One of the truly ancient debates in U.S. political circles is whether candidates in highly competitive partisan elections can best win by persuading swing voters or mobilizing base voters. There’s no absolute identity between ideology and strategy, but speaking generally, right- or left-wing ideologues tend to adopt base mobilization strategies that don’t require any accommodation of the other party’s views. Republican or Democratic “moderates” generally hew to the “median voter theory” that winning over a swing voter is especially effective because it adds a vote to one’s own column while denying a vote to the opposing candidate. So they value cross-over voting as much as turnout advantages.

Hardly anyone would deny that in the Trump-era Republicans have gone over almost completely to

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