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Kasich's Burden Posted August 25, 2020 at 06:00pm by Chronicler Does it really matter when a prominent politician from one party endorses the presidential nominee of the other party? An overview of the verdict of history. Last week, John Kasich stood at a rural crossroads in central Ohio and delivered a rebuke of President Trump for the Democratic National Convention. As part of his rationale for his remarks, Kasich said "I'm a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country." Some Democrats were aghast to see Kasich speaking at the convention, and both AOC and Julian Castro complained that time given to Kasich would have been better served by granting the time to someone more in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. On several occasions in history, the question has arisen of what to do when a faction of a political party is dissatisfied with the presidential nominee. This blog post delves into two options that have been pursued in the past and the result of these actions. The posting does not consider politicians who have changed parties due to incompatibility with the presidential nominee. Although it has garnered more attention by historians, the option of dividing the party usually brings disastrous consequences for the party. Divisions involving the creation of a third party candidacy have taken place on eight prior occasions. In all cases, the division took place when a faction disapproved of the policy of the president of the party. The alternate faction created these political parties: the Free Soil Party (1848), the Liberal Republican Party (1872), the National [Gold] Democratic Party (1896), the Progressive Party (1912, 1924, and 1948), the Dixiecrat Party (1948), the American Independent Party (1968), and the Reform Party (1992). Of these eight elections, the division in the party resulted in the divided party losing the White House in five instances. In four of these five elections, adding the vote of the major party and the third party would have sufficed to win the election. The alternate option for dissatisfied politicians of a major party is to endorse the presidential nominee of the other party but remain in their political party. Large but temporary defections in presidential elections have taken place in seven earlier presidential elections. These seven occasions vary widely. On four occasions, a president was running for a second term and a group of politicians of the opposing party temporarily crossed over to endorse the incumbent. This took place in 1936 (FDR), 1956 (Eisenhower), 1964 (Lyndon Johnson), and 1972 (Richard Nixon). In all these cases the incumbent won re-election in a landslide. The three other instances are relevant to the 2020 election. In 1812, a group of politicians of the Democratic Republican Party crossed over and endorsed DeWitt Clinton's Independent/Federalist candidacy. This election has not been correctly reported in the past. It was a very close race, with Madison winning the popular vote 50-48%. The next time a large segment of politicians endorsed the presidential nominee of the other party was 1884. That year, a group of Republicans called the Mugwamps endorsed Grover Cleveland over James Blaine. The influence of the Mugwamps was fairly limited, but at the time Blaine's supporters believed that he lost that close election due to them. The third instance was 1928 when a group of Democratic politicians crossed over and endorsed Herbert Hoover instead of Alfred Smith. While we may disagree with the intent of these politicians, they did deliver a number of Southern states to Hoover that had not voted Republican since 1872. In these races, the defecting politicians represented a sliver of the electorate that helped shift public opinion in their direction to deliver a temporary rebuke to their own party. The day that Kasich endorsed Biden, he was one of a group of moderate Republicans with a brief amount of screen time during the televised portion of the Democratic National Convention. Another prominent Republican was Colin Powell. Other Republicans have followed: Chuck Hagel, Jeff Flake, Charlie Dent, Gordon Humphrey, and John Warner. A week ago, 70 former national security officials and [former] members of Congress issued a 10-point letter outlining why they have endorsed Biden. Flake recently said that several Republican Senators privately despise Trump but publicly support him. This is the largest set of "mugwamps" in any election (even more than 2016). This group of disaffected Republican politicians probably represents 2-3% of the total vote (apart from the thousands of Republicans who have already re-affiliated with the Democratic Party in the past three years). In the earlier elections mentioned here, none of the men elected president changed his expected policy trajectory to appease the cross-over vote. Biden probably won't do so, either. However, allowing this group a little publicity during the Democratic National Convention sends an important message. Unless 2020 is an aberration from these historic parallels (and it could possibly be that), the Biden Republicans could provide the margin of victory that will deliver some battleground states to Biden and deliver the stinging rebuke that will end Trump's presidency.
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