Republicans Need to Wake Up

Virginia and New Jersey just taught the GOP—again—that message without muscle is a sermon in an empty church.

POLITICS: By Walter Curt

There will be endless speculation about what exactly happened last night, but let’s spare New York the oxygen and look where the action actually was: Virginia and New Jersey. Those are the races worth dissecting. And despite the postgame spin, the biggest problem wasn’t mysterious demographics or some cosmic shift in the political poles. It was painfully familiar: poorly run campaigns, candidates left to twist in the wind, and a Republican establishment that either couldn’t connect with its own base or wouldn’t lift a finger for those who did.

I spent an enormous amount of time in Virginia working to elect Winsome Sears. Everyone knows that part. What fewer people know is how much time I spent fighting the Republican establishment of Virginia while trying to help our ticket win. Abigail Spanberger was a beatable candidate—weak on message, cautious to a fault, allergic to straight answers. She could have, and should have, been defeated. But you can’t topple a television tower with yard signs. The donors didn’t show. The party didn’t show. The cavalry never crested the hill. The RGA dropped roughly $4 million in the final weeks—better than nothing, but far too late—while Spanberger had been blanketing the airwaves for half a year. When the dust settled, Spanberger had torched close to $80 million. Winsome Sears was left with about $34 million. You don’t out-hustle a 2-to-1 cash gap by working a few more county fairs. Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe in 2021 running roughly even in dollars; that parity mattered. This time, we brought flyers to a gunfight.

The outside effort did what we could. Opposition research landed a few punches, and some hits on Spanberger started to leave a mark. But the ticket was starved of the fuel that turns sparks into fire. John Reid’s race for lieutenant governor was the purest case study. In the final ad push, his opponent had about $4 million on air. John had roughly $80,000—yes, with three zeroes. He still put in 16-hour days, drove to every corner of the Commonwealth, and met voters the old-fashioned way, one diner and VFW hall at a time. That he made it competitive at all is a testament to work ethic. But politics is not a miracle economy. Cash is king. Money is the bloodstream. With no circulation, the patient doesn’t get up off the table.

Online, the sentiment war was fought largely by volunteers, people like me who couldn’t stand the idea of Democrats walking into office uncontested. We built what we could from nothing, and sometimes it looked like something. But you don’t turn Twitter threads into GOTV. You don’t replace a field operation with a viral post. When the rubber met the road, the base that shows up for Donald Trump did not show up for the GOP. In southwestern counties where Trump has run up the score, turnout slid 12–18%, and that drop rippled through nearly every county. Trump voters did what they always do: they showed up for Trump because they trust Trump. They did not show up for a party that has spent eight years telling them to pipe down, sit still, and be grateful.

Cue the predictable chorus: “It’s Trump’s fault.” That’s lazy. These were state races. It’s the job of the state party and the national apparatus to build the machine that identifies voters, earns their enthusiasm, and gets them to the polls. The Republican Party keeps imagining it was carried to power on a tide of generic GOP popularity. That was never true. The only reason Republicans have been competitive since 2016 is that Donald Trump expanded the map, cobbling together working-class voters, disaffected independents, and low-propensity citizens who felt ignored by both parties. He built that coalition while the institutional GOP heckled from the cheap seats. The base didn’t abandon the party; the party never truly adopted the base.

This is the stubborn reality: Republican leaders still don’t know what time it is. The left treats every contest like a war for control of the regime. They will put anyone on the ballot if it helps them hold power—see Jay “2 Bullets” Jones—and then the machine lights up and the money flows. No questions asked, no fainting couches, no “Is he polished enough?” The entire apparatus lines up, swats away scandals, and steamrolls to November. Meanwhile, too many on our side file a complaint about the candidate’s tone, LinkedIn, or sleeve length. We mumble about “electability” while they purchase it. We run a policy seminar; they run a siege.

I can hear the objections. “We need better candidates.” Agreed—always. But the left wins plenty with candidates who would get laughed out of a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. The difference is the machine. They raise relentlessly, unify immediately, and defend ferociously. We second-guess publicly, fund sporadically, and “distance ourselves” right when our candidates need air cover. You can’t build a winning culture on vibes. If you won’t invest in your team, don’t be shocked when the other side hoists the trophy.

So what now? First, stop pretending enthusiasm is a line item you tack on in October. It’s earned by months of visible fight—showing the base that the party respects their concerns and will go to the mat for their candidates. Second, adopt the obvious: money matters. Donors cannot parachute in at the eleventh hour and expect parity. If you want to win, you have to fund the air war and the ground war from spring to fall. Third, stop blaming the voters for not loving resumes. Voters love fighters. Give them candidates who talk like human beings, not white papers, and then back them without hesitation. Expect rough edges; reward courage.

And spare me the fantasy that we have unlimited time to figure this out. We have 364 days. If Republicans spend the next year bickering about etiquette or some consultant’s favorite micro-issue, we will misread the moment yet again. If we lose the House in 2026, the Democrats will impeach Donald Trump before the C-SPAN cameras finish warming up, and every inch of progress—judges, border policy, the administrative state—will be strangled in the crib. They will not offer grace; they will take scalps. That is how the left plays. If that sounds too harsh, you haven’t been paying attention.

Wake up, Republicans. Smell the roses—and the cordite. Get in the fight for your country. We won in 2024 because we grasped the stakes and acted like it. That urgency shouldn’t have faded; it should have deepened. It’s not enough to have good arguments if you refuse to build the muscle that makes arguments matter. No more moral victories, no more donor diets, no more waiting for someone else to do your job. Build the machine. Fund it. Defend your candidates like you mean it. The left fights to win. It’s long past time the right did the same. You have one year. Get to work.