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Low-Propensity Voters and Trump’s Last Hurrah: Jim Pfaff on The John Fredericks Show | Aug 26, 2026

Published: August 26, 2026
Network: The John Fredericks Radio Network
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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A South Carolina Senate campaign modeled a 300,000-vote turnout, was confident of victory at that number, and then watched 400,000 people vote. On the August 26 edition of The John Fredericks Show, Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff and host John Fredericks worked through where the extra 100,000 ballots came from: downstate and coastal low-propensity voters who normally sit out anything short of a presidential race. Trump rallied in Myrtle Beach, did a tele-rally, and the operation made 80,000 get-out-the-vote calls on a Monday. Fredericks called that the silver lining: if the president can pull those voters out in South Carolina in the middle of August, after four primaries in six weeks, he can pull them out in Michigan, Maine, North Carolina and Iowa in November. Pfaff built the rest of his argument for the year on the same point. The rest of the segment covered the closing message, four Senate toss-ups, 24 true toss-up House seats, the Save America Act, and the GOP midterm convention in Dallas.

Topics Covered

• 400,000 Votes: How Low-Propensity Voters Broke the Model
• The Upstate, the Lowcountry, and Why Ralph Norman Fit
• The Closing Message Is the Economy, Not Iran
• Four Senate Toss-Ups, 24 House Seats, and the Save America Act
• Dallas, September 9-10, and Trump the Closer
• Key Takeaways

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400,000 Votes: How Low-Propensity Voters Broke the Model

Fredericks was at the Ralph Norman headquarters on election night, and he opened the segment with the arithmetic. The Norman camp modeled about a 300,000-vote turnout. Had that number held, they were very confident of victory. They knew they had to win Greenville by about 20,000 votes, and they won it by 19,000 — a thousand short, but right there. What the model did not anticipate was a 400,000-vote turnout, roughly 30% above the estimate.

The extra 100,000 votes did not come from the upstate conservative base. They came from downstate and coastal R1 and R2 Trump voters — the low-propensity voters who show up for presidential elections and not always then. The Trump-endorsed candidate carried Myrtle Beach by almost 20,000 votes after the president rallied there. Around those areas the operation ran 80,000 get-out-the-vote calls on the Monday before the election, and Trump did a tele-rally on top of it.

Fredericks credited the operation that built the losing model rather than blaming it. Rick Wiley ran the Norman effort, and Fredericks called him a savvy professional consultant who has been around a long time — not a grifter. Campaigns have to allocate resources against a projection, and this projection missed by 100,000 people who were not supposed to vote. That is the whole story of the night. This was the same race TCC weighed in on with our endorsement of Ralph Norman for Senate.

“Donald Trump can be the Energizer Bunny of the one of four — what we call one of four — voters”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The one-of-four voter, in Pfaff’s shorthand, is the low-propensity voter who only tends to show up in presidential elections, and not always then. Pfaff said they are going to be key to what happens in November, and that turnout at that scale should hearten Republicans if Donald Trump is on the road for the rest of the year.

The Upstate, the Lowcountry, and Why Ralph Norman Fit

Pfaff lived in the Lowcountry in Charleston for a while and walked through the regional map. The Lowcountry runs from Charleston down to Hilton Head and roughly up to Myrtle Beach, and it is the more establishment Republican part of the state. Nancy Mace holds the first district in the Charleston area and has been, in Pfaff’s words, pretty much a conservative rock star — but she has had to balance the folks on the Battery, who in Pfaff’s description are “just establishment RINOs” when they are Republicans at all, alongside a lot of Democrats down there. North Charleston, Tim Scott’s home area, goes both ways.

The Upstate is a different state. Pfaff called it the conservative entrepreneurial center — Greenville, Anderson, and the surrounding areas — and said that is where things are happening economically and where the real heart of a liberty-minded approach lives. It is the region that produced Trey Gowdy and Jeff Duncan, and Pfaff said Ralph Norman fits that mold very well and appeals to those voters.

That is why the early turnout signal misled him too. When Pfaff heard turnout was going to be high in the Upstate, and it was high, he was hopeful. The high Upstate turnout was real. It was just swamped by a wave of low-propensity voters downstate that nobody had modeled — and low-propensity voters, by definition, do not show up in a likely-voter file.

The Closing Message Is the Economy, Not Iran

Pfaff said he is impressed with what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is doing, and then drew a line under the messaging question. Foreign policy is important, but it is not what moves an American voter in November.

“But the message for Americans is not Iran. It is the economy. It is what Donald Trump has done for this economy”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Pfaff’s case is forward-looking as much as retrospective: business investment is going crazy right now, and next year it is going to show up big time. His complaint is that the message is not being carried. Republicans need to put it out so people understand what is going on — and the mechanism for putting it out, he said, is the one that just worked in South Carolina. Every time Trump rallies, it moves people.

“This is his last hurrah. He’s literally running for president going into November because he’s going to have no presidency afterwards if Democrats have control of both houses”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

That is the stakes argument in one sentence. A president facing Democrat control of both chambers has no presidency left to run, which is why Pfaff treats the midterm as Trump’s own race. On the other side of the ledger, Pfaff sees an opening: Democrats are less motivated to vote than they were earlier in the year, their party has probably the lowest approval rating in its history during the era of polling, and the Democrat Socialists of America are an ick factor even among some Democrat voters. He was careful not to overstate it — they are totally in the game — but he said Republicans have to take advantage of it.

Four Senate Toss-Ups, 24 House Seats, and the Save America Act

Pfaff runs a personal project on his weekend time, pollingsource.com, where he aggregates every poll he can find without weighting or biasing them and looks at the average. He still thinks Republicans keep the Senate, and he felt the risk was lower at the beginning of the year — but the numbers have moved.

“The toss-ups in the Senate right now really are 4. You’ve even got a toss-up in Texas right now.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Texas is on that list. Pfaff thinks Ken Paxton pulls it out, but said Trump has to go to Texas, rally those troops, and show voters what James Talarico actually is. Kansas is the other surprise: Roger Marshall is polling really, really closely at the moment. Pfaff was direct about what he does and does not know — he does not think Republicans lose Texas and Kansas, but these are close races right now, and the real test is what the Republican base does in states like that. If the base is not showing up there, the problem is national.

On the House side, Pfaff counted 24 seats that are true toss-ups. The Conservative Caucus is targeting about 26 congressional seats and about 11 Senate seats — a number Pfaff said he would not have imagined earlier, and one we laid out in the 26 House and 11 Senate races we are targeting. The Caucus plan mirrors what worked in South Carolina: target low-propensity voters directly with the Caucus’s own program, because everybody else is going to show up the way they are going to show up.

Then Pfaff turned to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and he did not soften it.

“John Thune needs to get off his butt and do the Save America Act.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Pfaff said Republicans just got a victory at the Supreme Court, but that victory is not secure. The president will apparently be able to do something with the post office, and Pfaff expects opponents to come back with another lawsuit. His conclusion is a deadline, not a preference: get this done now, or we could have a disaster.

Dallas, September 9-10, and Trump the Closer

The one thing Pfaff said he is genuinely impressed by is the GOP midterm convention in Dallas on September 9 and 10. These events normally take a year and a half to organize; some of the machinery is off the plate because there is no formal delegate vote, but Pfaff said the organizers have their act together better than he expected after working through details with them. The Conservative Caucus will be there with a major presence, including a platinum suite, and Fredericks will be broadcasting from a press box and a media row.

Pfaff’s interest in Dallas is entirely about turnout. If the convention comes off the way he is beginning to believe it will, and the right people are put up front and in the center, it is a boost. But a convention is a crescendo, not a campaign.

“There’s just no other hope for America if we don’t get another overwhelming move with those low propensity voters.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

What has to follow, Pfaff said, is event after event after event, with the president campaigning as though he is on the ballot. Fredericks reached for a 1992 parallel: Bill Clinton came out of his convention third behind George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot, got on a bus with Al and Tipper Gore for two weeks through the northeastern states he had to win, took the lead, and never relinquished it. Fredericks also passed along his wife Anne’s read of the current race — Trump is a closer, and in a business of frontrunners and closers, nobody should discount this one going on the road and closing it in the last 60 days.

Pfaff took the horse-racing metaphor and raised it. Secretariat always came from way behind and blew past the competition, and in the Belmont he did not just come from behind and blow by — he won by something like 22 lengths. He did not give up on the last race and just make it easy — he went all the way hard down. That, Pfaff said, is the effort required here if Republicans want to win.

Key Takeaways

1. The model missed by 100,000 votes – The Norman campaign planned for a 300,000-vote South Carolina turnout and got roughly 400,000, about 30% above the estimate. Norman won Greenville by 19,000 against a 20,000-vote target and still lost.
2. Trump produced the surge – A Myrtle Beach rally, a tele-rally, and 80,000 get-out-the-vote calls on Monday pulled out downstate R1 and R2 low-propensity voters — the one-of-four voters who normally sit out a primary. The Trump-endorsed candidate carried Myrtle Beach by almost 20,000 votes.
3. The closing message is the economy – Not Iran. Pfaff points to business investment that will show up big time next year, and says Republicans have to carry that message with rallies, because every time Trump rallies it moves people.
4. Four Senate toss-ups, 24 House toss-ups – Texas is a toss-up, Roger Marshall is polling closely in Kansas, and TCC is targeting about 26 congressional seats and about 11 Senate seats. The test is whether the Republican base shows up in states like those.
5. The Save America Act cannot wait – Pfaff says John Thune has to move it now. The recent Supreme Court victory is not secure, and another lawsuit is coming.
6. Dallas is a crescendo, not a finish line – The September 9-10 GOP midterm convention can boost turnout, but it has to be followed by event after event, with the president campaigning as if he is on the ballot.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Aug 26, 2026 on The John Fredericks Show.