Banter Box #1—Multiple Issue Paths to November

Greetings TLP Crew —

Thanks so much for your excellent thoughts and ideas in our very first Banter Box feature for TLP supporters. I went through them and both learned a lot and ended up with more questions of my own about this difficult-to-predict election cycle.

While there was no consensus among the crew on any one issue that will rise above the others, there was some consensus around a few areas:

(1) Immigration. Border issues are real and Trump will hammer this relentlessly no matter what. Immigration is by far the most important concern among Republican voters. As Pew recently noted in polling conducted around the SOTU: “76 percent (of Republicans) now say immigration should be a top priority, up from 39 percent in 2021. By comparison, the 39 percent of Democrats who cite immigration as a priority has remained fairly stable since 2021.” Biden seemed to be taking the immigration issue head on with the scuttled border security/Ukraine/Israel deal in the Senate—and promises to use executive powers to close the border—but he’s bafflingly backed off for now.