Former President Donald Trump’s indictment may grab headlines today, but it will not change a simple fact: Regardless of whether Trump is the Republican nominee, America’s divisions mean the next Electoral College tally will be close, even if the popular vote is not. By Michael Rubin in Washington Examiner on June 12, 2023.
Already, pundits and political analysts identify certain battleground states, those in which 5% of the vote or less will determine the victor. In 2016, the battlegrounds were Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In 2020, Georgia became a battleground, while Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota lost their battleground status. Biden’s reported advertisement purchase in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin suggests his campaign believes these states will be crucial for reelection.
If national security adviser Jake Sullivan has his way, those battlegrounds might just get a little tighter, if not difficult, for his boss to win.
In most elections, foreign policy does not matter much. President George H.W. Bush was riding high with around 90% approval after the first Gulf War before Bill Clinton chipped away his lead with his tagline, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
At issue is Sullivan’s request made to key senators to lift their hold on President Joe Biden’s desire to send F-16 fighters and avionics upgrades to Turkey as part of a quid pro quo in which Turkey would end its veto of Sweden’s NATO accession. The idea is unwise. It incentivizes Turkey’s blackmail. It could sacrifice regional security for the symbolism of Sweden’s membership. Turkey is much more likely to use new F-16s to bolster its claims against Greek islands in the Aegean than in NATO’s defense.
One constituency that will not forget is Greek Americans. Many Greek Americans live in Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan. There is also a sizable Greek population in New Hampshire.
In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, turnout increased to more than 70%, but Biden won the state by only 20,682 votes. Put another way, the few thousand Greeks who live in and around Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Madison could be enough to sway an election. Add to that the fact that Wisconsin is home to the 15th largest Armenian community in the United States, and Biden could lose the state if he is seen as naively fueling a threat of renewed ethnic cleansing, if not genocide.
Nor is Wisconsin alone. During the 2022 Senate elections, Greek Americans in Pennsylvania helped tip the scales away from Republican candidate Mehmet Oz in favor of John Fetterman due to Oz’s repeated embrace of Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While most Armenians live in solidly blue states such as California and New York, Pennsylvania is home to the seventh-largest Armenian community in the U.S. Atlanta, Georgia, meanwhile, is home to at least 12,000 Greeks and has a Greek Consulate.
None of this is to suggest that Biden’s desire to arm an aggressive Turkey would flip either Greeks or Armenians from trending Democratic. Here the 2020 election provides insight. While Democrats hoped Trump’s toxicity to women and independent voters would help them down ballot, results showed otherwise. Many voters chose Biden over Trump but did not punish other Republicans. In other words, they voted against Trump but not against Republicans. This leads to the possibility that in 2024, independents and foreign policy-minded Democrats might vote against Biden, even if they maintain their embrace of incumbent Democratic senators and representatives.
Of course, Republicans can still spoil this dynamic if they embrace Erdogan in the way that Biden and Sullivan now do. Caviar diplomacy has corrupted some Republican thought leaders and naivete others. It is too early to know what the latest indictments will mean for the Republican race, but Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie should be wary about any embrace of Turkey or acceptance of Turkish money during the current election. In the 2024 battleground states, Turkey is toxic. Its embrace could mean defeat.