There will never be another 'wave' election again, at least assuming the media/internet narrative machine doesn't significantly change. This should have been obvious after covid, which would have united the country 20 years ago, divided us. The culture war is too deep for there to be 'wave' elections.

Candidate quality is almost entirely irrelevant at this point. Candidates can be mentally disabled, or literally hide in bunkers and never talk to the public. Totally fine now! If Trump runs again, I honestly think he'll do better if he never spoke to the media or made any public appearances the entire campaign. The only thing that matters is spending and persuasive media narratives. Doing less as a candidate actually gives less ammo for the other side.

Campaigns focused on specific fears are the best way to bring people to vote. This is why Zeldin did well in NY despite so many right-leaning people fleeing the state over the course of the pandemic - a single-minded focus on crime and a clear culprit (the left). Abortion and 'jan 6' works like this for the left. Yes, the right has inflation, but the right didn't tie inflation in the same way to the actions of the left. The right's argument was basically just...inflation sucks, so vote for us. Not, inflation sucks, and it was caused by the democrats, and they will cause more of it.

The RNC would rather lose than support a Peter Thiel/new right candidates. Expect more losses if this civil war continues. Doesn't bother me one bit though.

Trafalgar is a trash pollster that literally just took other polls and slapped a +5 repub modifier on their results. Works when other pollsters are all missing right-wing votes like in 2016-20. Other pollsters seem to have fixed their issues this election though, exposing trafalgar as a fake pollster.