Sources in Axios‘s conservative donor class demo tell the “Be Smart” outlet that the MAGA establishment has already decided who’s to blame for the impotent nothing burger that was the party’s campaign against California Dems’ all-but-certain to pass Proposition 50, the ballot measure allowing the state legislature to temporarily override the independent redistricting commission and kill as many as five Republican-held US House seats to offset Texas’s gerrymandering.
In one of their bullet points Axios writes that “some senior Trump political advisers and party strategists say a top operative of a pro-Trump group undermined their efforts to defeat a plan that could help Democrats gain five congressional seats,” before identifying the scapegoat as Ashley Hayek, president of MAGA slush fund America First Works. Last month Hayek had gathered a few dozen California GOP donors at a hotel in DC to pitch them on writing checks to support various MAGA propaganda campaigns. When one brought up Prop 50, Hayek cited public polling and gave an honest assessment, saying “There’s probably going to be redistricting in California,” prompting the plutocrats to deem it a lost cause and to instead look forward to the midterms.
Why exactly a high-level operator in a political power ecosystem that eats, sleeps, and breathes grift would’ve fucked up and momentarily spoke with such candor isn’t clear but the damage was unmistakeable – and worsened by the would-be donors’ impression that it’d been a White House-sanctioned event. “Because AFW has the imprimatur of White House support, Trump advisers worried donors would think they were bailing on California and close their wallets,” Axios writes. It may’ve been as simple as Hayek just wanting to preserve her relationships with these donors and not sell them a bill of goods on a doomed effort, but she also could’ve just told the puppetmasters that AFW wasn’t doing any anti-Prop 50 work and she’d connect them with people who were.
It’d be a lot better than one comment getting her crucified for the sloth-adjacent sins of her entire tribe, with even history-making loser former Speaker Kevin McCarthy – who lent his “talents” to the limp effort early on – throwing a bitch fit over Hayek’s performance. Also scorning the operative is Congressman Ken Calvert, one of the likely doomed Golden State Republicans who’s heavily invested in the already-failed counteroffensive. Hope he pissed away a LOT of his own money on it.
“Republicans say fundraising for their California effort has slowed since. They estimate that donors at the Willard meeting could have given $10 million to $15 million — but didn’t,” Axios writes (Side note: Holy fuck they are so freaking plugged in with these donors. Late 1970s xerox Bowery fanzines written/collaged by Sex Pistols groupies didn’t have this level of insider-sourced detail as this Axios article does). But typical for these agenda-driven hit pieces there’s a little too much tree and not enough forest, like the fact that one of McCarthy’s mission objectives was to keep Trump out of California and to shitpost about it as little as possible given his unpopularity in the Golden State.
They had to get the Republican president to NOT help turn out Republican voters because that would activate the far more numerous Dem voters, which to chemically-balanced people should scream that from day one this was already about as lost of a cause as one could get. Yet inside Axios’s GOP donor class the emperor cannot fail, he can only be failed, so Hayek takes the blame.
The other problem is that they’re saying this one fuckup from late last month allegedly cost the campaign $10 to $15 million. Not nothing as Axios says the effort raised $60 million altogether, but how the hell was that going to close a polling gap that MAGA-friendly Emerson College had already by then put at 51 percent Yes to 34 percent No on September 19th? And, yes the vote’s happening in California, but in what universe was this solely California donors’ problem? Newsom’s sole remit is to offset the gerrymandering Texas Republicans did – as their Orange Allah commanded them to do.
This is effectively a national election and it shouldn’t fucking matter which state you’re from if you’re a MAGA donor who wants to see the House GOP majority in place past January 3, 2027. Of course the team had to do something to oppose Prop 50 but for anyone to have pretended the GOP ever had a real shot at killing it if not for one actress fucking up her lines is so on-brand for this party.