The election gambling markets, where people bet real money on political outcomes, currently show Donald Trump as the front-runner for both the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and the Presidency itself.
Great take, my two cents: This is just a gut feeling: too many people are keeping Trump in their back pocket. This is to say that there are a lot of people being very open in their Trump opposition now, becuase it is free (we are all just chumps on social media) but the second he gets momentum or a tantalizing poll showing him up in Biden by 20 points (that may be a bit much but you take my meaning) then the support will snap back, of course there will be the requisite gnashing of teeth but then the plea of "what choice do we have!?" and, to be fair, if you do view elections as binary or buy into "vote your interests!" it does make Trump an acceptable choice simply becuase he is not Biden (much like Biden was not Trump). If Trump is to be a non-factor moving foward folks like DeSantis need to get people excited, we saw Youngkin do it in VA so there is something of a blueprint out there. The tl;dr here is, Trump being some folks first choice isn't the problem it is the people that have him on the list of acceptable candidates at all.
Today's bit is mainly about the primaries. The conversation is totally different if it's Trump v Democrat (won't be Biden, won't be Harris, might be.... Hillary? AOC??????).
Trump still does not get my vote and this is exactly the kind of back-pocket mentality I mean. I agree he needs to be stopped in the primaries or else he will lose the national election resulting in 4 more years of progressive mismanagement. The flip side of this is Jimmy Carter ushered in 12 years of republican control of the presidency, I fear Trump offers a similar fate.
I think the thing that'd kill Trump in a general election, above all else, would be his insistence that he won 2020. Barring that, I'd figure that 4 years of Democratic disaster would put him into office even with all the NTs still being NT.
There's time to wean Trump people off the Orange Julius, fortunately.
The NTs did not cost him the election, I am convinced we are too few in number, I hope you are right that we can start moving past him because I think he stands a unique chance of losing in 2024 regardless of how people feel about 2020.
He cost himself the election. Trumpers tend to forget his pathetic performance in the debates, and his unhinged wild-man stuff running up to the election. He had all he needed, even against the MSM storm, but he just blew it.
Great write-up as usual. I do not claim affiliation to any party, other than Libertarian which doesn't have the juice to make an impact in an election. So I'm left with the lesser of two evils, i.e. the Republican party. I voted for Trump twice, and I thought he did as well as he could despite 99% of the Democrats and MSM, and 50+% of the Republican party working 24/7 against him, tweets and vendettas aside. But I think the best path forward is sans Trump. To put it simply, he just needs to go away and give the GOP a chance to regain the White House.
As an aside, I live in Georgia and I think Trump's meddling in the Governor election. He goaded Perdue into a primary battle with Gov. Kemp, who has a good record on which to run. Now there will be an unnecessary nasty GOP primary battle that may very well result in Stacey Abrams sliding into the position, which would be disastrous for GA. Same sentiment for pushing Herschel Walker into the Senate race. Love Herschel as a GA icon but he's not Senate material.
There has been talk of Trump in a "kingmaker" role rather than as a candidate, so that he could stay in politics without all his personal baggage weighing down the GOP's chances.
But, his "king making" has been more about personal loyalty than about policy. Blow up the party if it doesn't bend the knee and all that.
I dislike Trump, despite voting for him twice. I did so to prevent what has been happening for the last year. While I am not sorry for my vote in the slightest, I do not like Trump, and do not wish to vote for him again. All of your points are of course valid, but the one that both "counts" but doesn't matter in the calculation is "They won't have anywhere near the visceral hatred that the Left carries for Trump driving extraordinary turnout for the Dems." I believe they will have that level of hate, just not initially. it will take hours, days even, to ramp up to Trump loathing levels. It will take nothing more than the nomination to give GOP candidate X an equal and increasingly greater level of focused hate. What they poured on to Trump and his supporters they had already bathed W with. Since Reagan they have become increasingly hateful, spiteful, hypocritical. Whether it is DeSantis, Hailey, Noem or even Hogan, once nominated, he or she will be racist, misogynist scum, hung, garroted and shat upon in effigy, and crowned the singular worst person this racist hate filled country EVER produced.
You are right, but the Angry Left will viscerally hate *anyone* that's nominated.
They don't count. Their votes are predetermined.
It's the moderates that matter, the people who might be motivated by the special "Trump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" anger to vote D or stay at home and not vote R. The gambling markets reflect that - they put DeSantis and Pence ahead of Trump in electability, with Haley tied, despite Trump's deep base, deep pockets, and higher visibility.
Not going to win everyone over, ever. All you gotta do is win enough of them.
Only 4 times since 1900 has a candidate won more than 60% of the popular vote (Harding 1920, FDR 1936, LBJ 1964, Nixon 1972). Being President guarantees that at least 40% the nation will have voted against you. Those 40% don't count. It's the middle 20% that do, and even there, we can cull it down to a dozen or so swing states, so that number easily drops to less than 10%.
They are who matters, and if enough of them have more animus toward Trump than toward a generic or specific but not-Trump candidate, the election scale tips.
Great take, my two cents: This is just a gut feeling: too many people are keeping Trump in their back pocket. This is to say that there are a lot of people being very open in their Trump opposition now, becuase it is free (we are all just chumps on social media) but the second he gets momentum or a tantalizing poll showing him up in Biden by 20 points (that may be a bit much but you take my meaning) then the support will snap back, of course there will be the requisite gnashing of teeth but then the plea of "what choice do we have!?" and, to be fair, if you do view elections as binary or buy into "vote your interests!" it does make Trump an acceptable choice simply becuase he is not Biden (much like Biden was not Trump). If Trump is to be a non-factor moving foward folks like DeSantis need to get people excited, we saw Youngkin do it in VA so there is something of a blueprint out there. The tl;dr here is, Trump being some folks first choice isn't the problem it is the people that have him on the list of acceptable candidates at all.
Today's bit is mainly about the primaries. The conversation is totally different if it's Trump v Democrat (won't be Biden, won't be Harris, might be.... Hillary? AOC??????).
Trump still does not get my vote and this is exactly the kind of back-pocket mentality I mean. I agree he needs to be stopped in the primaries or else he will lose the national election resulting in 4 more years of progressive mismanagement. The flip side of this is Jimmy Carter ushered in 12 years of republican control of the presidency, I fear Trump offers a similar fate.
I think the thing that'd kill Trump in a general election, above all else, would be his insistence that he won 2020. Barring that, I'd figure that 4 years of Democratic disaster would put him into office even with all the NTs still being NT.
There's time to wean Trump people off the Orange Julius, fortunately.
The NTs did not cost him the election, I am convinced we are too few in number, I hope you are right that we can start moving past him because I think he stands a unique chance of losing in 2024 regardless of how people feel about 2020.
He cost himself the election. Trumpers tend to forget his pathetic performance in the debates, and his unhinged wild-man stuff running up to the election. He had all he needed, even against the MSM storm, but he just blew it.
Great write-up as usual. I do not claim affiliation to any party, other than Libertarian which doesn't have the juice to make an impact in an election. So I'm left with the lesser of two evils, i.e. the Republican party. I voted for Trump twice, and I thought he did as well as he could despite 99% of the Democrats and MSM, and 50+% of the Republican party working 24/7 against him, tweets and vendettas aside. But I think the best path forward is sans Trump. To put it simply, he just needs to go away and give the GOP a chance to regain the White House.
As an aside, I live in Georgia and I think Trump's meddling in the Governor election. He goaded Perdue into a primary battle with Gov. Kemp, who has a good record on which to run. Now there will be an unnecessary nasty GOP primary battle that may very well result in Stacey Abrams sliding into the position, which would be disastrous for GA. Same sentiment for pushing Herschel Walker into the Senate race. Love Herschel as a GA icon but he's not Senate material.
There has been talk of Trump in a "kingmaker" role rather than as a candidate, so that he could stay in politics without all his personal baggage weighing down the GOP's chances.
But, his "king making" has been more about personal loyalty than about policy. Blow up the party if it doesn't bend the knee and all that.
Best he retires to golf, at this point.
I dislike Trump, despite voting for him twice. I did so to prevent what has been happening for the last year. While I am not sorry for my vote in the slightest, I do not like Trump, and do not wish to vote for him again. All of your points are of course valid, but the one that both "counts" but doesn't matter in the calculation is "They won't have anywhere near the visceral hatred that the Left carries for Trump driving extraordinary turnout for the Dems." I believe they will have that level of hate, just not initially. it will take hours, days even, to ramp up to Trump loathing levels. It will take nothing more than the nomination to give GOP candidate X an equal and increasingly greater level of focused hate. What they poured on to Trump and his supporters they had already bathed W with. Since Reagan they have become increasingly hateful, spiteful, hypocritical. Whether it is DeSantis, Hailey, Noem or even Hogan, once nominated, he or she will be racist, misogynist scum, hung, garroted and shat upon in effigy, and crowned the singular worst person this racist hate filled country EVER produced.
You are right, but the Angry Left will viscerally hate *anyone* that's nominated.
They don't count. Their votes are predetermined.
It's the moderates that matter, the people who might be motivated by the special "Trump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" anger to vote D or stay at home and not vote R. The gambling markets reflect that - they put DeSantis and Pence ahead of Trump in electability, with Haley tied, despite Trump's deep base, deep pockets, and higher visibility.
https://www.electionbettingodds.com/ElectabilityGOP.html
Not going to win everyone over, ever. All you gotta do is win enough of them.
Only 4 times since 1900 has a candidate won more than 60% of the popular vote (Harding 1920, FDR 1936, LBJ 1964, Nixon 1972). Being President guarantees that at least 40% the nation will have voted against you. Those 40% don't count. It's the middle 20% that do, and even there, we can cull it down to a dozen or so swing states, so that number easily drops to less than 10%.
They are who matters, and if enough of them have more animus toward Trump than toward a generic or specific but not-Trump candidate, the election scale tips.