A record number of people trust the GOP over the Democratic Party on the economy. The only question in 2024 is just how badly Republicans will sabotage themselves in order to blow that lead.
According to Gallup, 53% of people said the Republicans were more likely to "do a better job of keeping the country prosperous," compared to 39% who said the Democrats were more likely to do so. That is the highest percentage that Republicans have received since Gallup began asking that question in 1951, and the 14-percentage-point gap is the highest between the parties in the GOP’s favor since 1991.
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However, if you think this is some guarantee that Republicans will win in 2024 regardless of their own quality, you would be in for a bad time. The GOP had a 10-point advantage on this question at this same time last year, just one month before the 2022 midterm elections that should have seen a red wave of GOP victories turn into little more than a puddle, with Republicans only having a slim House majority and a Senate minority to show for it.
So what is the Republican Party doing now in order to make sure that this economic advantage doesn’t go to waste like it did last year? For starters, that slim House majority is now being thrown into another leadership fight because Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wants to work with the Democrats to overthrow a speaker he claims is working with the Democrats after Gaetz helped sabotage a GOP spending plan. The most competent Republican leader in Washington is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whose health is rapidly deteriorating to the point that he now regularly freezes up while speaking.
And, of course, the polls show former President Donald Trump winning the GOP presidential primary despite the fact that he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020 and that the stink of Trump’s presence quelled the red wave in 2022, along with the collection of terrible candidates that he endorsed. Does that sound like a winning formula to you?
You would think the GOP would have learned from the blue wave in the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s loss and tantrum in 2020 that cost Republicans both the White House and the Senate, and a 2022 midterm dud courtesy of Trump and his collection of losers and self-saboteurs (such as Gaetz). But clearly, Republicans are content to run headfirst into yet another wall, act surprised when they lose (again), and hand Democrats the reins to the country for another two to four years.