Despite the cooling of the Republicans, CPAC is still the Trump show

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Who’s Looking Forward? The Case of Ron DeSantis

Some potential 2024 Republican presidential contenders – such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – have been noticeably absent. Donald Trump comes in on a wave of popularity in the polls, and will speak at the conference Saturday.

What should happen when DeSantis announces a run for the presidency in four years? That could offer a real clue as to whether Trump remains the favorite until the first primary votes are cast.

The first is that most candidates in Trump’s position right now have gone on to win their primary. For the 2020 primary, see the candidates who averaged at least 34% in national primary polls in the first half of the year before the primary.

Since 1972, about 75% of these candidates have gone on to win the nomination when they faced at least one major challenger. Those polling between 35% and 50% at this stage of the primary campaign have won about 67% of the time.

It would be easy to dismiss Trump’s numbers as merely the product of high name recognition, but history suggests something different. The eventual nominees from this group include, among others, President Gerald Ford for 1976, Vice President George H.W. Bush for 1988 and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole for 1996.

There have been candidates who have been successful in his position. 40% of the time since 1972 polling between 20% and 35% has been enough for a party nod.

Republicans didn’t do very well in last fall’s elections, which was bad for Trump. His once 40-point polling lead over DeSantis declined to 10 points, on average, over the latter half of November through December. Trump’s share of GOP support went from north of 50% to about 40%.

The reason was pretty clear: Much of the blame for the GOP’s historical midterm underperformance for an opposition party was laid at Trump’s feet. He supported many of the candidates who lied about how the election would go.

By going out and campaigning, Trump can remind Republicans what they liked about him in the first place. He can put the memories of a bad 2022 election behind him. The percentage of Republicans who now think he represents their best shot to win in 2024 is back up to above 40% in Marist surveys.

DeSantis has also had to deal with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declaring her bid for the presidency. The non-Trump vote is being divided by the fact that the governor is polling a little better than she previously was.

The End of the 2024 Campaign: The Case That Donald Trump Will Not Return to the Party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush

“Change only happens if we plow fearlessly ahead and declare with one voice that the era of woke and weaponized government is over. That is our mission, that is our task. And this is the turning point and the time for that decision,” Trump said, speaking to a crowd of CPAC attendees at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland. The speech comes more than three months after he announced another bid for president.

The former president spoke for more than 90 minutes, ticking through a list of pledges for a second term in office while also hitting on points he’s repeatedly made in past speeches since leaving the White House, notably the lie that he won the 2020 election.

He took aim at establishment Republicans that led the party in the early and mid-2010s – calling out the change in party ideals since he became a prominent political figure.

“We had a republican party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open borders zealots and fools but we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush,” he said.

The third and final candidate address at CPAC this year was delivered by Donald Trump.

In recent years, CPAC has been a hot spot for getting younger Republicans to vote, a group that Republicans have struggled with compared to Democrats. This is the year that the youngest branch of the electorate overwhelmingly voted for Democrats.

CPAC has not been back to the Washington, DC, area since 2020. Matthew Schlapp, who is the chairman of American Conservative Union, which oversees the CPAC, has been accused of Sexual Misconduct. The event also faced an enthusiasm problem, noting a drop in ticket sales compared to previous years.

Other Republicans rumored to be weighing presidential runs were also absent throughout the conference, including former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

Many of these 2024 hopefuls are instead attending a weekend event hosted by the conservative economics organization Club For Growth – which notably did not invite Trump. When Trump endorsed far-right candidates that the organization did not support, it caused the group to split from him.

The split events indicate a potentially larger divide within the GOP as the party continues to decide if Trump is still the best candidate to face off with the eventual Democratic nominee in another presidential matchup.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/05/1161180126/donald-trump-cpac-2023-republican-haley-ramaswamy-desantis

The Donald Trump Center for Political Action ‘2023’ and the Way DeSantis is Running for the Presidency of the U.S. Senate

“He’s talked the talk,” said Wolf, accompanied by a group of four friends in matching red, white and blue bedazzled jackets, each wearing a t-shirt that together spelled “Trump.”

Wolf isn’t alone in thinking like that. The walls of the CPAC have Trump’s name written all over them, as well as the shirts, hats and banners of a small group of people wearing them.

He needs to finish his term in Florida and run in the future. Michael Boatman, who traveled to CPAC from Indiana, said that it was better for Trump to get four years in.

Boatman attends the rallies of the former president and said that he needs to back Trump this time, because he helped propel DeSantis to victory when he first ran for governor.

“DeSantis isn’t even running yet, so I guess we’ll see but good luck,” he chuckled, “Nikki Haley showed up yesterday, and people were chanting, “we love Trump,” so good luck.”

Some conservatives at the CPAC have been pushed to stay a little longer after Trump’s defeat in 2020 and a bunch of losses from Trump-backed, far-right candidates.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/05/1161180126/donald-trump-cpac-2023-republican-haley-ramaswamy-desantis

Why does Donald Trump think he shouldn’t be president? Youth issues need to be addressed as much as they affect, says Anna Hopper

I enjoy Trump’s policies a lot. I think he should keep on trying to promote them. Jordan said he didn’t think he should be president.

“Republicans like to criticize Biden because of his age and that he’s senile. Donald Trump will be just as old as Joe Biden. Most people agree that it’s ridiculous to have a president who is 80 years old no matter what side you’re on.

To 18-year-old Anna Hopper from Arkansas, Republicans need to start welcoming more young people into the party. The leader with the Arkansas Federation of Teenage Republicans is waiting to pick a candidate until after the primary.

“I think we need someone who’s genuine, who can connect with the youth and connect in a way that tells them, we care about you and we don’t just care about you because of your vote. We would appreciate your vote because we respect you as the next generation coming into the party or just coming into the country as the new workforce,” Hopper said.

“We need a win back, those 10 to 20 percentage points of youth voters that normally, at the ballot box, end up voting for top ticket Republican candidates that now voted down ballot Democrat,” Mitchell said, who’s the founder of RunGenZ, an organization that supports young Republicans running for office.

In the 2022 midterms, voters under 30 broke for Democrats by a 28-point margin; the second highest turnout for Democrats in a midterm among this voting group after 2018. Mitchell points to smaller margins less than 10 years ago; he wants to get back to that.

To do this, he says, Republicans need to address issues young people care about – providing conservative viewpoints on environmental policy, education, abortion and guns.

That’s not the vote in the primary. They are going to be going after those red-meat issues for older Republican voters, the people that are consistent and will come out and vote.”