Ryan Costello Is The PA GOP's Worst Nightmare
On A Candidacy For Nobody
I deeply respect the work of Sabato's Crystal Ball - their impressive 49/50 Electoral College performance last year was genuinely impressive - but a point of deep contention between how they see the 2022 elections and how I do is the state of Pennsylvania (and, well, Alaska, but that's a different thing). For some reason, they seem to think a Ryan Costello candidacy could be a potential boon for the GOP - or, at least, their write up talks him up as a serious candidate, and leaves the race at a Tossup. The problem is, while I get the theoretical appeal of a Costello candidacy, he represents the worst option for the GOP, not the best one.
The case for Costello is the case that Australian Liberals made in 2015 - run a moderate, outperform in the suburbs, and you do better than you would by running a supposed populist. It makes a certain sense, but that Australian history shows it won't work - the act of running a moderate candidate did get the Liberals a better performance in the suburbs, but they got decimated in energy producing regional areas in Queensland, and resource heavy Tasmanian seats. The problem that the Australian right had was that Malcolm Turnbull did his job in the suburbs, but he spectacularly failed in regional Australia, and when they removed him for the more regional-friendly Scott Morrison, the suburban gains reversed but the regional declines came home.
If you're the Pennsylvania GOP, that path has some appeal - sure, you'll win the PA-16 by 16% and not the 19% that Trump did, but you can plausibly flip Conor Lamb's suburban Allegheny seat and Brian Fitzpatrick's suburban Philly seat, both won by Joe Biden on route to the Presidency. So, what's the problem?
Ryan Costello can't pull that off.
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Malcolm Turnbull never had to run in a party primary to become leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, he never had to get the support of party members or supporters, or convince, really, anyone in the party apparatus. All he had to do was get a majority of the 100 member Liberal caucus to agree that he was better than Tony Abbott - a feat he succeeded in doing. Because he took the leadership in one night - as opposed to at the culmination of a months long process of pandering to the party base - Turnbull was able to keep the things that made him popular in the country, namely his pro-gay marriage, pro-action on climate, anti-culture war nonsense views. He was a long established moderate, and he got to keep the credit for his moderation.
Costello, by contrast, will have to run for a Republican nomination where the party base is, frankly, crazy. A poll recently said 79% of Trump supporters thought that efforts to overturn the election were justified, and you want me to believe the GOP will run a moderate? Are you fucking kidding me? There is no chance that the Ryan Costello who had some moderate appeal in the past would be able to get that support again, and he knows that. Going after Democratic judges yesterday on Twitter - the same ones who threw out the gerrymandered map that cost him his Congressional seat - someone took a shot at him. Costello's reply was to mock the guy for having his pronouns in his bio.
In doing so, Costello proved the point that he cannot win a primary as a moderate, so now he's trying a pivot to his right. The problem is, that level of just gross transphobia may play well with a GOP electorate, and a single tweet won't move poll numbers, but it shows the Costello trap. Move right to win the primary, and your entire fucking appeal as the guy who can win in places that won Biden the state is gone. Stay in the (relative) centre, and you never even make it to a primary. But, somehow, that's not it.
Let's say Costello makes it to a general election, newly minted as a fire breathing conservative. He bleeds in the suburbs, sure, but you don't face the cultural conservative backlash, right? Well, no, you still do, because Costello's a paper tiger, and everyone can see it from a mile away. He's too moderate for the Trump voters who only came out with the former President on the ballot, but he's now too conservative for the Biden/Fitzpatrick voters in PA-01 that he needs to win.
Costello's candidacy is a candidacy that makes some sense on paper, but it all falls apart as soon as you dig into it at all. Trump managed to inspire his voters to turn out for him because they believed in him. Why on earth would they turn out for a turncoat whose ideology is as fluid as needs be for his political ambitions? And, if you're a moderate in the suburbs, why on earth would you trust somebody who is willing to pander to the worst inclinations for power? Costello is a dream candidate, except not for the GOP - for Democrats to run against. Every Democrat nationally should be praying for Costello - it would make quite the brilliant mistake.