My feeling is some of the big Republican donors have given up on the presidency to focus more on smaller races. Instead of spending $1 billion on selecting a president, they can spend $10 million on a hundred different state level legislature and governor races and control state level politics.The Right does win. A lot. There's that big elusive goal of the Presidency, of course
I feel like they get a lot more for their money. The Presidency has never been a more expensive race, and yet the powers and responsibilities haven't changed. Aside from making executive branch level changes like asking the DOJ to pursue one case over another, and ATF responsibilities there's not a lot that the President does exclusive of Congress. He can 'declare war' but not really, and Congress seems willing to rubber stamp that anyway. If you're a defense lobbyist spending your money trying to get preferential contracts I could see why you'd be more interested in Congress than the Executive branch anyway. I guess I just don't know who's paying for the Presidency. What benefit do they even get?