Even the DeSantis bubble may burst according to an opinion
The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A High-Dimensional Campaign Effort for Congress, Student Debt Relief and Other Issues
WASHINGTON — There is nothing quite like having a president at a big, boisterous campaign rally. In the final days of voting, Democrats in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Las Vegas will have the chance to decide who controls Congress, governors’ offices and statehouses.
With less than three weeks to go until Election Day, Mr. Biden has a clear plan that will help Democrats raise money and continue to talk about issues like infrastructure, student debt relief, and computer chip manufacturing. Even with the megaphone of the Oval Office, the president can not do much to help Democrats, at least so far, in rallies that are normally a staple of campaign season.
It is a remarkably low-key campaign effort by a president facing what could be among the biggest rebukes of his political life: Republicans are poised to retake control of one or both houses of Congress, an outcome that would reshape politics in Washington and likely end any hope that Democrats have of making progress on abortion rights, gun control, police reform, voting rights or tax fairness.
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including, “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” Follow him on the internet. The views expressed in this commentary are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.
The Rise and Fall of Donald Trump: The Role of Democrats, Democrat Senators, and the Ladder of the Conservatives in the House and Senate
Donald Trump has been mentioned as a candidate for the White House. CNN reported that top aides have been eyeing a possible launch date of November 14, after Trump told his followers to get ready. Trump, it seems, is hoping to be the first person since President Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive elections.
The news of another run by Trump would shock the political world. Donald Trump is one of the most controversial leaders in US history. And as we have seen with recent Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – as well as the toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP – his presidency was enormously consequential.
Biden was correct when he stated that democracy itself was at stake in the elections. The argument resonated. Trump, and the election-denying extremists he endorsed, helped Biden and the Democrats make that case.
The Republicans remain very united, even if the Democrats have shown anything. Very little can shake that unity. After Trump left the White House, the party didn’t change in substantive ways and the “Never Trump” contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force. Liz Cheney was one of the officials who were removed from the party.
Even with unconventional and deeply flawed candidates such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz running for key Senate seats, recent polls are showing that the GOP is in relatively good shape overall going into the midterm election on Tuesday. There are several seats that Democrats are scrambling to retain and candidates in New York, which is a reliably blue state are at risk.
If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump. The rise of other Trump-inspired Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be looked at as a “liddle” by his opponents after the former President returns to politics.
A GOP win would be a big deal for Trump. He has escaped accountability at this point. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.
The Department of Justice is considering appointing a special counsel to investigate Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the mishandling of national security documents if he announces his candidacy. Trump is certain to keep attacking former special counsel Robert Muller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. It will be harder to prosecute Trump once he is a candidate. Trump, a master of playing the victim, is sure to claim (as he has in the past) that any investigation is simply a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to take him out of the running.
If Trump avoids prosecution, he’d surely unleash a fierce assault on the President, who could very well still be struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his own party. If the election deniers get positions of power, it is likely he will take advantage of the loyalists who have infiltrated state and local election offices to make sure that victory is his. It is certain that Trump will perfect his technique and rhetoric when he comes to the race, as he did in 2016 when he was elected. It is possible that Trump will be reinstated now that Musk has purchased the social networking site. (Trump, who founded Truth Social, where he has been active since he was banned from Twitter, has not publicly indicated that he will return).
Trump and the Florida Governor: How much does he really need? The pathetic, desperate, and unpredictable reality of the GOP after his 2016 campaign
The Democrats look at the GOP’s radical nature and the danger of democracy but that isn’t enough to get them to vote. Biden outlined the dangers in his closing speech Wednesday, but Democrats are stillstruggling to maintain power.
The fact that Trump poses a very serious threat in 24 years does not mean he will win. It is unclear if Trump can get the votes of Republicans and independents in crucial swing states after he turned off many. The success of President Barack Obama in his 2012 reelection campaign suggests that presidents who have faced tough reelection campaigns are still able to win.
The long simmering rivalry has spilled into public view during the final weeks leading into Election Day. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called the governor a new nickname, and then declared himself the front-runner in a hypothetical GOP primary.
The former president will welcome supporters in Miami, the third stop in a four-city tour that has effectively made Trump a leading player in his party’s fight for control of Congress. Meanwhile, the Florida governor is headlining his own events in three counties on the state’s opposite coast – Hillsborough, Sarasota and Lee – steering far clear of Trump as he seeks to close out his bid for a second term.
One Republican official who did not want to be named said that the GOP has two very stubborn, type A politicians in Florida. Both of them command attention, but they also have their own political operations. It is already difficult to talk about.
DeSantis recently endorsed Republican businessman and Colorado Senate candidate Joe O’Dea, as O’Dea vowed in October to “actively campaign” against Trump.
Of course, Trump has not been in a hotly contested primary since 2016, when he unleashed broadsides against more than a dozen-plus opponents with fury and vitriol that shocked some Republican observers but delighted a segment of the Republican primary electorate that would later evolve into his loyal base. Most of Trump’s supporters expect him to behave the same in the months to come. Even if he remains the only declared candidate until others enter the fray next year, he will continue his preemptive blitz against perceived challengers.
It will only grow more difficult for DeSantis to avoid talk of Trump and 2024 in the weeks ahead, though he may still try. On Wednesday morning, DeSantis, his voice hoarse from a demanding closing campaign schedule and election night celebrations, held a news conference to brief Floridians on Tropical Storm Nicole.
DeSantis described himself as a fighter who stood up against medical experts and criticism during the pandemic to reopen the state and ban coronavirus vaccine mandates, echoing a sentiment in a campaign ad in which DeSantis suggests he was created by God to fight for Florida.
When the Florida governor recounted how he arranged for his state to send nearly 50 slaves from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, he received the biggest applause.
While the former president maintains significant support from grassroots Republicans, some of the party’s largest donors have been meeting with other potential presidential hopefuls and signaling they may be interested in bankrolling alternative candidates. It is a concern for Trump allies that they are exploring ways to make a huge pile of cash he has raised since leaving office available to him as a presidential candidate. If Florida’s governor decides to run for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2034, he will receive the support of Ken Griffin, the billionaire who gave $60 million to federal Republican candidates and campaigns in the cycle in 2022, according to a recent interview. Two other Republican donors who gave to Trump in 2016 and 2020 and requested anonymity for fear of retribution told CNN that they, too, were waiting to see what DeSantis decides to do, while one of them said they would also be willing to support former Vice President Mike Pence should he challenge his former boss.
Trump’s pre-election travel is motivated at least in part by his desire to launch a third campaign for the White House, CNN reported this week. Indeed, during a visit to Iowa on Thursday, Trump told voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state to “get ready” for his return as a presidential candidate. Trump will be in Pennsylvania on Saturday and in Ohio on election eve, where he will campaign for J.D. Vance in the Senate race against Tim Ryan.
The decision to hold the rally in Miami-Dade County comes as Republicans are optimistic they will carry the one-time Democratic stronghold for the first time in two decades. The party is seeing a wave of enthusiasm that is turning the state into a deeper shade of red because of investments made by Republicans to make inroads in the Hispanic neighborhoods. Republicans will hold an advantage in voter registration on Election Day for the first time in Florida’s modern political history.
“President Trump delivered a historic red wave in Florida in the 2018 midterms with his slate of endorsed candidates up and down the ballot and molded the Sunshine State into the MAGA stronghold it is today,” the announcement from Trump’s Save America PAC said. “Thanks to President Trump, Florida is no longer a purple state; it’s an America First Red State.”
“Biden touches it and turns into something much worse than (gold),” DeSantis said. The majority of Americans think the country has seen its best days, and it is frustrating. They think that we are on the wrong track. Florida gives the template that other states can follow.
What is the role of Donald Trump in the wake of the November 11 primary election? An initial opinion piece by CNN’s Frida Ghitis
Frida Ghitis is a former CNN producer and correspondent who is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
The question of who will control congress in the new year has not been answered. On this day after, we can make some initial conclusions.
Glenn Beck, a conservative talk radio host, was half joking when he suggested a day after the elections that Republicans should go back to being the party of Reagan. The party’s poor showing in the election felt too sour to linger on.
That’s because the movement spearheaded by Trump and his election deniers performed much worse than expected. Even some of the most dramatic Republican victories looked like a rebuke of Trump and his band of anti-democratic activists.
In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote “to oppose Donald Trump.” A small number of people said they had a good view of the former president before the election. The party should be alarmed by that.
Trump told an interviewer on election night that if the Republicans win, he should be given all the credit. I shouldn’t be blamed if they lose. He deserves a lot of the blame according to the evidence.
The No-Favorite Candidate Who Voted to Save Democracy: The Case of K.M. Biden, the Democratic Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and the Georgia Senator Herschel Walker
The opposition party has gained on average 29 seats in the House over the past 100 years. This year, Republicans needed just five seats, a goal that seemed so reachable that practically every pollster predicted the GOP would easily clear it, especially given the high inflation rate and Biden’s relatively low approval. But Republicans are struggling to clear that low bar.
It is possible they may do it. Rep. Kevin McCarthy may replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, but even if Republicans take the House, the Democrats’ performance is little short of amazing. Biden presided over the best performance by the party in power since George W. Bush in 2002, the first election after 9/11.
Biden said he chose to run for president because he wanted to save US democracy. Even if his party loses control of Congress, he can take comfort in the fact that he has made significant progress in achieving that goal. These elections were a victory for democracy.
Everyone knows by now how many Trump candidates lost this year, especially the higher-profile, more hard-core ones who claimed the 2020 election was stolen. The person says that they lost in Arizona. Doug Mastriano lost in Pennsylvania. Most of the notable pro-Trump secretary of state candidates lost. The Senate candidates, too. On Tuesday the Democrats added on in Georgia, with the same central animating force behind them that Donald Trump forced his party to run a candidate who lost.
The football star Herschel Walker could still win the runoff in December. But anyone who heard him campaign or learned about his past knows he should never have been on the ballot. It’s thought that fame would work the same as it did for Trump. He supported Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania seat. Oz lost to John Fetterman, who after suffering a stroke struggled to regain his verbal prowess, a key skill for a political candidate.
At the DeSantis victory rally, supporters made clear that they saw his winning platform as a springboard. Chants of “two more years!” filled the room, a sign that they would rather see DeSantis in the White House than the governor’s mansion come 2025.
To block Kemp’s reelection, Trump persuaded former Sen. David Perdue to run against him in the primary. Perdue was humiliated for voting against Trump in the primary.
Trump plans to announce his candidacy soon despite his poor showing. Most Democrats find the prospect hard to stomach, but most Republicans would also like him to just focus on his golf game. He is a threat to the party.
What Will Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Tell Us About The State of the Art? A New Poll Study in the First-in-the-Nation Primary State
Soon, Americans will probably have to begin enduring another season of presidential campaigning by the most disruptive candidate in living memory, a man who has shown only disdain for democracy. It is good to know the country is moving in the right direction, and that democracy is doing well.
Various polls have suggested that Trump’s hold on the Republican Party may be weakening and that DeSantis is picking up support. A University of New Hampshire poll of the first-in-the-nation primary state showed the Florida governor leading Trump 42% to 30% among likely GOP voters. The poll, conducted in December, showed that about 6 in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would prefer their party to choose someone other than Trump.
There’s a good chance the timing of a campaign launch will be up in the air. When reports first emerged that Trump intended to kickstart his presidential campaign in mid-November, those in DeSantis’ circle braced for the possibility of a quick turnaround from the midterm to a presidential primary showdown. Now, several consultants in Florida say DeSantis likely won’t formally jump into the presidential field until after state lawmakers meet for their annual legislative session. The May or June announcement is what it would be.
He has married that political style with a strongman persona. As governor, he has targeted protestors, universities, public health workers and corporations for opposing his policies. He has sent police to round up voters with felony convictions who were confused about the state’s attempts to strip them of their voting rights after they were reinstated a few years ago. He has bent the Florida legislature to his will, whipping up support for anti-gay laws, a new redistricting map and punitive legislation targeting Disney after the company criticized the state’s infamous “don’t say gay” bill.
Multiple sources told CNN that there will be a legislative session full of conservative priorities that can be carried into a GOP presidential primary. Republicans won a super majority in both chambers of the Florida legislature Tuesday, allowing Ron DeSantis to make good on his campaign promises to further restrict abortion and make it simpler to carry a firearm.
Meanwhile, unlike the national party, the Democratic Party in Florida is in tatters, struggling to field and support candidates and to organize and mobilize voters. There is a different mix of Latino voters in Florida that is weighted heavily toward immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela who are more likely to support DeSantis than other Democrats.
There is an issue of fellow Florida resident Donald Trump. The Dump Trump crowd does not seem to understand how deep and unquestioning the cult of personality around Trump is within some parts of the party.
Donald Trump got fired on Tuesday night, according to Georgia Lieutenant Gov.Geoff Duncan. “The search committee has brought a few names to the top of the list and Ron DeSantis is one of them. I think Ron DeSantis is being rewarded for a new thought process with Republicans and that solid leadership.”
Those with access to DeSantis caution that he has yet to make a decision about his future and they don’t think he has made a final decision. The brain trust of the governor is very small. It consists of himself and his wife, Casey. Sources say that even though it widened after Tuesday, it might not stay open forever as the DeSantises know there is a window for a 2024 move.
Is Donald Trump the Biggest Loser in the Republican Party? Observations from New Hampshire, where Donald Trump was defeated in the 2016 November Primary
The legislative session will be “as red meat as you can possibly imagine,” a GOP consultant said. “Whatever he proposes, they will pass it, and it will become law.”
The Republican fundraiser said that “anything ‘woke’ they can find to kill within their path, they’re going to do that” and predicted that financial institutions, in particular, would be a DeSantis target this spring.
It was not uncommon for DeSantis to avoid early nominating states, where appearances can set off presidential buzz. The New Hampshire Republican Party has had no contact with the governor since he was elected, according to the chairman of the party. Despite the hype around DeSantis, Stepanek predicted it will be difficult for the Florida governor to overcome Trump in the nation’s first primary in New Hampshire. Trump’s victory in the 2016 New Hampshire primary served as the launching point to him winning the GOP nomination.
“When people bring up DeSantis today, I bring up Scott Walker,” Bob Vander Plaats, an influential conservative leader in the early nominating state of Iowa, told CNN earlier this year, drawing comparisons to the former Wisconsin governor who was an early favorite in 2016 before his campaign stalled.
“If in fact you go into a presidential primary with Donald Trump and think you’re going to kick his ass, you got another thing coming,” one Republican consultant in Florida told CNN.
Is Donald Trump a loser in the elections? Plenty of people declared that he did, from liberal pundits to the Murdoch newspapers — the latter delivering a double whammy from the front page of The New York Post (“TRUMPTY DUMPTY”) and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal (“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser”).
It could be that the calendar is about to turn over on the Trump era, as the strength of MAGA forces ebbs at last. But how do you declare defeat for a movement that is built around refusing to accept defeat? Mr. Trump and his supporters have been feeding off each other’s worst tendencies for so long, it’s impossible to separate his temperament or strategy from that of the Republican Party.
Dan Cox was one of the Trump loyalists who lost the governor’s race in Maryland. In defeat, Mr. Cox issued a statement saying he had called the victorious Democrat Wes Moore to “recognize him on his being declared the winner.” The Trumpist way of concession was this: The other side had been declared the winner, according to what someone else said. Mr. Cox wrote that they had internal data showing a huge shift of swing voters and a huge turnout of Republicans.
What Has Donald Trump Learned in Seven Years of Running for the Post-Republican Presidential Campaign? The New York Businessman’s Legacy Revisited
GOP leaders are scrambling to figure out what message voters sent them during the last election, and how they can adjust to what the country wants from them.
Control of the House will be determined by several uncalled House races. The Georgia election will be crucial to decide the Senate majority, but will not happen until December 6.
By going out and campaigning, Trump can remind Republicans what they liked about him in the first place. He can put the bad election in the past if he so chooses. 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.
Instead, the Republican Party – thanks to Trump – will be thrust directly into the 2024 race, with the former president demanding endorsements and fealty from elected officials who are still in the midst of trying to figure out what the heck just happened last week.
The point is that Trump is related to them. He is the leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he simply does not prioritize the good of the party over his own good.
Donald Trump will begin the next stage of his political career if he announces his third presidential bid on Tuesday.
Seven years ago, the New York businessman entered politics on defense, trying to get into the presidential race with gusto, despite the insinuation by his opponents that he was not serious. The party is headed by Trump, even though he finds himself in a defensive crouch once again.
The 118th Congress: How Donald Trump and his Democratic Senatorial Campaign split have fractured the GOP and left the party on tenterhooks
On Saturday, CNN projected that Democrats will retain control of the Senate in the 118th Congress, an outcome that has fractured Republicans and left the party on tenterhooks as Trump readies his “big announcement.”
“I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning,” Trump said of Youngkin in a Truth Social post last week.
Responding to repeated questions about Trump’s impending 2024 announcement, Earle-Sears said, “A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to leave the stage, and the voters have given us a clear message.
Sears later declined to tell The Washington Post whether Youngkin knew prior to the interview that she planned to split from Trump, a detail that caught the former president’s attention, according to one of his aides.
“If Glenn Youngkin decides to run for president, that’s his choice. John Fredericks, a Virginia-based conservative radio host who chaired Trump’s campaigns in the state in 2016 and 2020, said that Team Trump will definitely mount a huge effort to win the Virginia delegates in Milwaukee.
“I know there’s a lot of criticism and people saying, ‘Just focus on Georgia,’ but he figures there’s no point in waiting. A current Trump adviser says that Herschel won’t be credited for his work if he wins the election, because he believes that he won’t get any credit.
“Nobody should be surprised. This is how Trump does primaries,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official who remains close to the former president. “The question you have to ask is whether this format can work for him again.”
One of the biggest challenges will be the money, but I think Donald Trump has shown he doesn’t need big-money donors, which is great news for us,” a person close to Trump said.
Some Trump allies said the donor challenges, midterm outcome and questions about his stature has left a dearth of seasoned campaign operatives willing to join his next campaign. Though the president has told allies he wants to keep his operation lean, much like his 2016 presidential campaign, some have privately questioned whether it’s out of preference or due to recruitment troubles. CNN has previously reported that Trump’s likely campaign is expected to be helmed by three current advisers – Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita and Brian Jack – with assistance from a group of additional aides and advisers with whom the former president is already familiar. His apparatus is expected to dwarf his reelection two years ago, according to multiple sources.
The allies of Donald Trump who have been loyal to him said they are ready for battle one last time, as he works to find his footing on the verge of a presidential campaign that could coast to the party’s nominating convention or face unforeseen troubles.
How Did Chris Sununu Tell Us About The Future of the United States? An Analysis with Dean Obeidallah, Executive Director of SiriusXM Radio
Trump never did, that is the key to his appeal. The ex-president’s tearing at democratic norms after the election in 2020 was his version of telling voters what they, and he, wanted to hear. He allowed millions of Americans to believe that he had not lost to President Joe Biden and that the election was stained by widespread fraud – even though there was no basis for his claims. The Fox News hosts who amplified his lies were guilty of doing the same thing, not to protect their political careers but to save their jobs.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu makes one thing clear: His vision for the future of the Republican Party does not include former President Donald Trump.
Taking it a step further, Sununu – who just won a fourth two-year term in the Granite State by 15 percentage points – said it’s “un-American” to “be a country where the best opportunity for our future leadership is the leadership of yesterday.”
The survey shows that a lot of Republican voters would back Trump in the general election if he wins the party’s nomination.
Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @[email protected]. The opinions he gives are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.
The failed GOP Arizona governor candidate threw her support behind the President this weekend, when he kicked off his first presidential campaign event.
In a memorable scene from the film, ahead of an imminent fight with Rocky Balboa, Clubber Lang is asked by a reporter whether he hates the eponymous boxing legend, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.
Donald Trump’s “Do or Die”: How the “Front of the Florida Governor” Dropped Out of the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary
“I had governors that decided not to close a thing and that was up to them,” Trump said. He claimed that the Florida governor had changed his tune a lot on vaccines.
In March 2020, in response to the rapidly spreading pandemic, the Florida governor issued an executive order closing bars and nightclubs, and urged people to follow US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines limiting gatherings on beaches to no more than 10 people.
His recent comments have deviated dramatically away from the sensible, government-imposed Covid-19 protections in favor of appealing to the GOP’s Covid-denying voters ahead of an expected presidential run.
DeSantis has come out against lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccines and other measures meant to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Political observers think that the about-face has been motivated by a White House bid.
Any potential run comes with a face-off with Trump, who is still the only Republican to have formally announced in the race. It was the 40th anniversary of the release of “Rocky III” last year, but it could be the Republican nomination campaign of the future.
If he wants to win in 2024, he can not keep dodging Trump’s barbs. Even though the fighter lost the title early in the film to the villain Clubber Lang, the Italian Stallion prevailed in the end.
It would be too much to say that the former president is weak because of his close relationship with Republicans who decide primaries. But Trump’s so-so fundraising to date, his low-energy launch last year and his infrequent campaign appearances underscore his electoral liabilities, especially after his often disastrous midterm interventions.
Initially, he didn’t attack Trump directly. When he faced a “do or die” moment, he found himself in third place in the delegate count, with only a little time to make up ground before his home state of Florida’s primary.
That’s when Rubio finally took the gloves off, calling Trump “an embarrassment” and a demagogue. It was too little, too late for him and he dropped out of the race after losing the Florida GOP primary.
In the cockpit of a fighter jet, wearing a flight suit and seated as the top governor, he said that he would not fire unless fired upon. He said that never would ever back down from a fight.
Perhaps DeSantis — a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal prosecutor — is waiting to see if Trump is criminally indicted, in the hopes he doesn’t have to meet him on the field of battle. The Fulton County District Attorney told a judge last week that she was close to making a decision about her investigation into whether or not the 2020 election in Georgia was interfered with.
But to prevail, you have to put up a fight. There could come a time when GOP voters view DeSantis’ refusal to defend himself and punch back as a sign of weakness.
The more silent he is in the face of Trump, the more people will wonder if he will fight.
When did Trump try to steal the last election? How did he get there, and how he’s going to keep doing what he loves
There was also something jarring about a former president who tried to steal the last election – and incited an insurrection to try to cling to power – campaigning and being embraced by supporters as if nothing happened.
Some parts of his party are not very grateful for his one-term presidency, and it is clear that Trump believes he is owed the Republican nomination.
When I hear that he may run, I consider it disloyal. But it’s not about loyalty – but to me it is, it’s always about loyalty – but for a lot of people it’s not about loyalty,” Trump told reporters, including CNN’s Kristen Holmes, aboard his jet this weekend.
“He comes to New Hampshire, and, frankly, he gives a very mundane speech. Sununu said that the response they had received was that he stuck to the talking points, but went away. “So he’s not really bringing that fire, that energy, I think, that a lot of folks saw it in ’16. It was a little disappointing to some people. … So I think a lot of folks understand that he’s going to be a candidate, but he’s also going to have to earn it. And that’s New Hampshire.”
Trump is not yet ready to acknowledge that reality, even after his remarks about DeSantis and evangelical leaders. He went to an ice cream parlor in South Carolina later in the day in order to get in touch with voters.
Trump appeared Saturday to understand that his two years of fury over the 2020 election, which he still falsely says was stolen from him, may have turned off voters in 2022, when many of the election-denying candidates he promoted in swing states lost – potentially costing the GOP the Senate.
The campaign will be about the future. This campaign will be about issues. Trump stated at an event in the South Carolina State House that he will ensure that Biden doesn’t get four more years.
He hasn’t stopped using his standard rhetoric. On Sunday evening, he called into a rally for one on his favorite election-denying midterm candidates – failed Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, who is still falsely insisting she won in November. The former president, who is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Department and a district attorney in Georgia over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, could not resist taking aim at institutions that are revealing the true course of events.
“We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It is all an investigation according to Trump. And he branded his resistance to such probes as more proof of the very quality that many Republicans embraced in 2016 and that helped propel him to the White House.
“There’s only one president who has ever challenged the entire establishment in Washington, and with your vote next year, we will do it again and I will do it again,” he said Saturday.
A New Generation? Donald J. Haley, a Democratic Democrat Senator, and the Case for a More Diverse, Inclusive Candidate
Haley’s expected campaign launch is expected to highlight a political persona with considerable appeal as Republicans ponder how to broaden their coalition after their general election loss in 2020. Haley has an advantage as the former governor of a southern state that could be one of the most decisive primary battlegrounds, and her career has long been on a trajectory to a presidential race. She could bring historic potential to the first woman in the Oval Office, and her South Asian heritage could help the GOP win back women and more moderate voters. She added some foreign policy experience to her resume when she was the US ambassador to the United Nations.
The clearest indications of several forming campaigns show that Trump isn’t so strong that he can’t be challenged.
The winner-take-all nature of most Republican primaries allows a candidate with a small number of votes to build big delegate leads in a crowded field.
In other words, if Trump can split the opposition, he can win the primary, but that’s no guarantee for the general election given that the twice-impeached former president left Washington in disgrace after trying to steal an election and fomenting a mob attack on the US Capitol.
Trump, having said over the weekend that he’d told her to “do it” when she called him, is already homing in on Haley’s reversals. He put out a video on his Truth Social network Wednesday of Haley saying in 2021 that she wouldn’t run for president if he did.
“It is time for a new generation. It is time for more leadership. In an interview with Fox News last month, Haley said they have lost the last seven popular votes for president. “It is time we get a Republican in there that can lead and that can win a general election.”
Yet the most fundamental question that Haley will face is whether the Republican base, which has rewarded culture warriors, extreme “Make America Great Again” rhetoric and election denialists, has any interest at all in what she plans to sell.
Her credentials look formidable in isolation but less so when considering the values of the party whose nomination she is seeking. For example, is there really a market in the GOP for a more unifying, multicultural, less strident delivery vehicle for Trump’s “America First” creed? The ex-president creates more of an emotional connection with his biggest fans than with liberals due to their frequent profanity, laceration and bombast.
After leaving the administration, she rebuked her party for following a path Trump shouldn’t have taken and that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection. But with Trump still a powerful figure in the GOP, she repositioned herself in October 2021.
The casting around for the GOP sweet spot by the former South Carolina governor has some wondering exactly how she will build a wide support base to win the nomination.
“I think there is just room for three candidates in this race. Adam Kinzinger is a senior CNN political commentator and he says that the more anti-Trumper is not the never Trumper but the Trump lite. Haley said she was not going to run if Trump ran, now he is, that will be her struggle. She doesn’t really have a natural constituency yet. She’s a smart lady, so we will see how she goes.”
“I’ve spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire. He said at a forum in Washington, DC, that this is not random. We are just trying to figure our way through this. It is an unbelievably momentous decision to say you believe you should be the leader of the United States of America,” he added.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/nikki-haley-2024-republican-primary-trump/index.html
The Story of Murdoch and the Fake News of the Ex-Republican Party: A Case Study in the Case of the 2020 Low Energy Campaign
Haley has an issue with her positioning, since she was the ex-president’s enforcer at the State Department and as Director of the CIA, and shared many of the populist, nationalist foreign policy instincts of his former boss. Even though he has a calmer temperament, the West Point graduate may still be able to get from the GOP primary voter almost anything they can get from Trump.
But the ex-president’s entire political career, the modern Republican Party and a vast conservative media empire are based on the exact opposite premise of the Rolling Stones’ song: giving the party base exactly what it wants to hear – whether it is true or not.
Fox News is the latest example of opinion formers on the right exposed for being held hostage to the fury they helped to incite. A lawsuit unearthed this week shows that Fox Chairman Murdoch admitted in a deposition he tried to stop viewers from defecting because he wanted them to believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Previous disclosures showed some of those Fox hosts knew they were peddling lies but were worried they’d alienate their audience if they told the truth about Trump’s false claims.
Key players on the right feel they have no choice but to appease, satisfy and inflame the viewers and voters who their profits are dependent on, as revealed by the new details.
Murdoch’s entire business model has evolved from using TV and newspapers to feed political anger, say some media commentators. And while he’s more known for backing conservatives, Murdoch has switched sides when business demands – for instance, when The Sun endorsed the British Labour Party’s Tony Blair over the fading Conservative Party in a 1997 general election.
There are also signs that the billionaire publisher may finally be getting buyer’s remorse over Trump given the headline in his New York Post after the ex-president’s low energy 2024 campaign launch in November, which read, “Been there, Don that.”
The deposition he gave in the case said that a green dollar is not red or blue.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/trump-fox-republican-party-2024/index.html
Why did Donald Trump run riot? The cause of McCarthy’s embarrassing failure to act in the interests of the American people and the people of our country
The Republican politicians who appear on Fox are influenced by what the political market will do. Their unfiltered adoption of much of the doctrine favored by the conservative grassroots ultimately stretched American democracy to the limit.
Catering to that base helped fuel the rise of Trump as he shattered the Republican establishment presidential field. GOP lawmakers whose hold on power depended on not crossing the reality-star-turned-president then allowed Trump to run riot. That helped foster an unstoppable radical tide that led to the US Capitol insurrection in 2021 and eventually to Republicans acquitting him in not one but two impeachment dramas.
The power of the Republican base was used to get Kevin McCarthy to make concessions to the most radical members in the conference and win his job as House Speaker. McCarthy had watched as the former Speakers John and Paul tried to resist the GOP’s far right insurgency and lost their jobs. As McCarthy showed by handing Fox host Tucker Carlson access to hours of Capitol Hill security footage last week – despite Carlson’s conspiracy theories about January 6, 2021 – his speakership is a totally owned subsidiary of the GOP’s most extreme elements.
It is because of McCarthy and Murdoch that many financial experts are worried about a potential default that could rattle the global economy.
When a nominee has to pivot to a general election, they are tested on whether they can win the hearts of their party’s base voters and also appeal to middle America. It will take political skill from whoever comes out of the GOP primary for this political leap to happen.
This was why Trump, an apparently unlikely clarion of the people after spending his life in Manhattan and flying around the country on a private Boeing with gold-plated fittings, was the perfect candidate for the moment. He was condemned by liberals for his extreme, racialized and sometimes profane rhetoric. Trump’s early rallies were more fun for his crowd than other presidential events. Here was someone who was shouting out loud what millions of Americans had believed for years but felt constrained from saying because of social convention. Many commentators decried Trump’s demagoguery but fewer examined the social, economic and political reasons for his rise.
“This persistent theme — that Republicans in Washington fail to effectively represent the values of the people who elect them – foreshadowed the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016,” DeSantis writes in “The Courage to be Free,” published on Tuesday.
The GOP voter base’s aspiration of the party would not decrease in the ensuing years, despite the behavior of party leaders in Washington.
The man complained that politicians who go to Washington forget about their hometowns and become instruments of the political system that doesn’t suit their interests. Yet issues like the need to raise the debt ceiling to keep the government solvent and the economy running or key foreign policy questions, like US support for Ukraine, sometimes require leaders to take a different view of the national interest than prevails back at home.
The marriage of convenience was shown in an appearance by Trump at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City.
Don’t leave with us. These people are making up fake news in order to fool you. He said what you are seeing and reading is not what is happening.
How Successful Are Candidates in Trump’s Primary? The Long-Term Underperformance of the GOP in the 2020 Midterm Elections and Where the Ubiquity Was
Trump is a clear favorite to win the Republican nomination for president next year. Right now, he has an average of 44% in the national primary polls. He has a 15 point lead over DeSantis.
The first is that most candidates in Trump’s position right now have gone on to win their primary. Take a look at all the candidates who averaged at least 34% in past national primary polls in the first half of the year prior to 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.
Candidates in DeSantis’ position haven’t been nearly as successful. Those polling between 20% and 35% have gone on to win their party nods about 40% of the time since 1972.
Trump was especially struggling following Republicans’ underwhelming performance in last fall’s midterm elections. 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. Many candidates he supported, including those who backed the falsehood that the 2020 election was illegitimate, lost winnable races.
