An earlier version of this article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Friday mornings here.
Happy Friday, friends. Wishing all a happy pre-holiday weekend.
Republican outcast
There’s an inherent risk for Republicans who dare to oppose Donald Trump. The president-elect has vowed “retribution” against his opponents, and on Thursday, Donald Trump Jr. specified the enemies list includes some fellow Republicans.
“In D.C., it’s not just the Democrats that are our foes. It’s a vast majority of the Republicans,” Trump Jr. said at TurningPoint USA’s conference in Phoenix. “It’s just an easy existence to be a weakling Republican.”
Easy, perhaps, if it means retirement. That’s the barrel John Giles, the mayor of Arizona’s third-largest city, is looking down.
Mayors of suburban cities are not typically players on the national stage, and Giles’ emergence was largely an accident. He endorsed Kamala Harris in late summer, and the novelty of the incident — a Republican swing-state officeholder endorses the Democrat! — earned him a VIP pass to the remainder of the election cycle. He scored speaking slots at Harris rallies and at the Democratic National Convention; he helped spearhead “Republicans For Harris.” When Harris announced she’d name a Republican to her cabinet, there was some whispering about Giles for Transportation secretary.
But Harris lost, and Giles now wonders: Is there a future in politics for the pro-Harris Republicans?
Giles’ term as mayor ends next month, and when asked in a recent interview what he’ll do next, he shrugged. “The short answer is, I don’t know,” Giles said. He’ll certainly spend more time with his eight, going on nine, grandchildren. Maybe he’ll return to practicing law, his occupation before he became mayor in 2014. Maybe he’ll do some consulting, though he says he doesn’t “have a fire in my belly to continue a career in elected politics.”
Even if he did, he recognizes he’d have a hard time winning another race. “I think I’m unelectable in a Republican primary, and there’s not that many nonpartisan offices to go for,” he told me. His decision to become a vocal Trump critic and Harris supporter may have been his political obituary.
But what about the other Republicans who did the same? Is there space in the Republican Party for Trump “doubters”? Giles discussed this and more in a recent interview with On the Trail 2024.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Deseret News: You’re a conservative and a lifelong Republican. What makes you “unelectable”?
John Giles: I have no intention of leaving the Republican Party. If my goal were to be an elected official, I would probably consider switching to the Democratic Party or independent. But that’s not my end goal.
As a voter in Arizona, it’s to my advantage to be registered as a Republican, because that’s that’s where the majority of the races are decided. And so if I want to have a voice, an impactful vote, I’m going to be a Republican. Also, I am interested in being an irritant to the current leadership of the Republican Party. And so I think my voice is more relevant as a registered Republican than it would be as a former Republican. So I’ll continue to be a Republican, because I think that’s where the greatest need for reform is.
DN: What did you learn about the electorate, either in Arizona or nationally, from the presidential election?
JG: We didn’t know what was going to happen. I’ve listened to all the autopsies that you have, and I don’t pretend to have any better insight than anyone else. I think people are very aware of Donald Trump’s flaws. As a nation, we are guilty of some amnesia. I mean, one of the reasons he lost four years ago was because we had this constant drumbeat of daily outrageous tweets and scandals, and even the most loyal of Republicans were just done with the guy. And then we go through four years of the conservative media propaganda, preaching that that Joe Biden is a crook and Donald Trump isn’t. And four years of that successful media campaign wore down people’s memories of who Donald Trump really is. That’s my take on it.
DN: What did Harris do wrong?
JG: Kamala was a great candidate. But she couldn’t change that perception of her being a progressive vice president to Joe Biden in the amount of time that she had. She didn’t distinguish herself from Joe Biden. She was a loyal vice president, and that’s admirable. But in hindsight, that’s probably not the best way to win an election when people want change.
But Donald Trump is already overplaying his hand. He’s already sending in this clown car of people that have no business being in his cabinet. We’re back in the daily scandal business of Donald Trump. So it’ll be interesting to see how quickly he loses the support of the American people, and what happens in the midterms and what happens four years from now.
DN: But there has to be some appeal to Trump, if close to 50% of the electorate voted for him. What did he get right that Harris got wrong?
JG: Years ago, I was preaching to the Republican Party meetings that the Republicans should be aggressively marketing themselves to the Hispanic community, and that fell on deaf ears. This election, the Republican Party caught on to that. You hate to generalize, but if you do, you’ll know that Hispanics are small business owners, they’re religious. They’ve got a lot of characteristics that make them great targets for Republican talking points. The salvation of the Republican Party might be their newfound acceptance among communities of color, and if so, that’s great. I’ve been advocating for that for a long time.
DN: A Fox News exit poll suggests there was some slight movement among Latter-day Saints this cycle — Harris won 24% of them in Arizona, versus Biden’s 19% in 2020. What did you see from your fellow Latter-day Saints in 2024?
JG: I think that there was a shift among Latter-day Saints, particularly among women and among young LDS people. People who look like me at sacrament meeting are a hard sell. But all of my children voted for Harris, as did their spouses. And so I think there’s movement in the LDS community. A bigger shift would have been nice. It still is a little disconcerting to me that 75%, if those numbers are correct, supported Trump. I think that’s disappointing. There should be more of a rejection of Donald Trump among the LDS community than there was. But I do sense that there’s a shift.
DN: Will a majority of U.S. Latter-day Saints ever vote for a Democrat in a presidential race? Do you see a future where Latter-day Saints are a competitive voting cohort?
JG: I do. It’ll be interesting to see. I still subscribe to to the Republican Party principles, but embedded in the MAGA movement is really a lot of white Christian nationalism, and so I reject that. And I think I would hope that the majority of LDS people do as well. If the party doubles down on white Christian nationalism, I think that will probably make it more difficult for them to continue to attract communities of color into the party. If smart people are able to grab the reins of the party, then I think they could continue to do well. So only time will tell.
DN: The Latter-day Saint Republicans of your mold are leaving office: Ambassador Jeff Flake isn’t currently holding office, and Mitt Romney will finished his Senate term this month. Are there any Latter-day Saint leaders or politicians across the country who you view as torch-bearers of your non-MAGA conservatism?
JG: You know, I was disappointed in Governor (Spencer) Cox. I was a little disappointed in Senator-elect (John) Curtis. But I think maybe both of them did what they needed to do to get elected, or to remain relevant. I was a little disappointed that Mitt Romney didn’t endorse Kamala, but at the same time, there was no ambiguity about where he was. You know, he made very clear that he did not support Donald Trump.
I think Cox and Curtis come to mind as people that I still believe are principled LDS Republican leaders. But they have demonstrated an ability to hold their nose and stand in the photo with Donald Trump. So we’ll see. If the Donald Trump continues to be Donald Trump, and the next two or three scandals drop, and if they continue to to stand next to Mike Lee and advocate for him, then, you know, too bad. But I could see them assuming the mantle of Mitt Romney and being the personification of LDS values in in religious life.
