. Now you have the Babylon bb, which is even, you know, Babylon B is falling off, too, because the problem Is is that with Gen Z, Israel only has 20% support and Babylon be will not touch that topic. It's third rail for them. So you have so like the problem. This is where I was going with this. So whether Trump's endorsement is powerful or not, I will say in this primary cycle, it's been very powerful in the primary, but these are low turnout Republican primaries where you definitely have like an older Fox News skewed crowd. The problem is, is that Trump got into the 70 millions in the general with a bunch of people that don't watch Fox News, and there's a growing rift between them about what the Republican Party should stand for. So his endorsement might still go well in primaries, but the other thing is that his endorsement is probably going to carry a lot of money behind it. Right. And he'll be able to bring that margin.
Jenna Ellis: His current spending stuff, I don't know.
Internal GOP Inconsistencies and the Potential Rise of an Outsider Candidate
But. No, go ahead.
Mark Mitchell: No, I'm m just saying, like, we'll see how that plays out. But the problem is it doesn't like, smooth over these fundamental fights within the Republican Party. And this is a tough one for a lot of people to choke down. But Israel is rapidly becoming a political pariah that might continue to have effects because look at, so Trump came out and didn't give JD an endorsement, but he definitely said, you know, he definitely said that he supported him for the presidency at this time and this would be a good time for JD to get out there and start making moves. The first thing he did was give a speech at the rjc. And you know, people are going to look at that and say, like, why is this how somebody kicks off a Republican presidential run? And I think there's a lot of valid, questions, especially when we both just said that we're all going to look back at Iran as the biggest problem of the entire Trump administration. So there's just all of these internal fights and inconsistencies that have to be squared. And I think the best way that happens is probably with an outsider and we no idea who that could be, but it worked once in 20, 2015.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, well, and this is where I, what I think is going to be very interesting. and in some of the conversations, you know, that I've had here in Florida, it's going to be very interesting to see if Ron DeSantis, puts his hat in the ring or not. Because he's basically, one of the few that's actually outside maga. I mean, while, you know, he and Trump are friends and, you know, all of the 2024 nonsense is so of, behind, him in, in the sense that, you know, he and Trump are friends.
Ron DeSantis's Political Future and the GOP's Path to Victory
I don't think that the, kind of burning his brand, with how just tragic he ran that campaign that hasn't gone away, but at least, you know, with his policies, the winds in Florida, he. He is genuinely kind of that outsider, and whether or not he ends up, jumping into this race, I think is going to be largely, if not wholly determined by whether he actually thinks that a Republican, him or someone else can even win, given all of these things we've been discussing, you know, over the last 30 minutes. And so I think that's. That for me personally is going to be a very significant bellwether to see if he ends up jumping in or not. And if he doesn't have the endorsement of maga, and it's sort of this, you know, Vance versus Rubio kind of vying for Trump's power that, For Trump's endorsement and nod and all that stuff that may, get so overwrought that then you have the outsider and people are just sort of done, you know, with the whole Trump era and be like, okay, let's thank him for what he did, but music is playing, let's escort you off the stage, you know, kind of thing. so I think it's going to be really fascinating to see if something like that, or if there's somebody maybe that we're not even considering right now, that over the next, you know, two years sort of rises and becomes, you know, somebody who is genuinely more of that outsider and, and can actually take over the nomination. But, you know, we only have about two minutes left here. and I so appreciate your time, Mark Mitchell, to kind of do this deep dive. But, you know, overall, you know, what. What's your, what's your thought on where we need to focus, as the voters, I think in at least what we can control heading into the midterms and contemplating 2028.
The Urgent Need for a New Conservative Policy Platform and Economic Solutions
Mark Mitchell: So there needs to be a new conservative policy platform, and people are going to need to break out of these old traditional lines they've used. You can literally see the Republican Party reverting back to socialists are evil and Muslims want to kill you all. And it's like, okay, like those things are kind of true, but it's like you just proved that you, you don't care. Like, you didn't the filibuster in order to fix those problems. And quite frankly, for Most people voting now, the economy has gotten to an existential level where soon you're just going to see a youth uprising or mass civil disobedience or something. Something bad is going to break. Maybe we'll go to World War Three. And so, you know, I come out there and I say, you know, we've had economically progressive Republican presidents in the past, and I get called a socialist. Well, it's like we literally have a problem with billionaires hoarding corporate profits, people having suppressed wages and no worker leverage. And so if you can't fix that, the socialists are going to fix it for you. And so if the Republicans ever want to win this national presidential election again, they have to have a pragmatic and effective and authentic answer to what is wrong with the current system and how they plan to fix it in specifics. And that's a really tough thing for, a leader to come and do, but that's why it's called leadership. And if you want to see Desantis, he's kind of in a polling funk in upper single digits, but he could break out. If he could actually figure out how to trace that, Those wickets and come out and build that platform. I think that America is begging for a Roosevelt, and you're either going to get Teddy or fdr.
The Importance of a Clear Platform and Where to Find Honest Polls
So it's like, pick your poison. I think that really is what it comes down to.
Jenna Ellis: So well said and, you know, so much more that I want to dive into. But, you know, we don't have three hours at least today, but maybe, you know, one of these days we can do an even longer form, long form, show. Because, you know, so much, that's here. And I think this has been kind of, you know, the, the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting, people to think about this, and think, you know, really seriously and critically beyond just the memes and sort of, well, you know, it's obvious that, you know, we're not going to vote socialists into power Muslims. But I agree with you. It's like, we can't just be the people that say, well, you know, we're. We're better than the evil people over there, but we don't really know what we're doing. But, hey, you know, we're better than them. You actually have to vote for someone, not just against the opponent. And we've seen that repeatedly, throughout, you know, various elections in American history. So, the GOP really does need to get it together and have a better, position and platform. And especially if they want some of these coalitions, like the Evangelical Coalition, for example. I mean, they're going to have to get stronger on some of these things that are at the heart of where evangelicals vote. And they will turn out, we will turn out, if there are reasons, to vote and to vote strongly for some of these issues. So, I really appreciate the work that you do, Mark Mitchell. and so where can people find you?
Mark Mitchell: And Honest Polls, the Honest Poll calm website, just got up. But I've been around.
Conclusion and Podcast Information
I was the Rasmussen head pollster. Follow me on Twitter at Honest Pollster and come, check out my YouTube channel at Honest Poll. It's again, just three videos, but we're going to be putting out a lot of content and we're going to be representing, not political action committees, not any party. We're not going to shill for anybody. We're going to represent the American people. And there are not a lot of people in the polling industry doing that.
Jenna Ellis: Yes, absolutely. And I really appreciate your voice, so I'm going to add that one to my playlist. so appreciate it so much, Mark, and we will talk to you soon. And, this has been on demand. And, you can always listen to this podcast each and every [email protected] Share this, with your friends and family. And then you can also listen, of course, to the live radio program Monday through Friday from 8 to 9 Eastern or the [email protected] and if you have topics, guests, issues you would like us for, us to discuss here on demand, you can always reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net.
Introduction to Midterm Elections and the Future of the GOP
Jenna Ellis: Welcome to On Demand. This is our AFR exclusive podcast where we do a deep dive into issues you need to know about from guests you love to hear from. And it's all things midterms right now. So with the GOP midterm, convention that happened, just yesterday and Wednesday, as we are recording this podcast, we want to talk about, where the future of the GOP is going and how much of this, after the midterms, of course, is going to be focused on the next leader of the gop, when President Trump, of course, is not going to be on the ballot again, and where the polls stand. Because, Although, of course, you know, we've seen how polls, can. Can be bandwagon fallacies in some regards. They can give us an indicator in, if they're done well, where people are standing, what they're thinking, and kind of give us an indication of, where all things stand. So let's welcome in Mark Mitchell, who is the CEO of Honest Polls and has been doing this for a really long time. And Mark, I know that you'll have some good insights, into where we stand with the midterms.
Candidate Viability and the Role of Primaries in the GOP
And you know, the way that, that I see a lot of this, and I've been saying this actually on the radio side, this week, that, you know, there are some candidates, in the midterms, like, the biggest example right now, I think, is Ken Paxton, out of the state of Texas, who is not, a lot of people's favorites. they think that he's a weak candidate for various reasons. I think, you know, he's great on policy, and I think he will do well in the Senate. But, there's kind of this feeling among some, at least on social media, if that's an indication at all. you know, that's. That's an informal poll for sure, that this is going to be a very, very close race. And there are some projections even among Republicans that, Texas will lose that Senate seat, which I think is wild. but, you know, there's this kind of feeling. Why should, the voters coalesce around candidates that they didn't necessarily select in the primaries? Well, the GOP writ large, everyone who participated did select those candidates, just like Byron Donalds in the state of Florida. I didn't, personally support him as the best candidate in the primary. but now that he is the choice for my team, I'm going to support him. And I think overall he will do a Way better job than the radical leftist Democrat. So, I mean, it should seem obvious at this point to people what primaries are for, what general elections are for. But, where do you think things stand for the gop?
National Polling Trends and Trump's Impact on the GOP's Electoral Performance
Mark Mitchell: Well, let's start nationally. And I just got my first generic ballot poll back as my new, company, the Honest Poll, and it has Democrats up 10 right now. And for everybody to, you know, take a breath, that's what would happen essentially if the election were held today. And there is a lot of time between now and November. But what that tells you is that essentially the House popular vote has gone 12 points to the left nationally since the 2024 election. Then there's no escaping the fact that, yes, it's because Donald Trump's approval mostly, and as a referendum on Trump's inability to govern towards the big, broad coalition that he built and won with in 2024. That doesn't look like past traditional Republican electorates. He got a lot of young people, he got a lot of minorities, he got a lot of Hispanic voters. He got actually some socialist votes. He got a lot of crazy new votes. And those people mostly wanted to focus on affordability. As I told him to his face a year ago, that that's what all of 2026 should be spent on. And objectively, it hasn't been. So if you play 12 points out nationally, you're going to see places like Ohio, Trump won by 13 points. Well, a 12 point shift shows you that, yeah, Ramaswamy is going to have problems there and I think Texas with a very similar margin. So it makes sense that those are going to be relatively tied Senate polls. They're reaffirming the national picture that not just me, I mean, Rich Barris has the Democrats up 11 2. Emerson's last two polls were negative 12 and negative 8. I think Zoghb. And I also even heard Fabrizio, internal polling is pretty close to mine too.
Texas Senate Race and Internal GOP Divisions Over Candidate Support
So it's just the reality of what we're seeing now. As far as you take a state like Texas, you take a race like Paxton in the Senate, there's a lot of other things that could happen. You know, polling can't predict for between now and November, the Democrats or the Republicans have a really good ad that just hits everybody, or a wave of funding comes in, or all of these other things that could and might get reflected in later polling, but as of yet, have not now. I mean, it is also sometimes just smart to ignore the polling and say, you know, Texas is a pretty conservative state, less so than normal, but like, pretty conservative. And you know, the establishment there is, is Republican leaning. They control the elections. They probably have a pretty good get out the vote game. Like these things might lend a tailwind to Paxton. But what you're really seeing with these races in the primary, as we've talked about, is basically a growing fracture within the MAGA coalition because remember Jon Clinton, who in my opinion would have been a weaker candidate than Paxton, I mean, years ago, like a few years ago, Paxton would have been a MAGA darling and would have sailed towards a Trump endorsement. And you could say, well, he's a weak candidate or he's got personal problems. But it's like, okay, so have many people in the MAGA movement. Like, that wasn't really a requirement. A requirement was focusing on Americans first, basically. Right? So now you have a situation where Cornyn already had $100 million pumped into his primary campaign by the Republican establishment before even Trump considered potentially picking a side in that race.
Establishment Strategies and the GOP's Inaction on Key Economic Issues
And, you know, I think that's like the establishment loves to fund the establishment. They make money off of vendors and contractor relationships. And the second person got picked up, everybody said, well, we're taking our money home and we're not playing anymore. And thankfully, finally he has some money coming in, I guess from places like Elon Musk. But, you know, I think you're seeing basically establishment preparing itself for a loss, you know, retrenching itself around maybe, you know, two decades old talking points, preparing itself to have essentially a period of hyper blame game where everybody points at each other and says, it's your fault that this whole coalition fell apart. And, you know, I think the establishment will say that they won and I think they'll be wrong. I mean, look, look at people like Tim Scott out there who's now going on Fox News and saying that we need to focus on affordability as the Republican Party. It's like, where's your Senate been for the last two years, bro? What have you been doing? Like, literally, the Senate is the one place that the MAGA legislative agenda has gone to die for the last two years. And now it takes them being down 10 points, less than two months from election to have any introspection about what we should or should not have been focused on. Like, these people could have laid out a beautiful, two year plan of economic populism and government reform and gotten people engaged in it and had a unified message. And instead what the Republican Senate seems to have been is just, you know, a bunch of, a Bunch of people undercutting each other because of their own funded special interests. And, you know that that's people, people were voting against with Donald Trump. And obviously a lot of this is outside Trump's control.
Trump's Messaging Strategy and its Evolution Post-Presidency
Although I do think Trump had a much better capability to message than he's actually done in the last year, at least, like we've seen. Essentially what I think is Susie Wiles moratorium on people really out there signaling the core MAGA platform. And then Trump's true social posts have been filling a vacuum and they, get a little bit different than 2016, let's just put it that way. So, again, it's not looking good right now. A lot of stuff can happen. I think it's really tough to look at the convention and predict how it will go at all. I mean, there's a lot of people saying, oh, it's empty, it's going to be all about Trump, it's going to look terrible. And then there's actually a lot of people that have enthusiasm about the message, you're going to say. But it's tough to know if any of that stuff will break through too. So we'll just have to wait and see.
Analyzing Trump's War Chest and its Underutilization in Key Races
Still a lot of time between now and November.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, it's always kind of the wait and see game. but, you know, a lot to unpack there. But the really big question I think as well is why hasn't Trump yet broken open his own war chest to help some of these candidates, specifically like, Akin, Paxton or even a Vivek? because those are really important seats, even if, you know, the candidates, were not necessarily the strongest and maybe, you know, Trump's view or others, I mean, they're both endorsed by him. So, why, why hasn't he put more of his own, money behind this?
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, I, that's a tough one to answer. I really don't know. I can only conjecture. But I mean, the context we're talking about here is that Trump has been uniquely capable of raising small dollar donations over the last decade, way more than other Republican candidates.
Trump's Fundraising Capabilities and Historical Approval Ratings Compared to Current Trends
And I mean, remember we were talking about that quarter billion dollars that Trump raised just on the 2020 election theft that Ronan McDaniel did not put towards election integrity. Let's just put it.
Jenna Ellis: Oh, I remember that, yes, very well.
Mark Mitchell: So he's got this money now. Some of it's coming from new places now. He has, you know, there are some new patrons to the Trump movement for sure. But I mean, the real question mark is like, okay, well, if that money is not going to get spent like, what on earth is it going to be used for? And one could say, well, maybe he wants to back one of his sons in the 2028 cycle, or maybe he wants to keep dry pow. So that he can act as a kingmaker in the 2028 cycle. But I hate to be, I hate to be like, people don't like some of these honest takes. But if you look at Trump's approval rating, very different situation than the first term. The first term he came in low. I mean, he came in above 50, but it immediately plunged to high 30s because everybody thought he was a Russian asset. And then the job market heated up and he got some of these wins, these deals that he was making, overseas, and he was generally doing a good job. His approval rating got up to 48, 49, 50%, which is pretty crazy for a president to come in and then have a structurally higher approval rating the second half of his term. It usually doesn't happen well. So this time he came in above 50. And my latest poll, he's sitting at 41. That's probably about right. I think he's about 40.
Midterm Election Predictions and the GOP's Need for New Strategies
There's a lot of people putting out 33 right now. Doesn't make a ton of sense because it doesn't match the generic ballot polling. But, you know, that's enough to put him exactly where George W. Bush was in 2006. And as we know, that was a pretty bad midterm election for Republicans. It lost 30 seats. I think in many ways this midterm, you know, looks like that midterm. And what happened to Bush after that, and I'm not predicting a 30 seat pickup for Democrats, but we certainly might see double digits for sure. What happened after that midterm is, that George W. Bush's approval, you know, in the last two years of his time as president was just absolutely terrible. It got down to 30% on his way out the door and people were just sick of him because he was waned up. They wanted something new. They were getting impatient. And so that's, I think, probably the environment we're going to be looking at. So everybody talks about the Senate. I think it's important to look at those races because they're symbolic. But at the end of the day, again, we've had a Republican Senate that's basically done nothing. So it doesn't really matter, in my opinion, if the Democrats took up the Senate. It all comes down to this football over whether Democrats gain control of Congress. And the biggest Thing they're going to get there is an ability to block Trump and an ability to investigate and subpoena. So I think that, I mean, just look at the betting markets. If you don't believe the polling, it's basically a 90% chance at this point the Democrats are going to pick up at least a slight margin in the House. So that means Trump's really only capability to do things is going to be foreign policy. And people are sick of foreign. They've had enough. They're done with foreign policy.
Jenna Ellis: I am so tired of talking about the Strait of Hormuz, I cannot even tell you. Yeah, it's so true.
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, that's everybody. That's everybody. Nobody wants this to continue. and so what that environment is, is people, I think are going to turn a page on the Trump movement and start looking forward.
The Future of the Trump Movement and Shifting Voter Priorities
And I don't know if Trump's going to be able to gracefully transition into that kind of period. And, I guess we'll see. You know, because I think you're looking at true social and you're seeing massive, massive fall off in traffic there. Like, I, I used to be a member of the Donald on Reddit before it got canceled. And then I went and followed it over to Patriots Win. That's kind of a ghost town now too. And yet he's still pumping out like red meat to a base that does still exist. There still is a Trump base. It's like 20, 21% of the electorate. But they want success, not memes anymore. I mean, he's putting up Zelda Ocarina of Time memes on the White House account now. And it's like, I'm sorry, like millennial nostalgia isn't going to make up for the fact that people can't buy houses. And it's just so frustrating. And we talked about it, I think the last time I was on just the capability to do so much better messaging than they have. So I'll give you a really good example is the H1B thing.
Critique of H1B Visa Program and Trump's Missed Messaging Opportunities
So the H1B component of the immigration law of 19, I guess it was 92 or whatever that George H.W. bush signed into law. He has this huge program that's essentially been brutally scammed by the nation state, of India. And they nepotistically hire and have taken over most of the engineering departments of our Fortune 500 companies. Now, we love our Indian legal US citizens, but we don't like the idea of body shops, you know, scamming white collar American workers out of high paying jobs, which is Going on to the tune of millions. Right? So now if you poll on H1B, it's generally popular because people don't work in corporate America technology and don't really understand the way it's been abused. Although if you ask follow on questions, they do suspect corporations are abusing the program. But everybody under 40 that's going to college has dealt with this. They know that they have to apply for 1,000 jobs. They might get one interview and usually the hiring manager is going to pass them over for an H1B because either DEI or they want the lower salary or they're going to get a kickback. So this is a huge, huge issue basically for all these people who are also relatively new to voting Republican. And so this is one of the most successful areas of Trump's administration so far. He launched Project Firewall. His new Department of Labor Secretary is investigating these companies. They've installed this H1B fee, they've increased the administrative processing time and made it prohibitively long in order to apply for H1B or extensions. You've had hundreds of thousands of people apparently like caught in India, stranded because they can't get, you know, the approval to come back and work at their employer. And you literally now have people in some of these H1B hotspots like Dallas, who are desperate to sell the house that they bought with a 30 year mortgage when they were here on a three year temporary visa program. And so you're seeing like, areas of neighborhoods to the housing prices are starting to collapse. So this is, these are all beautiful signs. The problem is I've never once heard Trump ever, ever counter signal the H1B program. I don't even, I don't even think he understands that it's a problem for people under 40 because he's been so fixated on the stock market and on the needs of these big corporations. In fact, like the one time he was pressed on this with Laura Ignoram's show, he basically said, well, Americans don't have talent and we need this program. And so this is something that he could be parroting. It would be super popular.
Trump's Second Term Focus and Strengths versus Domestic Policy Weaknesses
It would build that kind of momentum that is lost and they have other wins like this. And the problem is, is it with the lack of messaging, it's basically left to people fighting on Twitter over whether he deported enough people or not. And it's like, well, you know, like, great. But that's not going to move the needle. It's just infighting. And infighting is not going to improve momentum.
Jenna Ellis: Do you think that maybe this second administration has, or the second term has exposed the kind of the cap of where Trump's expertise genuinely lies. Because the first administration, when Trump was talking about building, he was talking about the economy, bringing manufacturing back to the United States and was so focused on, you know, these domestic issues, even build the wall, I mean, that was inherently a domestic sort of focus. That, that was what really gained his momentum. And you know, we wanted someone who was anti establishment, who, you know, came from outside of Washington, who had some other expertise and that played totally into everything that he had done in his NewSong York career. But now in this second administration, he hasn't focused on those things and we're kind of left questioning. I mean, I've questioned, very openly on air, you know, what exactly is he doing in Iran, what are the goals here? And, and for a lot of these things that maybe not that he's out of his depth, per se, but, you know, but that this isn't really where his strengths lie. And so we're seeing less of this ability to negotiate well with the Senate and some of these other things because genuinely, these, these aren't the issues that he most concerns himself with. And so we're seeing kind of this, you know, what I would, I would typify as maybe even a lame duck sort of second administration that all of us thought, okay, he is loaded for bear. You know, coming in in January 2025, it was like, okay, he is going to take all of this by storm, head on. Finally drained the swamp.
Mark Mitchell: We thought we were gonna get retribution, Jenna.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And I mean, I was almost like, okay, somebody better restrain him and make sure he at least does this within the confines of the Constitution, you know, but it's like that wasn't actually what we should have been concerned about.
Voter Expectations for Trump's Second Term and White House Strategy Deficiencies
It was that he would actually deliver on those things. So, you know, where, where do you think his, his mindset is? Because overall this has kind of been, I mean, generally, and it's not to, you know, frame it totally negatively by any means, but overall the things that I excited about basically have been very disappointing.
Mark Mitchell: Yeah, you know, I want to make a finer point there too, is that he actually even had among at least the under 40 voter, like kind of a mandate to ignore the Constitution. So, you know, there was definitely like a one time Republican opportunity there to tiptoe across the Rubicon. And you know, I think a lot of the younger people say, well, why should I care about the Constitution? Clearly the Democrats don't and the Democrats are going to take over and it'll be scary. And, you know, I think that's a valid point. And to be honest with you, if Trump had done some of that stuff, ignoring the judges, I think you probably would have had some more traditional conservatives freak out about it, but ultimately hold ranks and we'll never know because that never happened. Now, I, you know, so I want to give you my this is opinion now. And it's been formed based on very open, that I've been an avid supporter of Trump personally for eight of the ten last years. And, you know, that doesn't affect my polling because I'm very open and transparent and objective. But, and then I met him personally last year and gave him advice. And I've talked to a few people within the administration, especially recently, and, you know, I would be interested in here because I know you talk to them too, like how it fits your opinion. So, Nick Florence was just on Alex Jones recently and he said something I thought distilled it down pretty well, which is that, ah, in the first Trump administration, Trump was ready to go. He had the right platform, he was invigorated, and he came into the White House with a really good team. But his personnel at large, people that got forced on him through the Senate confirmation process, it was largely picked by the Heritage foundation through old Bush ties and, you know, the Krish Christie transition and stuff like that is that those were the people holding Trump back. And so the first administration, you had the White House essentially fighting the rest of his staff. And in this administration you see like kind of the reverse. Like they actually got a bunch of base people in some of these roles. Some of them are better than others, but they're ready to go and they've gotten better staff in. And the problem is, is that Trump and the White House have been the limiting factor here. Their inability to stay on message or have a plan. And I thought that was precious. You know, I sat there and talked to him and I really was telling him exactly how to win. I mean, I don't want to overstate my importance. you know, he meets a lot of important people, but it was like, you are going to lose unless you focus on affordability, domestic policy and reforming the federal government. Visibly you can do other stuff. That's got to be the focus every day. And I think we can all agree that that would have been really good advice if it had been followed. Jenna. I got the feeling he was not even listening to. And what I'm hearing is that basically the White House is the one that shut down project 2025. That would have been really effective. And, you know, I get. I. The feeling I get from talking to people is that the White House didn't have a strategy, doesn't have a plan. There isn't some overarching path to the golden age. It's basically, Susie Wiles is managing Trump's calendar and he talks to lobbyists all day. That's what I heard.
Iran Conflict as a Symptom of Poor Decision-Making and Missed Economic Opportunities
And if you look at that, the Iran conflict becomes a symptom, not a root cause. And it was a symptom of a vacuum being filled by a bunch of people just lobbying Trump to do stuff. And I think that's really what happened with Iran. I think he was lobbied into it. And I, know for a fact that he got polling that said it would be a really bad idea. So they did that despite the polling, and, turned out way worse than I ever could have thought. And again, will it. I mean, is it. Here's the biggest thing of his administration. Like, it is the biggest thing he has done when he ran on retribution with a domestic policy platform so people could say, oh, it was a rug pull. Oh, you know, it doesn't matter, like, if you think it was a betrayal or not. Like, history is going to look at this presidency and say people were begging, crawling over broken glass to vote for this guy because of the surging housing and insurance and grocery costs and the suppressed wages. They needed a workers party. They needed somebody to go after corporations, you know, and we got corporate tax cuts. Right? Like, that's. So the Trump movement is going to have been. People begged for some kind of rationality, the economic system, and reform of a government that had been abused by the Biden administration. And we got a conflict that I think, in retrospect, is going to have had a huge impact on, on the United States's global standing. Like, we have Canada going into the open arms of Western Europe now. We have, you know, we're talking about completely extricating ourselves from Middle east bases. We're talking about, like, China's probably going to go for Taiwan now, our inability to, you know, like, the military is great, I'm a veteran, but it's been shown that our entire modern military doctrine just, like, doesn't really work. And we don't have the forces to actually invade anybody in the scale that we would need to, to even. I mean, it's tough. Like, it's a tough situation. And nobody's talking about that now. They're all looking at the midterms. But these are realizations that people are all going to have in November, December and January. And they're going to be looking at 20, 28 and the front runner who is currently JD Vance, and saying, wow, this guy's got an uphill fight. Like, I don't know how that's going to play out.
The Fractured Conservative Movement and the Decline of Trump's Messaging Effectiveness
Like, you're probably going to see a complete Democrat retard just stumble their way into the presidency just because the situation on the right is so messed up. And there's now deeply entrenched hostilities between different factions within the conservative movement that all need to really be buttoned up if there's going to be any chance. So, you know, I want to see it happen and I'm optimistic about the change that will go on. I think there's going to be a big shift in conservatism, maybe back economically to some of the older roots of the conservative movement into the early 1800s where again, we were very protectionist. The government was very involved in the economy and it was managed for the common good of most Americans and not for the bottom line of corporate profits. Right. So we'll see how it plays out.
Jenna Ellis: But, you know, yeah, and for people listening to this, you know, I mean, this is where we don't sugarcoat things and it's not just saying, oh, well, everything is great because it has, you know, the trau Trump stamp or the Trump endorsement on it. I mean, these are, you know, real problems that we need to confront. And you're not the first person by far, Mark, to, you know, to have these conversations or to, to say, you know, this, this type of questioning of, you know, where exactly is the President's head at? And you know, why isn't the messaging better? I mean, even just, you know, this past week where the White House account is putting up this, you know, this AI generated meme of like Trump as the GRE lantern or whatever. And it's just, it comes across as so brutally childish when you don't have all of the wins behind it. And this, to me is where they're still thinking that the first administration messaging works when it was novel, it was new, it was exciting, and it was also kind of appealing to the people who were outside politics to say, hey, we're going to come and, you know, make Trump this kind of larger than life superhero, showman and play to what you already know, not try to make a political figure who speaks in white paper palatable to, you know, your entertainment based society. And it was A brilliant strategy at the time in, you know, 2015, 16 even moving, you know, all the way forward.
MAGA's Limited Playbook and the Evolving Landscape of Political Memes
But then, you know, when you get to, now in the second term, it just doesn't play the same way at all. And it's like, now we've seen that MAGA really only has one play, and it's not actually any deeper than that. And that's the concern that I have, not only for the midterms, but also ahead for 2028. Because, let's face it, as soon as the midterms are done, you know, either way, however this goes, that all anybody's going to be talking about is 2028. And so do you think that Trump's endorsement will carry the weight within the party for. Because we'll be talking about the primary or, like, you know, our friend Rhyen Gardusky said Trump's endorsement doesn't matter, but his attack does. I mean, is it more about sabotaging? Yeah, sabotaging the guys he doesn't like, rather than necessarily just being pro the guy, whoever it is that he ultimately chooses, to get behind.
Mark Mitchell: That's a good hypothesis I hadn't really thought much about. And also, it's funny you bring up that meme because, like, these things are important. Like, Trump won the first time because of memes. But if you think back to 2016, what was that environment like? Well, one, comic book movies were popular, and two, it was millennials doing the memeing and not Gen Z. And so what you have is basically this fallback where they dusted somebody out of the closet and said, hey, you're. You were doing good memes 10 years ago. What do you got now? But the problem is, is, like, Gen Z are the people that, they're very different. They're very different than millennials, and they're done with this. So, like, if you see, like, if you're going to be successful at Meme M Warfare, this. And this is really a thing, you actually have to have moral authority and objective truth behind you. And that's why memes are so. We're so devastating to the left, because most of the left positions were just, like, comically illogical. you know, and they were just savage. They didn't know how to deal with it. Right.
The Power of Endorsements and the Growing Rift Within the Republican Party
Jenna Ellis: This is like, why the Babylon BE is funny right now and the Onion isn't. Right. Because you can't just have humor for humor.
Mark Mitchell: Babylon B. Now you have the Babylon bb, which is even, you know, Babylon B is falling off, too, because the problem Is is that with Gen Z, Israel only has 20% support and Babylon be will not touch that topic. It's third rail for them. So you have so like the problem. This is where I was going with this. So whether Trump's endorsement is powerful or not, I will say in this primary cycle, it's been very powerful in the primary, but these are low turnout Republican primaries where you definitely have like an older Fox News skewed crowd. The problem is, is that Trump got into the 70 millions in the general with a bunch of people that don't watch Fox News, and there's a growing rift between them about what the Republican Party should stand for. So his endorsement might still go well in primaries, but the other thing is that his endorsement is probably going to carry a lot of money behind it. Right. And he'll be able to bring that margin.
Jenna Ellis: His current spending stuff, I don't know.
Internal GOP Inconsistencies and the Potential Rise of an Outsider Candidate
But. No, go ahead.
Mark Mitchell: No, I'm m just saying, like, we'll see how that plays out. But the problem is it doesn't like, smooth over these fundamental fights within the Republican Party. And this is a tough one for a lot of people to choke down. But Israel is rapidly becoming a political pariah that might continue to have effects because look at, so Trump came out and didn't give JD an endorsement, but he definitely said, you know, he definitely said that he supported him for the presidency at this time and this would be a good time for JD to get out there and start making moves. The first thing he did was give a speech at the rjc. And you know, people are going to look at that and say, like, why is this how somebody kicks off a Republican presidential run? And I think there's a lot of valid, questions, especially when we both just said that we're all going to look back at Iran as the biggest problem of the entire Trump administration. So there's just all of these internal fights and inconsistencies that have to be squared. And I think the best way that happens is probably with an outsider and we no idea who that could be, but it worked once in 20, 2015.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, well, and this is where I, what I think is going to be very interesting. and in some of the conversations, you know, that I've had here in Florida, it's going to be very interesting to see if Ron DeSantis, puts his hat in the ring or not. Because he's basically, one of the few that's actually outside maga. I mean, while, you know, he and Trump are friends and, you know, all of the 2024 nonsense is so of, behind, him in, in the sense that, you know, he and Trump are friends.
Ron DeSantis's Political Future and the GOP's Path to Victory
I don't think that the, kind of burning his brand, with how just tragic he ran that campaign that hasn't gone away, but at least, you know, with his policies, the winds in Florida, he. He is genuinely kind of that outsider, and whether or not he ends up, jumping into this race, I think is going to be largely, if not wholly determined by whether he actually thinks that a Republican, him or someone else can even win, given all of these things we've been discussing, you know, over the last 30 minutes. And so I think that's. That for me personally is going to be a very significant bellwether to see if he ends up jumping in or not. And if he doesn't have the endorsement of maga, and it's sort of this, you know, Vance versus Rubio kind of vying for Trump's power that, For Trump's endorsement and nod and all that stuff that may, get so overwrought that then you have the outsider and people are just sort of done, you know, with the whole Trump era and be like, okay, let's thank him for what he did, but music is playing, let's escort you off the stage, you know, kind of thing. so I think it's going to be really fascinating to see if something like that, or if there's somebody maybe that we're not even considering right now, that over the next, you know, two years sort of rises and becomes, you know, somebody who is genuinely more of that outsider and, and can actually take over the nomination. But, you know, we only have about two minutes left here. and I so appreciate your time, Mark Mitchell, to kind of do this deep dive. But, you know, overall, you know, what. What's your, what's your thought on where we need to focus, as the voters, I think in at least what we can control heading into the midterms and contemplating 2028.
The Urgent Need for a New Conservative Policy Platform and Economic Solutions
Mark Mitchell: So there needs to be a new conservative policy platform, and people are going to need to break out of these old traditional lines they've used. You can literally see the Republican Party reverting back to socialists are evil and Muslims want to kill you all. And it's like, okay, like those things are kind of true, but it's like you just proved that you, you don't care. Like, you didn't the filibuster in order to fix those problems. And quite frankly, for Most people voting now, the economy has gotten to an existential level where soon you're just going to see a youth uprising or mass civil disobedience or something. Something bad is going to break. Maybe we'll go to World War Three. And so, you know, I come out there and I say, you know, we've had economically progressive Republican presidents in the past, and I get called a socialist. Well, it's like we literally have a problem with billionaires hoarding corporate profits, people having suppressed wages and no worker leverage. And so if you can't fix that, the socialists are going to fix it for you. And so if the Republicans ever want to win this national presidential election again, they have to have a pragmatic and effective and authentic answer to what is wrong with the current system and how they plan to fix it in specifics. And that's a really tough thing for, a leader to come and do, but that's why it's called leadership. And if you want to see Desantis, he's kind of in a polling funk in upper single digits, but he could break out. If he could actually figure out how to trace that, Those wickets and come out and build that platform. I think that America is begging for a Roosevelt, and you're either going to get Teddy or fdr.
The Importance of a Clear Platform and Where to Find Honest Polls
So it's like, pick your poison. I think that really is what it comes down to.
Jenna Ellis: So well said and, you know, so much more that I want to dive into. But, you know, we don't have three hours at least today, but maybe, you know, one of these days we can do an even longer form, long form, show. Because, you know, so much, that's here. And I think this has been kind of, you know, the, the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting, people to think about this, and think, you know, really seriously and critically beyond just the memes and sort of, well, you know, it's obvious that, you know, we're not going to vote socialists into power Muslims. But I agree with you. It's like, we can't just be the people that say, well, you know, we're. We're better than the evil people over there, but we don't really know what we're doing. But, hey, you know, we're better than them. You actually have to vote for someone, not just against the opponent. And we've seen that repeatedly, throughout, you know, various elections in American history. So, the GOP really does need to get it together and have a better, position and platform. And especially if they want some of these coalitions, like the Evangelical Coalition, for example. I mean, they're going to have to get stronger on some of these things that are at the heart of where evangelicals vote. And they will turn out, we will turn out, if there are reasons, to vote and to vote strongly for some of these issues. So, I really appreciate the work that you do, Mark Mitchell. and so where can people find you?
Mark Mitchell: And Honest Polls, the Honest Poll calm website, just got up. But I've been around.
Conclusion and Podcast Information
I was the Rasmussen head pollster. Follow me on Twitter at Honest Pollster and come, check out my YouTube channel at Honest Poll. It's again, just three videos, but we're going to be putting out a lot of content and we're going to be representing, not political action committees, not any party. We're not going to shill for anybody. We're going to represent the American people. And there are not a lot of people in the polling industry doing that.
Jenna Ellis: Yes, absolutely. And I really appreciate your voice, so I'm going to add that one to my playlist. so appreciate it so much, Mark, and we will talk to you soon. And, this has been on demand. And, you can always listen to this podcast each and every [email protected] Share this, with your friends and family. And then you can also listen, of course, to the live radio program Monday through Friday from 8 to 9 Eastern or the [email protected] and if you have topics, guests, issues you would like us for, us to discuss here on demand, you can always reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net.
In this episode, we take a closer look at the current state of the GOP as the midterm elections approach. Joining us is Mark Mitchell, CEO of Honest Polls, who shares valuable insights on polling trends and the future of the Republican Party. We discuss the challenges facing candidates like Ken Paxton in Texas, the shifting dynamics of voter support, and the importance of effective messaging in the Trump era.
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