Attention, fellow Republicans: Given my very public and very strident opposition to the direction our party has taken over the past 10 years (and the fact that I left the GOP for a time), I can certainly understand why you may not want to hear from me. But America and the Republican Party have reached a historic turning point, and I believe we need to put differences aside and work together.
The Republican Party, nationwide and here in Washington state, has just suffered a massive defeat. Politically, the Trump era is over. The battle of 2028 has already begun, and that fight will determine the post-Trump direction of our party.
The GOP implemented MAGA’s big-government populist policies. We added over $4 trillion to the national debt and allowed President Donald Trump to massively increase tariffs and launch a war on Iran that spiked gas prices. All this drove up the cost of living for average Americans. Voters just rendered their verdict on those policies.
We lost the U.S. House and Senate. Many ballots are still to be counted, and there a lot of close races, but Republicans are going to lose somewhere between five and 13 seats in the state Legislature on top of the 15 we had already lost since Trump became the face of our party. We lost in places where we didn’t think Republicans could ever lose; places like Texas, Kansas — and Yakima.
It is time for something new; or rather, something old. It is time for the Republican Party to return to solid traditional conservative principles, like free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, national unity, respect for the Constitution and peace through strength.
I am the executive director and Washington state chair of Our Republican Legacy, a nationwide group of Republicans dedicated to nominating and electing a legacy Reaganite Republican president in 2028, and I urge you to join us in that. But I would suggest that Washington state Republicans need to be focused on other missions as well.
Trump made the GOP stronger in some parts of the country, but he eviscerated it on the West Coast. In 2015, we had a one-seat majority in the state Senate and were within two seats in the House. Today we are virtually irrelevant in Olympia. Washington is a one-party state.
The Washington state GOP will never be competitive if it is defined by the national MAGA message. Nothing you do at the local level can counter the toxicity of the national brand. You must be part of changing that brand. Still, in addition to changing the national message, the Washington state GOP must return to the tone taken by Dan Evans, Slade Gorton, Jennifer Dunn, Rob McKenna and Dino Rossi to have any chance.
Let me offer three concrete steps:
1. In January, Jim Walsh must be replaced as state party chairman. Walsh will continue to double down on the national Trump message, a message overwhelmingly rejected by the voters of our state. You need to identify a candidate now and prepare to elect that person at the January reorganization meeting.
2. You need to begin planning now to recruit and support a strong, mainstream candidate for governor; someone who can compete in the Puget Sound suburbs.
3. You need to be ready to join ORL and other groups in support of a candidate for president who will move the GOP back toward traditional Republican policies and principles.
America needs a healthy two-party system. Washington state needs a competitive GOP to at least restrain the worst impulses of the majority Democrats who seem determined to move further and further to the left. In the not-so-distant past Republicans won elections in our state. We can be competitive again if we return to commonsense conservative ideas.
As I said, we stand at a historic crossroads. For the first time since the spring of 2016, there will soon be a battle for control of the Republican Party. The time for arguing about the Trump era is over. I hope we can work together to rebuild our party.
