Why Does Con Inc. Continue to Ignore Red-State Primaries? | 8/8/25

The overlooked battleground: why governors, primaries, and energy planning matter more than congressional theatrics

The familiar rhythms of American partisan outrage—viral posts, dramatic endorsements, and breathless predictions about congressional majorities—have a way of masking a simpler strategic truth: power is consolidated and exercised at the state level. The real leverage to remake politics, policy, and governance is not in a single map redraw or a national talking point; it is in winning governorships, retooling state party machinery, and settling the hard administrative questions that determine whether infrastructure and industry serve the common good or special interests.

From social-media spectacle to statehouse substance

For a decade conservative media has trafficked in amplified grievances: rhinos, uniparty betrayals, and accusations of cheating. Those narratives generate engagement and revenue, but they are no substitute for the patient, unglamorous work of primary fights, legislative sessions, and local organizing. When presidential endorsements are poured indiscriminately into vulnerable incumbents, the result is predictable—an entrenched class of corporatist Republicans who resist reforms, slow-walk rescissions, and trade short-term favors for longer-term influence.

The contrast is plain in states that have invested in serious institutional reform. Governors with coherent agendas can shift the tenor of an entire state—altering tax policy, reshaping regulatory priorities, and setting the conditions for energy and land use decisions. That is why the push to elect assertive red-state governors matters more than the ephemeral spectacle of congressional redistricting fights that will inevitably collide with federal courts and partisan litigation.

Primaries, conventions, and the anatomy of a political renovation

The mechanics of party realignment happen well before general election day. Converting state primary systems into more activist-friendly processes, mobilizing at county conventions, and targeting vulnerable incumbents in primary challenges create a durable conservative majority that can withstand legal setbacks and special-interest pressure. Where that ground game succeeds, policy follows.

• Primary focus: Invest in state-level primaries to replace rhinos with accountable conservatives.
• Legislative engagement: Show up for session-by-session policymaking rather than treating laws as mere rhetoric.
• Party structure: Change rules and conventions so that party institutions reflect local majorities.

When endorsements enable the problem

Endorsements are not neutral. When national figures preemptively back incumbents who serve corporate interests, they reduce incentives for those incumbents to reform. The repeated pattern of high-profile endorsements of establishment figures has produced a political ecosystem in which primary challengers struggle to consolidate support, and the party’s national platform is hollowed out by compromise. The consequence is not merely frustration—it is lost leverage at the state level where governors and legislatures make consequential choices.

Data centers, energy, and the politics of infrastructure

Policy failure is not abstract. It shows up in town councils voting to annex water supplies for massive corporate data centers, and in regional grids strained by AI facilities that consume energy the size of a small country. The surge of AI and cloud facilities—hundreds of new data centers in recent years, dozens of AI-specific campuses—has outpaced the parallel investments in power plants and grid expansion. That mismatch is not a technological inevitability; it is a consequence of policy design that privileges corporate land grabs while neglecting essential public infrastructure.

The power dynamics are stark. Within a few years, some analyses suggest data center energy consumption could rival that of a mid-size European country. Yet in the same period there have been practically no new coal plants, only a handful of gas projects, and only a couple of nuclear units come online. The result is a structural tension: communities face choices about water, zoning, and grid reliability while elected officials debate whether to court or constrain the very industries consuming those resources.

Local victories reveal a path forward

Civic mobilization can blunt corporate overreach. In one blue city, a unanimous municipal council vote halted a multibillion-dollar data center annexation after large public turnouts and sustained local opposition. That kind of outcome—ground-level pressure matched to local political will—offers a template for how energy, land use, and corporate power can be negotiated rather than imposed.

Economic policy, asset bubbles, and political alignment

Underlying many governance debates is a shifting economic architecture: wealth accumulation has flowed away from broad wages and toward concentrated asset bubbles. A handful of large stocks now represents a historically unprecedented share of market capitalization, and housing has been recast as a savings vehicle rather than a basic necessity. Policy choices—tax carve-outs, subsidies, and selective regulatory favors—amplify these distortions. Addressing affordability will require hard decisions that depress asset bubbles rather than accelerate them with more carve-outs.

What it would take to change the trajectory

The work is mundane but concrete: replace vulnerable incumbents through targeted primaries; elect governors capable of coordinating energy and land-use policy; reform state party processes; and insist on infrastructure planning that precedes industrial expansion. Those moves are not glamorous, but they harden political victories into lasting policy changes.

The rewards of that discipline are obvious: functioning power grids that support both households and industry, legislatures that pass coherent long-term reforms, and parties aligned with the governing interests of their electorates rather than the fundraising priorities of an elite few. The spectacle of viral outrage fills feeds and wallets, but if the aim is a polity that actually serves broad public interests, the fight will be quieter, more patient, and less monetized—and it will be fought where governors and statehouses actually make the rules.

Concluding thought: Durable political change rarely arrives through a single map or headline; it emerges from steady institutional work at the state and local level that aligns power, policy, and public purpose.