Republicans Have the Wind at Their Backs

Republicans are launching their presidential race with the wind at their backs, and it's not because of President Joe Biden's mental incapacity or even former President Donald Trump's courageous, fist-pumping response to an attempted assassination.

Voters are switching allegiance out of disgust with the Democratic Party's pro-inflation, pro-criminal, open border policies.

More voters identify as Republicans or say they lean Republican than identify or lean Democrat. It's a stunning development. After trailing for seven years, the GOP has the edge: 47% to 46%, according to Pew's latest data, collected before Biden's disastrous June 28 debate and Sunday's assassination attempt.

The Republican brand is leading over the Democrat brand.

The left-wing media are apoplectic. New York Times columnist Frank Bruni scorns GOP conventiongoers as "a gathering of villagers with torches" -- his version of Hillary's "deplorables."

Bruni claims that Republicans are pulling ahead only because Democrats are in disarray over Biden's fumbling, stumbling and mumbling. Wrong.

The shift toward Republicans has been years in the making, long before the voting public got a firsthand look at Biden's incapacity.

Consider the exodus of Gen Z -- ages 18 to 29 -- away from the Democratic Party. For years, young voters were reliably Democrat. Biden won them by more than 20 points in 2020. Now just 24% of Gen Z approve of the job Biden is doing, according to an NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll from May 30. "They're worried about the cost of living," and they "envision moving into adulthood" without being able to take next steps like buying a house, explained pollster Lee Miringoff.

On illegal immigration, the 2024 Republican Party Platform states that "we must deport the millions of illegal Migrants who Joe Biden has deliberately encouraged to invade our Country. We'll start by prioritizing the most dangerous criminals."

Times columnist Michelle Cottle slams that proposition as "serious fearmongering" and "catnip for Trump folks." CNN invokes "Mein Kampf" and race replacement theory -- though not one word in the GOP platform targets or criticizes any racial or ethnic group.

Democrats and their media allies ignore how a migrant shelter turns a neighborhood into a disaster zone plagued by crime, panhandling, prostitution and swarms of recklessly operated motorized bikes used to rob and terrorize pedestrians.

Solutions? The GOP platform proposes reinstating Remain in Mexico, halting the release of illegals into the country, and withholding federal funding from "sanctuary" cities that refuse to hand over criminals to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The platform favors merit-based immigration, welcoming legal immigrants with the skills to be self-supporting. "End Chain Migration," the platform declares. Only Congress can make that change, but it's possible if Republicans maintain control of the House and win the Senate in November.

The liberal media label the GOP platform "darkly messianic." In truth it's defiantly optimistic, vowing that "when America is united, confident, and committed to our principles, it will never fail."

The platform's a mere 16 pages of bullet points edited by Trump himself.

Like the one-liner promising to end taxes on tips. That's music to the ears of millions of Americans -- Latinos, Blacks, whites and every other ethnicity -- who work for tips. Democrats would rather hike the minimum wage, but those hikes force employers to make layoffs and even go out of business. Better to take the money out of Uncle Sam's pocket than your employer's.

Team Biden can see the platform's a winner. That's why Biden and his supporters are pulling a bait and switch, trying to tie Trump to the Heritage Foundation's 900-page, conservative, uncompromisingly pro-life manifesto, Project 2025.

Times columnist Paul Krugman writes Tuesday that "since Trump has never shown himself to be a policy wonk ... it's more than reasonable to think of Project 2025 as a guide to what could happen in a second Trump term." So speculative that it's laughable.

On Monday, when Trump announced Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential pick, Cottle bashed Trump for picking a white man, claiming it showed a "lack of interest in reaching beyond his base" to "woo, say, suburban women or Latinos or young Black men."

What garbage.

The Pew poll shows the Democratic Party's taken-for-granted voters, including Gen Z and minorities, are realizing identity politics is a ruse. They want real improvements. Hallelujah.

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Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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