Anyone with a brain can read the numbers, Trump is outpolling everyone. He has the incumbent advantage. Name recognition and all that. But, he comes with the baggage of incumbency too.
A large majority of people think that the country is on the wrong track. Economically, they are feeling it.
Trump most certainly is not a perfect candidate. But, the problems that the US has are in his wheelhouse and our faces.
The border. (Thank you Governor Greg Abbott for finally making people realize it)
DEI, political correctness, anti-Western Civilization values (Thank you House Republican Elise Stefanik)
Anti-Capitalism (Thank you Democratic Party)
Foreign Policy (Thank you Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken, along with the Joint Chiefs)
Trump’s policy on Covid barely gets a whisper, which is his weakness. His other weakness is he demands loyalty without giving it in return. He is brittle. What his opponents don’t understand is that the legal web Trump finds himself in is transparently politically motivated. That helps Trump, not hurts.
If you are a Republican and think that the press will treat someone like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis with kid gloves, think again. They will each grow Hitler-like mustaches if they somehow beat Trump for the nomination.
The question is, can either candidate knock Trump off?
Vivek and Christie are carnival barkers and sideshows. They should quit now. If you are a supporter of theirs, take off the rose-colored glasses. It’s time for the adults to play.
The Iowa caucuses probably provide the best hope because of how they operate. There is debate, and there is a continuous conversation before the results are locked. Obama knocked off Hillary in the Iowa caucus and that gave him the opening he needed to win the nomination which was supposedly hers.
Hillary might be the worst favorite in political history!
The rules make a difference. I am a huge fan of competition. However, I am also a huge fan of closed primaries. The declared supporters of a political party ought to determine their standard bearer. Open primaries invite mischief.
New Hampshire is a traditional primary but it is semi-closed primary allowing for wiggle room.
New Hampshire state law provides for semi-closed primaries, meaning that a voter generally must be registered as a party member in order to participate in that party's primary. A previously unaffiliated voter can participate in the primary of his or her choice.
In New Hampshire, the winners of primary contests are determined via plurality vote (i.e., the candidate with the highest number of votes is declared the winner of the primary even if he or she did not win more than 50 percent of the vote).
The next big one is in South Carolina and it is an open primary. That means there could be a lot of shenanigans.
Each primary is different. Two people can come to different conclusions from each given the same data.
Speaking of shenanigans, read Victor Joecks column in the Las Vegas Review Journal. The Republican Party Leadership in Nevada is pretty dumb. They aren’t transparent, and they are anti-competitive. They don’t know how to network and they try to erect walls rather than be inclusive. It’s run like a centralized bureaucracy, and that hurts the party. I have watched it from the outside for three years, and the evidence is in. The Nevada governor Joe Lombardo is NOT like that and doesn’t benefit from having the people in charge that are in charge.
I have built broad-based organizations and gotten support for very controversial issues in my past so I think I have the credibility to know what I am talking about.
My guess is if DeSantis finishes second in Iowa, and can finish first or second in New Hampshire, Haley will have to fold up her tent before South Carolina where she was governor. That might give DeSantis enough of an ooomph to really challenge Trump.
I think DeSantis might be able to dismember Trump in a face-to-face one-on-one debate. Nikki Haley could not. He’s a lawyer and they can be incredibly efficient at that. Trump is a good bloviator, and he is a pretty good debater. I loved watching him take apart Hillary and Bill. They deserved even worse given who they are as people. But, he does have an Achilles heel.
If you can at all trust polling data, all Republicans currently beat Biden but Trump beats him by the most. What it looks like to me is each of the challenger camps, and anyone on the sidelines is waiting for one of them to get momentum. They will jump ship quickly.
DeSantis has outclassed Haley in the debates. But, does he have enough charisma to entice Trump voters to support him if he beats Trump in Iowa?
I was at a Trump rally in Las Vegas back in 2020. I met a long time business associate of Trump who has been both “on his team” and on the “other side of the table” against Trump. He said Trump “is a genius, and he is our genius.”
The big-money men Koch and Griffin have backed Haley. However, I think money will matter less and less. Battle lines are drawn, and hardened. Big money likes a winner and if she stumbles early they will switch horses or close their checkbooks. The Israel crisis helps the Republicans and the Education Establishment moral bankruptcy that is now visible to everyone will help the Republicans.
People are still stinging from Covid, and the breathless reports from the not credible mainstream media on a new Covid outbreak will fall on deaf ears. Randi Weingarten has been totally discredited, and adds to the farce that is the educational establishment.
Another legitimate question to be answered is can Trump even put a government together that can govern? He has burned so many bridges, and his track record of treating appointees is so poor it might be hard to attract quality people that need to execute on the tough job in front of them.
Today on the TV programs, they featured people like Liz Cheney. She is 100% discredited in the entire Republican community. She disgraced herself. You don’t have to be a cheerleader but you ought to have an objective and critical mind. Anyone looking at January 6th right now that saw the recently released tapes saw it for what it was. A mostly peaceful protest and a lot more peaceful than the protests of 2020. It might have even been encouraged by a corrupt FBI but we haven’t proven that.
Those television programs roll out “experts” but they are not really Republicans. They appear Republican. They call them “learned voices” but they aren’t really learned voices.
The really “learned voices” are on Twitter. They aren’t in the mainstream.
Right now, only a masochist would be against Trump to win the nomination. But, it still could happen. The real questions are:
Would ardent Trump supporters stay home if someone like DeSantis was the nominee? Or, would they turn out?
Would minority voters who have knee-jerk voted for Democrats and got nothing except run over for it turn out for someone other than Trump? Currently, they will vote for Trump in greater numbers than they did in 2020. The illegal immigrant crisis manufactured by Biden has accentuated the pain they feel.
Will RINOs turn out for Trump or will they vote third party or stay home, or even vote for Biden?
The winds of change are evident throughout the world. The election in Argentina ought to be a window to it. Javier Milei is a huge breath of fresh air. He is a great follow on Twitter and I’d love to see someone exactly like that elected President.
As far as running mates, plenty are mentioned. But, a Trump/DeSantis ticket would be hard to beat. Rand Paul would be a great VP. We need a free market bent in the White House and we need to dismantle the unelected bureaucracy that rules us.
I keep going to the quote from Milton Friedman. He was so brilliant.
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
Trump isn’t perfect, but he pushes policies that are far more freedom-loving than any Democrat, and any establishment Republican. Again, I don’t agree with the delivery and I disagree a lot with a few of his policies, like economic tariffs. But, no candidate is perfect.
This is just math and I am not opining as to what I want to happen.
By every objective measure, Gov Ron DeSantis has done a bang up job as Governor of Florida. He smoked his opponent (Charlie Crist) in his re-election by 20% after barely beating his first opponent.
Take a breath.
Ron DeSantis is not running for Governor of Florida and in a race for POTUS, Florida voters -- same guys who gave him a 20% general election margin -- prefer Donald Trump by 40%.
The people who know him the best and who have rewarded him twice with victory do not like him 3:1 v Trump for POTUS. That is not a flesh wound. That is a head shot.
There is no way on God's green earth that DeSantis overcomes that kind of headwind.
That is the simple reality of the matter.
Focus on the fact this is a primary contest. In that regard, only the zealots turn out. Primary turnout may be as low as 10% of registered Republicans. Trump's supporters are zealots whilst there is no emotion in supporting DeSantis. He is a boring guy. [Other than the necessity to actually get elected, he would make a good POTUS, but there is no juice in the man.]
Trump has an organization in 50 states that has run the exercise twice. Nobody else is even close organizationally.
When Trump was President, the RNC re-shuffled the schedule and front loaded the "winner-take-all" states making it very difficult for a shot in the dark individual candidate to have an brilliant breakout moment. This is structural.
Trump has already won this stuff. The "other than Trump" candidates are just shuffling their portion of the deck and trading cards between and amongst themselves. Nobody is taking any support from Trump.
It's just math.
JLM
www.themusingsofthe bigredcar.com
PS -- Trump's cold, calculating decision to forego the debates has only resulted in his support increasing. Brilliant move.
Haley blew it with her positions on anonymous political speech and cultural issues.
All the R candidates are head and shoulders above the D's, but only DeSantis is competent enough to get things done.