I read something interesting in bloomberg on Steve Bannon. Lots of interesting points but a couple stood out. Firstly, his attempts to find a successor to Trump when Trump brushed him off (Harry Moore or something like that) completely flopped. There's something very box office about Trump and guys with his background, life experience and media profile don't grow on trees. So finding another Trump type figure will not be easy.
The other thing that stood out, was the feeling that they just haven't really delivered on a lot of the promises. While for Bannon and other strategists tyhey may have had a medium term game plan to hold your Michigans, your Wisconsins etc with tax and spend policies. Trump has done the opposite, and at present looks set to lose all of those places.
It's hard for the Republicans. Essentially they either need to move away from being a low tax-low spend libertarian type party or they need to accept the route to electoral success will take longer and require perhaps a generational detoxification to start winning younger and more none white voters. Neither option looks massively appealing to them I'd posit. However, pretending to spend lots of money and enthusing that with a bit of bigotry, as things stand currently, doesn't look like it will work.
If they lose this election by say 6% it will be 4 consecutive elections they've lost the popular vote quite clearly, and decades since they decisively won the popular vote (by more than a couple of % points). It's quite long term decline for them, and they are probably where the democrats were when Reegan was around where they needed to fundamentally re brand, Even if they lose this one, it's 3 of the last 4 elections lost. Off the top of my head I can't remember the last time they had a run as bad as that.
