The GOP's Tifosi Tragedy

On A Comparison Of Failure

How the fuck is Max Verstappen up 80 points?

For those who don’t follow F1, there are two different championships up in any given year – the Constructors, for the team with the most total points between their two drivers, and the Drivers, which obviously goes to the driver who accrues the most points. It’s not necessarily the case that the same team will win both – Mercedes won the Constructors in 2021 despite (allegedly) losing the Drivers to Verstappen – but most of the time, the team that wins one wins both.

After the Australian GP in April, it looked like Ferrari had both not necessary on lockdown, but both were clearly Ferrari’s to lose, with Charles Leclerc 34 points up on 2nd (remember when George Russell was in 2nd in that shitbox of a Merc?) and 46 up on Verstappen, who was the obvious actual title rival. Since that point, here is an incomplete list of all the ways Ferrari have fucked this up.

·         Their car blew up on Leclerc in Barcelona while he was easily in the lead, causing a 32 point swing

·         They decided to double stack in Monaco, which shunted Leclerc from 1st to 4th because he had to wait for like 20 seconds behind Carlos Sainz, costing him 13 points

·         Their car blew up on Charles and Carlos in Baku, costing the team at minimum 40 points, and costing Leclerc at least 18, if not 32

·         They didn’t pit Charles for new tires under the safety car at Silverstone, costing him the win and costing him 13 points

·         The car blew up on Carlos at Austria

·         They told Carlos to pit for new tires WHILE LITERALLY WHEEL TO WHEEL WITH CHECO in France

·         They pitted Charles for hard tires everyone with a brain knew would be dogshit in Hungary, costing him at least 4 places and 10 points

Now, Ferrari are 80 points back in the Drivers with Leclerc and legit at risk of being passed by George and Lewis, and in the Constructors they’re like 30 points away from Mercedes, who might actually have a good enough car from Spa onwards. It is a chokejob beyond compare, and when I think about it, I can’t not think about the GOP are doing the same thing.

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When George Russell put it on pole at Hungary, the immediate reaction of basically everyone who does F1 content was that this was a perfect opportunity for Ferrari. The Red Bulls – their competition for the lead – were starting 10th and 11th, and whatever you think of George, the Ferraris should have easily beaten the Merc. One podcast even said “this has a Ferrari 1-2 written all over it”, and in fairness, even with my George fandom, it was 1000% true.

They came 4th and 6th.

On Tuesday, the GOP had a chance to cement their status as a clear and obvious favourite this year, and they yeeted themselves into the sun, only winning the Trump +10 Minnesota 1st by 4%. Now, before someone yells at me about “dOwNbAlLoT eFfEcTs”, even if you use the R+3 2020 House vote as the baseline, it’s still a fucking horrendous result for the GOP, because if you took a 1% swing from 2020 and applied it nationally, it’s a D+3 or D+2 result (depending on whether you consider 2020 a D+4 or D+3 year), both of which would mean Democrats win the House.

Now, one special election doesn’t necessarily mean anything in aggregate, but let’s work through this in the context of Nebraska 1st, which right after Dobbs saw a huge Democratic overperformance of 2020, and the Kansas abortion referendum which saw huge spikes in female voting and registration to vote against the referendum, which is good for Democrats. Oh, and if that’s not enough, the Washington primaries – which are usually pretty predictive, even if the primary results are usually more GOP friendly than the November results – had Democrats handily ahead in the Senate primary to a 2016 or 2020 level, and had Democrats ahead in the crucial Washington 8th.

Throw in the fact that the GOP haven’t had a good state poll in about 3 months and the fact that the Generic Ballot has flipped to Democrats per 538, and you have a truly disastrous turn of events for the GOP, and one that is being understated by many in the commentariat. Just like how the F1 commentariat tried valiantly to tell us that the title battle was still on at points, the truth’s been clear since at least Silverstone, if not Canada – the title’s been Max’s for a while, but nobody wanted to admit it until after Hungary.

In the same way, nobody wants to admit that the GOP’s position has collapsed in the last 6 weeks, because to do that would be to be accused of the same biases that led to the disastrous and wrong 2020 calls that I am certainly guilty of. Whenever someone says that the Democratic chances of winning the House are alive and well, they get swarmed by conservatives who say this person is a fucking moron. It’s a reason I don’t use the most Democratic-optimistic quotes as my Twitter pull quotes when I write about the US – I don’t want to light my mentions on fire. But at some point, it’s worth noting that the GOP are in trouble.

I’m not saying the GOP will lose the House, but they have real downside if the current tied environment keeps getting better for Democrats, which today’s inflation numbers and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the continued fall in gas prices suggests is possible, if not likely – and which recent election results suggests is not just likely but inevitable – then the GOP’s chances of winning the House will be lower than Democratic chances to win the House. At a neutral environment, Democrats have 212 seats, per my model – and if incumbency is worth more than I project, then they could easily flirt with 218.

The Senate, by the by, is looking increasingly gone for the GOP barring a snap back in the polls – which is possible but for which there is little, if any, evidence for. In the same way that expecting the Ferrari strategy shop to not toss away races is expecting a miracle, I don’t know why Republicans are expecting to win the Senate when they’re running some of the worst candidates possible. When I wrote about Oz and Walker for TheLines 10 days ago, my editor made the headline “Dr. Oz And Herschel Walker Star In How Not To Run For Office.” I’ve never talked politics with him, he’s not a politics expert, and it’s even apparent to him that the GOP are fucked in those two seats.

The GOP themselves have Kelly up 5%, so that’s not flipping barring a miracle, and even if Nevada flips – and a state that’s 68% pro choice won’t flip in a neutral environment when the GOP are fucked with well off white social liberals – it wouldn’t even matter.

The GOP have had a horrible run post Dobbs, almost as bad as what Ferrari has made the Tifosi suffer. The good thing is, Ferrari still has a chance to salvage something from the season, but the GOP are running out of time to save their Senate chances.