So Not a Surprise

It turns out that the Lincoln Project, much beloved by the MSNBC crowd, appears to have been little more than a scam to separate money from limousine liberals:

A group of longtime Republican operatives depicting themselves as anti-Trump stalwarts convinced liberals to give them more money for ineffective television ads and stunts than was raised by the Democratic Party’s national campaign to win state legislatures.

The result: Donald Trump won more Republican votes than he did in 2016 as Democrats again lost state legislatures in advance of redistricting that could determine control of Congress for the next decade.

Meanwhile, the GOP operatives are reportedly positioned to go from lighting liberals’ money on fire during the 2020 election to now using liberals’ money to launch a media empire that could push a new Biden administration to the right.

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While the Lincoln Project’s YouTube videos lampooning Trump received millions of views and endless promotion on MSNBC, the ads proved ineffective in the group’s stated goal: As the Daily Poster first reported, Trump actually increased his share of the Republican vote in 2020 as compared to 2016, when the Lincoln Project did not exist.

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As Lincoln Project burned liberals’ money on unpersuasive videos and expensive stunts — including a Times Square billboard in the uncontested locale of Manhattan — the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee raised far less money in its battle for control of legislatures.

The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman noted last month that “direct messaging against Trump (@ProjectLincoln ads, etc.) is ineffective in swing states. Dem messages that actually move votes: talking about education & majoritarian economic policies.”

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While the Lincoln Project failed to generate significant Republican defections, the effort has been a financial windfall for GOP operatives.

Earlier this year, the group was lampooned by Stephen Colbert’s cartoon show for spending so much money on overhead rather than on ads. By the end of September, the group had funneled $4.5 million through Summit Strategic Communications, run by the group’s cofounder Reed Galen. The group also reported paying $3.9 million to Tusk Digital, led by another Lincoln Project cofounder, Ron Steslow.

Never-Trump Republicans are still Republicans, which means that they cannot be trusted.  Ever.