Trump’s lead: what does it mean?
Whether or not it means anything to you depends on how you feel about polls, as well as how you feel about the possibility and/or likelihood of fraud in 2024. But it’s a fact that Trump is doing well in current polls. That’s not just true in national polls, which aren’t as meaningful as state polls; it’s true of state polls as well:
What does the state polling show today? Trump leads in the RCP Average in Michigan for the first time, ever.
Pennsylvania? He leads for the first time ever, and has led in most polls.
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He narrowly trails Biden in Wisconsin but has already led in almost as many polls as he led in the state in 2016 and 2020 combined. His 0.7% deficit compares to his previous best showing in the state: A 3.5% deficit in August of 2020.Florida? Trump has led or tied in every poll, including some double-digit leads.
Arizona? He leads by five in the RCP Average.
Georgia? He leads by six.
Ohio? Polling is sparse, but he leads by 10.
Does seem to be a trend, doesn’t it?
Of course, it may fizzle out. There may be some flaw in the polls, or collusion among pollsters to make sure Trump is nominated because he really is one of the weaker candidates (I don’t think that’s what’s going on). There’s a pause in some of the legal proceedings against him, and when that ends and the trials heat up again it might change things. Or, Biden may not be the eventual Democrat nominee; but one of the reasons he hasn’t been replaced as yet – and I have been saying I don’t think he will be replaced – is that possible alternative Democrat nominees fare no better, plus Biden stubbornly refuses to leave at the moment.
I think that one of the reasons Biden’s poll numbers are dropping is a strange and ironic one: many “progressives” support the decidedly unprogressive thugs of Hamas, and are unhappy with Biden’s relative support of Israel. Go figure. Probably some of the Jewish Democrats are leaving the fold, too, but Jews are such a small minority of voters that such a phenomenon wouldn’t matter in most states. Black voters are another story; they matter far more because they are much more numerous. They are said to be leaving Biden in significant numbers, although the vast majority of black voters are probably still going to vote for Biden over Trump. Same for Hispanic voters. And people are tired of being told the economy is great when it’s not great for them, for example when they shop for groceries.
Obviously, it’s too early to get all excited about these polls. Remember the Red Wave of 2022, the one that never happened? But it’s better than seeing Trump trailing dismally at this point, because I am convinced that Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024.
Just to more or less echo what Neo is saying, it’s reasonable to be skeptical of polls no matter what they say. But it can also be foolish to just dismiss them out of hand too.
In this case, there’s a large number of things that are clearly not going Biden and the Democrat’s way. As you say, there’s clearly division within the (D) ranks. And it’s obvious that people in general aren’t happy with the current state of affairs. Whether we’re talking about the economy, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, high crime rates in big cities, the border, the current state of public education, or any number of smaller issues, it seems as if American voters are generally not feeling very good about things.
All that said, it’s still too early to assume anything. I expect that the lawfare heat is going to get turned way, way up on Trump in the coming months. It’s hard to know what will come of it. Will Trump be convicted up something before the election? If so, what? And how will it go down? Will it feel like a sham to most voters, a lawless kangaroo court? Or will people believe it’s fully legitimate?
And what other major, black swan events may happen? I consider the October 7th attacks a black swan event. Could their be something else in the next 11 months?
Neo:
You write: “. . .or collusion among pollsters to make sure Trump is nominated . . (I don’t think that’s what’s going on).”
I (and likely others among your readers) would be interested in how you concluded that pollsters are NOT colluding to have Trump nominated. I still think that’s a possibility, even a likelihood. OTOH, I have to admit they don’t have a good alternative to offer. It’s a curious turn of events right now — who would have guessed that Joe Biden would have fallen so rapidly in the polls? Certainly not I, given the Democrats’ discipline in lining up their voters.
Do the pollsters take into account bundled vote(r)s (legal in many states)?
Do the pollsters take into account erstwhile voters who have moved away (but still, miraculously, manage to “vote” come election night)?
Do the pollsters take into account voters who before were living but now have moved away, six feet below the level where they once lived?
(How many of those latter respondents are so attached to their cell phones that they’re buried with them, yet manage to answer to pollsters?)
Believe it or not, the West is winning.
F:
Basically, because I think from the start it’s been very clear that Trump will be the nominee. So there’s no need to do anything to encourage it. It’s happening, unless some sort of black swan event occurs.
This is going to narrow. It usually does. People voice their discontent with the party in power, and incumbent usually get a boost or updraft before the election. Sometimes it’s enough to win and sometimes it isn’t.
Black voters are another story; they matter far more because they are much more numerous. They are said to be leaving Biden in significant numbers, although the vast majority of black voters are probably still going to vote for Biden over Trump.
I doubt that Black Panthers outside North Philadelphia polling places changed the result of the election in 2008. They might in 2024.
At this point I would be very concerned about Trump’s physical safety.
Trump, no way in Hades will he win CO. Doesn’t mean I won’t vote though. The Dems push Vote totals so it is necessary to vote anyway.
Oh, by the way, besides your cold I hope your visit with grandkids was a success.
As I’ve said before here Trump’s chances against Biden are not zero and probably maybe 20% in my opinion but that is purely because of Biden.
It doesn’t matter if it is Harris or Newsom they would both destroy Trump in the election.
Keeping Biden as the nominee is the most important thing for Republicans. It is their only chance even if it is a small one.
I think that one of the reasons Biden’s poll numbers are dropping is a strange and ironic one: many “progressives” support the decidedly unprogressive thugs of Hamas, and are unhappy with Biden’s relative support of Israel. Go figure.
–neo
Agreed. Biden is polling worse with the young too, partly for the same reason. (Geez, I keep seeing UNM students wearing keffiyahs.)
However, I suspect Biden is also losing youth support because of his age and decreptitude. The young are plenty brainwashed but many of them can believe their lyin’ eyes as well as their inflating grocery bills and rent payments.
_____________________________
Biden loses ground with young voters, prompting Dem concerns
The latest national NBC News poll finds President Joe Biden trailing former President Donald Trump among young voters ages 18 to 34 — with Trump getting support from 46% of these young voters and Biden getting 42%.
This is a striking finding, given that Biden won voters ages 18 to 29 by more than 20 points in the 2020 presidential election, according to the national exit poll.
And Biden was leading Trump among 18- to 34-year-old voters by similar margins in the June 2023 and Sept. 2023 NBC News polls.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4304919-biden-loses-ground-with-young-voters-prompting-dem-concerns/
_____________________________
Sure, blacks and hispanics are important to Biden. But if youth desert him in subtantial numbers by abstention or defection, that’s Game Over unless Democrats can just dial in vote fraud.
Griffin:
I will never understand why people think Newsom or Harris would do better. They don’t poll very well against Trump, for starters. But they just don’t have that much support in the states where it’s needed.
Sennacherib:
Thanks. I’m still visiting, and still have the cold but am improved.
Is it a White Swan event if Biden re-ups on student loan forgiveness or offers some form of reparations, etc. It’s those sort of things that I watch for.
neo,
For one they take the age issue off the table and Harris brings the race issue with her which would probably guarantee her Georgia and Michigan and maybe Wisconsin.
As for Newsom the media will portray him as JFK.2 and the puff pieces will be incredible and all the suburban women will fall in line behind him.
But the bigger point is the election will then be ALL about Trump which is what they want and why Biden is looking so weak now because it is hard to make it ALL about the other guy when you are the actual guy supposedly in charge.
Obviously there are a lot of things that can and will happen between now and election day. Nobody was thinking about the effects of a Corona virus on the 2020 election in November 2019. But it is also true that the polls show that Trump is in a much stronger position than he was in 2016 or 2020. It doesn’t mean he will win but it does mean that he can win. The betting odds reflect this and for those who think that Trump is toxic and unelectable, you can make a ton of money by betting on that proposition.
Many assumed that Trump had a vote share ceiling of about 45 percent and that he wouldn’t or couldn’t add any new voters to his base. It’s interesting to me that four of the last ten polls in the RCP average have Trump at 50 percent or higher. I am always a little skeptical of reports that a Republican is gaining a greater share of the black vote and then ends up getting the usual 8 percent in the election. But it does seem that Trump’s increased share of support in many polls comes from young, black and Hispanic males.
There will be election fortification and fraud and Trump will need a big lead in order to overcome these obstacles. But I also think the economy is much more likely to get worse before it gets better and this is the primary driver of Trump’s lead in the polls.
I’m with the Boss on this one…
It’s way too early & there are way too many variables in play…even without “black swans.”
And there’s always the fortifying & fraud…
Biden has always been an awful human being & candidate. Harris, surprisingly is worse. But Newsom’s numbers haven’t really made waves that I can tell and the D bench, reportedly deep, doesn’t look so great under the lights.
For my money…YMMV…the questions are going to be something like:
Will white middle class & upper middle class voters overwhelmingly vote against the policies & people who have abandoned large swathes of America to the criminal black element?
Are the white centrists going to vote against what has made their school & streets unsafe?
We are looking at an intentionally more racially divided country & it remains to be seen whether white voters will step away from the lunacy that they were taught to embrace wholeheartedly.
Have said before, Trump with 4 years of negative publicity and charges from 2016 – 2020 somehow had more votes in 2020 than 2016. I am even sure we will never know how many more he had due to negative vote counts.
@Griffin
I can’t agree. Biden is definitely the weakest of weak links, but as a Californian native and expat Harris and Newsom are also very weak, in many ways even weaker than Hillary was. That is one reason along with infighting in and around the Biden Regime that Harris has not yet ascended in spite of it being well past the time she’d benefit from having Jerk Joe in.
And Trump has his own virtues, hidden as they often are, that make him a hard fighting candidate.
That’s true.
I doubt it. Harris is known enough and isn’t really LIKED. Playing the race card with her has backfired on the left before since she is – among other things – the descendant of slaveowners, as well as being so corrupt and incompetent and involved in unseemly things like the Willy promotion. The left and her partisans will try to get her over the finish line, but her failure to ascend from Old Joe has not helped.
I also don’t see this working. JFK was not the wunderkind messiah that Camelot mythology makes but he had a number of things going for him. Being the son of an entrenched political boss, a decorated war veteran, and not a known factor with his clan’s ties to organized crime and his own foibles with substance abuse, crippling, and adultery overlooked.
Newsom’s not those things. He has been in politics and the public eye for years and years and years, and love for him remains scant even in California. His tenure as Mayor has generally been an embarrassing debacle even among low education Leftist voters, and unlike Buttigieg his place is far too prominent for that to be overlooked. His latest propaganda spectacle for the CCP has also painted him as a looks over substance fool as well as a foreign (and especially CCP) sycophant. He also has worse discipline and a tendency to put his foot in his mouth in comparison to JFK, who for all of his MANY problems at least knew the value of discretion (after all, he’d not have survived the Pacific War had he not).
He is probably the stronger candidate than Harris, but that is really not saying much, and while I might be influenced by biases I do think this holds true.
Agreed, and that is an issue. Though I do think a clever Trump can hammer the Left on the last four years and help make this more of a referendum.
That’ll also be the case here. Biden was able to hide his corruption, perverted tendencies, and utter lack of scruples earlier with the help of compliant press and the fact that he kept his visibility down. That’s not so possible after 2020-2024, and particularly with things like the laptop “Disinformation” canard falling apart.
Kurt Schlictler had a columb a couple of days ago which basically said neither Trump or Biden can win….both are hated by equal parts of the public. I agree. We desperately need a viable alternative. I hope it’s DeSantis
Turtler, you ignore the many people who will crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump.
Turtler,
Of course they have weaknesses and they would be horrible but it doesn’t matter because the media will absolutely run cover for them. And they would still get what 65% of the vote in California or is it 70? For the Democrats it doesn’t matter what they actually are it’s what the media will portray them as and we can all imagine what it will be and yet a whole bunch suburban women will buy it all because they are not the icky Trump.
physicsguy,
The DeSantis campaign has been so disappointing. I don’t even know if it is anybody’s fault as much as just a bunch of things like bad timing.
The sad thing is he would be such effective president where as even by some chance Trump is elected again it will just be a rerun of his first term with a bunch of executive orders that will be undone on day one by his successor and a bunch of ridiculous and tiring (and often self inflicted) drama non stop.
Saying all that I would definitely take him over any of these democrats but anybody thinking a second term Trump would be more EFFECTIVE is dreaming.
Sennacherib on November 28, 2023 at 5:11 pm said: At this point I would be very concerned about Trump’s physical safety.
Trump is still Democrats’ best chance of winning this election. I don’t think anything is going to happen to him.
Saying all that I would definitely take him over any of these democrats but anybody thinking a second term Trump would be more EFFECTIVE is dreaming.
Griffin:
Objectively I’ll take DeSantis too. But he may not be on the menu.
However, should Trump win, I wouldn’t count Trump out on being more effective. The Democrats played a lot of dirty tricks last time and I’d bet the next time Trump will be ready and much of America won’t be buying anymore impeachment/Covid BS.
Of course this also depends on how Congress 2024 goes.
Some call Republicans the Stupid Party, but even stupid people can learn, especially from pain. We’ve had a lot of pain.
The polls are always wrong. No reason to believe otherwise. If the polls could predict the margin of theft I might pay attention to them.
I’m not going to arm-wrestle you for cynicism, JackWayne. 🙂
Neo: I almost always agree with you but I don’t believe the Democrats would be so foolish as to allow that severely failing old man to run again. I personally wonder if he can last till November of 2024. He seems to deteriorating almost daily and he could never withstand the rigors of a campaign. The basement campaign ploy will grow old on the voting public this time. Seminary Professor Wayne Grudem just wrote an article explaining why Trump should drop out. I thought he was fair and made some good points but maybe it’s a case of what I was thinking all along. Like him I voted for Trump twice and would reluctantly (and futilely) vote for him in 2024.
https://pjmedia.com/wayne-grudem/2023/11/28/trumps-legacy-n4924287
I don’t believe the Democrats would be so foolish as to allow that severely failing old man to run again.
chazzand:
That’s how it seems to me.
Maybe Dems could drag Biden@11/2023 across the finish line in 2024. But Biden is deteriorating and Biden@11/2024 will be a different ball of hair plugs.
Plus Dems take the chance every-diddly-day that Biden will FTU (as Obama warned) big time.
Im surprised how weak desantis turned out to be, even after he discarded roe and rove
MC, if DeSantis’ handlers let him be himself then he’s really poor at national retail politics. If he let them guide him, then he chose his handlers poorly. Either way, what’s left for him?
if DeSantis’ handlers let him be himself then he’s really poor at national retail politics.
–JackWayne
I had a friend in theatre who gave an acting course to some aspiring young LA actors. His biggest tip:
Be watchable.
He didn’t tell them how to memorize their lines, deliver those lines with conviction, respond to other actors, etc. No.
Be watchable.
I’m not in Florida. I haven’t paid attention to DeSantis beyond newspaper copy.
Is DeSantis watchable?
Trump sure is.
physicsguy,
“Kurt Schlictler had a columb…”
I’m in no position to point out anyone’s spelling or grammatical errors, but knowing your profession, that’s a funny typo! 🙂
@physicsguy
An alternative would be good if only to have the flexibility.
No, I do not. After all, I debate and face off against many of them, even here. But I am guessing they are counterbalanced by the Broken Glass Crawlers in Trump’s favor and by how people generally do not being played for fools or tools, which Biden has. Which is why while I do think while Trump has special advantages AND disadvantages, he is less important as the candidate than things such as messaging control and lawfare.
Sadly, of all the voter demographics the one with the most clout is the one that will likely never vote Republican. I am referring to younger women. They will vote the abortion issue regardless of who carries each banner, or what the other issues might portend.
This thought may be disputed, but my assessment is that they do not want to be bothered with children and they justify their preference by waving the ‘reproductive rights’ flag.
One might wonder if their Mothers every say, ‘Well, My Dear, aren’t you fortunate that I was not one of you?’
As an aside. I am not in a position to know; but I wonder if abortion as a form of birth control is really preferable, e.g. more comfortable than other options.
@Griffin
I remember similar analysis about Hillary in 2016. The ability of the media and other leftist propaganda to shape the battlefield and control the message is vast – and it is one of the things I keep coming back to time and again – but it is not infinite. People notice when their leadership fucks up with things such as inflation (and the meme the left has that the economy is recovering is just that), and the humiliation of the Afghan withdrawal and the particularly nightmarish and stupid form it took.
They generally get about 60%-65%, which is still far too much but still shows the problems even given the institutional advantages and no small part of fraud from illegals. Even with a state GOP that is well to the left and impotent to the point of not seriously contesting issues, the California GOP still tends to average about a third of the vote. The big issue beyond the institutional corrosion is the dominance of the hard left power.
That only goes so far, and the media has been tacitly admitting many of the screwups of both for too long. Moreover, social media and word of mouth matter.
I think there were a few issues, starting with some flip flopping and above all poor choice of handlers.
I have to disagree and go with huxley’s analysis. I don’t expect any GOP president to have a particularly easy time, and Trump’s main mistake in term one was undue tolerance of the Swamp and attempts to work with the establishment. I imagine that has learned quite a lot. DeSantis has fought similar in Florida but nowhere near in the same scale.
So let’s be honest. A large part of effectiveness for any Republican president will be the ability to gum up and drain the swamp, not just or even primary doing things.
I’m skeptical on that to say the least, and I definitely wish I were dreaming now.
@huxley
On the whole agreed with your comments, though re: “be watchable”, I think that the inverse can also be a strength, though a lot more of a conditional one. There are supporting roles designed to fade into the background or help flesh out the main shows, like the Margaret Dumonts to the Marx Brothers (which is a shame since Margaret Dumont was a worthy show stealer in her own right). And in politics and war sometimes that is what is needed. while letting someone or something big, loud, and noisy distract attention while someone else does the most crucial but sensitive actions.
I’m reminded of the story (not 100% sure how true it is) that what we think of the stereotypical Ninja/Shinobi dress was actually the clothing of the stagehands in Medieval Japanese plays/opera, where they were meant to be ignored by the audience as they handed things to the cast. Which made it all the more shocking when some plays had them draw a sword or some other weapon and (False) attack the cast as part of the story.
In any case DeSantis is not exactly boring or non-flamboyant but he is much more low level and workaday than Trump is, which is one reason he has been so successful in Florida.
Sadly, of all the voter demographics the one with the most clout is the one that will likely never vote Republican. I am referring to younger women.
Oldflyer:
What hath feminism wrought?
Conservatives are alert to Marxism, but to feminism, not so much. Personally I see Marx and Fem running neck and neck in the ruination of the nation.
___________________________________
If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.
–Camille Paglia
Last time, Trump haters proved to be more numerous than Trump lovers, even accounting for cheating. They were also more passionate than the average Trump voter. I suspect there are still more of them and they will once again be more worked up by election day. Voters didn’t seem to have much of a memory of Trump’s three good years or how they benefited from them.
I’d like to think that next year the country will be as fed up with Biden and the Democrats as they deserve, but there are so many people out there who don’t realize that they are being played for fools, or who even enjoy it. I notice how many people seem to live in a bubble where nothing negative about Biden or Harris or Newsom reaches them, and I recognize that from inside my own bubble it’s hard to know how many of them there really are.
If a Republican wins the election what makes anyone think they would be effective? The entire supporting structure of government and culture is left/prog. Can anyone answer that?
@Bauxite
Message control and political manipulation of the vote tallies – including both outright fraud like we saw in Milwaukee and Atlanta and technically legal but dubious measures like vote harvesting and playing with verification – are the best chance the Dems have at winning this election.
That presumes the Dems think that. it also presumes they can control their nutjob base so effectively to avoid it. I am leery about that. The JFK thread involved a lot of talking about what lone, fanatical nuts can do with some cleverness and luck, and the Scalise and Caucus shooting by James Hodgkinson shows that isn’t always the case. There are a LOT of radical lone wolves and terror groups around in both the conventional Left and the Islamists, and both would see getting Trump (or DeSantis or others) as a worthy blow for the cause, as shown by the Assassination Porn regarding Trump and now DeSantis.
The question I figure isn’t whether or not Trump’s life is at risk, but how seriously and from how many plotters.
Moreover, at least a lot of the institutional Dem Party seems happy to want to lock Trump up ahead of the election, in spite of how this would force another candidate to the fore. Which makes me believe those at least do not agree with your assessment.
@Abraxas
Broadly agreed, but the nature of the two party system and the Electoral College was meant to balance out the demographic centers and represent the smaller ones. And the reality is the election came down to a few bellwether states where Biden “won” by suspicious malfeasance.
Haters and lovers tend to be by definition more passionate than the average voter. That’s why while they make your organizational backbone, heart, and brain they are almost always going to be a small fraction of the rank and file. And in any case, even the official records showed Trump won more votes than any previous Republican candidate, and while those also showed Biden won more votes than any previous Dem candidate I think I have established why I believe those are much less credible than the alternative especially in comparison to Biden, even factoring in how “Hate Trump” sentiment helped propel the votes.
Agreed, but there are also many Trump lovers and even more who range from less fanatically supportive, to lukewarm, to distasteful of Trump but are aghast atwhat happened.
My own admittedly biased and selective observations of others indicate they DO have a memory of good years before and that things were significantly better, but they are not necessarily going to attribute those things to Trump consciously. So it looks like bitterness over Biden and co is going to outweigh love.
Agreed.
This is a fair point but I would guess that bubble is smaller than it seems. Harris hasn’t been able to usurp Biden’s position in spite of having so many of the conventional advantages and in spite of Biden’s rather weak status. The Dems would be able to sell the “First Woman President” and “First President of Color” things by simply being able to engineer Biden stepping down in the early months of 2023. That didn’t happen. I think it is fairly clear it didn’t happen for a few key reasons, starting with Harris’s own weaknesses and moving on to opposition from those that benefit from Biden remaining the masthead. She also is lukewarm at best among the Left’s rank and file and Californians as a whole. Like, imagine how bad a candidate has to be that the Dems will not push for her so hard in this situation when she is younger, female, and mixed race?
Newsom is less jarringly weak but still not the most loved even in California and getting weaker.
re: “be watchable”, I think that the inverse can also be a strength, though a lot more of a conditional one.
Turtler:
To be sure. My first thought was of Harry Dean Stanton, one of the great Hollywood character actors. For decades he would nail parts as a background actor. (Think the first “Alien.”) Eventually he could shoulder the top bill. (“Paris, Texas”)
Nonetheless, even in the background, Harry Dean was definitely watchable. (“Cool Hand Luke”)
Plus my friend was coaching LA actors and you really have to be watchable, even in the background, to get gigs in Hollywood.
Goodness. There’s a Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) celebrating Stanton:
_________________________
I wanna dance with Harry Dean
Drive through Texas in a black limousine
I wanna piece of heaven before I die
–Deborah Harry, “I Want That Man”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nghTBrz1m_Q
Koch brothers have thrown up to $70 million to help Nikki Haley secure the Republican nomination. It was anybody but Trump, but they have settle on Haley.
They’re probably right– in that Haley has the best chance of winning the nomination– except for Donald Trump.
“DeSantis’ team slammed AFP’s decision on Tuesday soon after news of the Haley endorsement broke, with Communications Director Andrew Romeo sarcastically congratulating Trump on “securing the Koch endorsement.”
“Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign,” Romeo said.”
Not to be outdone, Trump’s campaign responded:
“Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung similarly slammed the endorsement, saying the group “has chosen to endorse a pro-China, open borders and globalist candidate” and repeating Trump’s “Birdbrain” nickname for his former United Nations ambassador.”
I think Trump’s campaign will have an effective answer to Haley– he is the bona fide “America First” candidate.
Koch-backed super PAC endorses Nikki Haley as a Trump alternative
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/28/koch-super-pac-nikki-haley-endorsement-00128858
I think DeSantis’ attempt to be Trump lite backfired, bigly.
I think DeSantis’ attempt to be Trump lite backfired, bigly.
Brian E:
Whatever DeSantis was trying to do has failed thus far. But I don’t preclude DeSantis’s sincerity to be his own kind of conservative, not a cynical effort to be Trump Lite.
Personally I wish Trump were more Trump Lite.
“I think DeSantis’ attempt to be Trump lite backfired, bigly”, Brian E
I have no idea where that came from. I would say DeSantis has fought harder, and more effectively, for his agenda in Florida than Trump did for his in DC. He did not do it as loudly, of course.
I suspect that that the Dems/Progressives hate him more than Trump, because he has trampled their agenda more than Trump ever did. On the other hand he did not insult them gratuitously as individuals. So, who knows?
Sadly, there are still allusions to DeSantis not being entertaining enough, or charismatic enough. I was fortunate to serve when Ike was President. No one mentioned entertaining or charismatic as I recall. But, the country had a great deal of confidence in him. We also knew that if he committed us, it would be the right thing to do.
Then there were Truman and Nixon. Little public persona, but they knew that their actions overshadowed their braggadocio.
Any ideas as to why the Koch endorsement was for Haley rather than DeSantis?
I don’t perceive it would have been her being “the first woman”… nor even her decent but not outstanding credentials in foreign policy [and does an ambassador set policy or more usually follow policy generated by others?]
Her governorship was OK but not all that special, compared to DeSantis’s solid and direct conservative performance and messaging.
I would not have gaged either of them as being “malleable” to or by their donor’s wishes, but Haley probably does seem the more “conventional” or GOPe candidate.
R2L:
DeSantis is too conservative for them.
Oldflyer:
The moment DeSantis declared, the Trump forces started to lie about and mischaracterize him. It continues to this day on certain blogs and in certain comments sections.
R2L, according to the article she’s polling better than DeSantis in New Hampshire and Iowa. Koch’s are anyone but Trump.
Oldflyer, I reference Trump-lite because there were several articles before DeSantis announced by the leftist media announcing that DeSantis was just as evil as Trump– I guess maybe Hitler-lite.
It appeared to me he was projecting as very combative– and if he was trying to distinguish himself as different from Trump, since many of his positions are similar to Trump’s, he needed to slow down–sometimes he rushed his delivery.
As to what it now takes to be president– we are in the era of media presidents.
Possibly since Reagan. Bush the Elder came across very statesmanlike. Clinton, “I feel your pain” (was the pain from biting his lip?). Bush the younger had that good-ol’-boy Texas persona. Obama the Lightbringer– what was with those columns on his World Tour? Trump- “you’re fired”, knows how to riff for the crowd.
Watchable is a good description of what it takes. We want to be entertained.
(I should add I would much rather have a President DeSantis than a President Haley).
NBC says:
Haley had to overcome the Koch team’s aversion to her muscular foreign policy, which took some time, this source said. In recent years, Koch-supported groups have teamed up with left-leaning allies to foster more restraint in U.S. foreign policy.
Koch support for Haley might seem surprising since David Koch once ran for VP on the Libertarian ticket, but maybe now it’s more about free trade than anything else. Libertarians today aren’t always the rugged individualists that they once were. It also may be about class prejudices and about not being too socially conservative or too plebian (which amounts to the same thing for some people).
David Koch passed away in 2019. Wikipedia gives a partial list of his board memberships: “Aspen Institute, Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, WGBH, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Ballet Theatre, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Deerfield Academy, New York–Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, American Museum of Natural History.” Frederick Koch was a great patron of museums, libraries, opera, and theatres. The surviving brothers may have been less social, but I wonder how the Kochs came to be the great Satans for the left, when some of them probably would have fit in very well with the rest of the liberal elite.
Nikki Haley has no chance. None at all. If she is the nominee, GOP gets trashed.
“Nikki Haley has no chance. None at all. If she is the nominee, GOP gets trashed.”
Even to Kamala & both House & Senate down-ballot races.
Wipeout.
Assume Trump and Biden are the candidates. Some are saying that even if Trump is elected President by a large enough margin to overcome fraud, he will not have a successful second term, because the Deep State will rise up once again, like a mad beast, and destroy everything he might attempt to do. If they are suggesting that it is thus pointless to vote for him, they had better think twice. We have seen that the Deep State and its weaponized bureaucracy are capable of ruining or incarcerating those who have the audacity to oppose them. If Trump loses the election, the Deep State will spare no effort to crush those who supported him. Since it seems a given that Trump will be the nominee, it behooves every Republican to campaign for him like they’ve never campaigned in the past. Our freedom may depend on it.
Did anyone see the news yesterday about the senior CIA official who was posting pro-Palestinian claptrap on social media? The rot is deep, indeed.
And tell me again how Trump is going to address this? The deep state rolled him last time. Sure, let’s have him tweet mean things at them again, accuse them of treason, threaten execution, and then follow through on exactly none of it after his staff talks him out of it. Just four more years of that and I’m sure the whole problem will be fixed.
Turtler – The lone wolf thing could be an issue, agreed. The leftist dark money won’t be agitating for it, though, like they were agitating against Kavanaugh and then against the justices after Dobbs. I believe that Democrats would much rather run against Trump than either Haley or DeSantis. It’s pretty hard to argue that “democracy itself will die” if your party loses an election to DeSantis, or especially Haley.
Also, Democrats’ reaction to these poll numbers should tell us a lot about how valid they are. Axelrod calling for Joe to drop out suggests that they are real. Other than Axelrod, though, there don’t seem to be a lot of higher up Democrats freaking out about it. I guess we’ll see. I think that interests on the left tried to leverage Trump in 2016 and hugely miscalculated. (Its arguable that Trump would have never been the GOP nominee in 2016 absent the extensive early coverage he received on MSNBC and CNN.) Maybe Democrats are miscalculating again, but I suspect that they know what they’re doing this time. 2016 was a fluke.
“I’m in no position to point out anyone’s spelling or grammatical errors, but knowing your profession, that’s a funny typo! ?”
Rufus, LOL…. most of the time when I comment later in the day I’m using my phone. I hate typing on it as those typos become much more numerous. I don’t have the skill/dexterity and/or fingers to do the two thumb dance that Millennials and GenZ seem to do with their phones.
Well he fired brennan but his deputies and minions are thick as kudzu
There is a lot of inside baseball discussed here, but, the broader issue of how does a Republican president get his or her agenda accomplished when he or she is opposed by an increasingly lawless Deep State has not been answered. This is at least as important as the election.
I think in this case they are actually exaggerating Trump’s lead in these polls not because they think that he will be the easiest candidate to beat, but to damage the chances of the actual nominee to the point where they won’t need much “vote fortification”, if any, to beat her in the 2024 election.
The strategy is this: Show the electorate that Trump has a huge lead and suggest that he will be extremely tough/nigh impossible to beat in the election, then jail him for life and strike him off every state ballot. The subsequent anger and hopelessness this will provoke will decimate any enthusiasm to vote for the candidate who emerges on the Republican side, Nikki Haley, and she will get easily wiped out. Not only will people refuse to vote for Haley, Trump will further siphon votes off her through a write-in campaign which is sure to pop up. As no “fortification” will be needed to beat her, the election will be called early and Haley will concede on Tuesday night as it always used to happen, and the “myth” of Democrat election fraud will be put to bed forever.
The person to be is Nikki Haley’s ad buyer, which might be her campaign manager. Federal matching doubles the take. Let’s say a large fraction, say $60 million, is available for TV ads in Iowa (every 4 years, the owners of Iowa’s TV stations earn a fortune). The ad buyer traditionally takes 7 percent. That’ll be around $4.2 million.
This is why Pat Buchanan ran twice. His sister Bay needed a retirement nest egg. With matching funds, she was his ad buyer and was able to sock away millions.
@txemmock
This would be my most likely interpretation of this if they were part of a messaging campaign. The big issue I see is if they will b e able to successfully jail him, and moreover the possible backlash if they do so. That rather than causing hopelessness, it would spur turnout by both angry Trump loyalists and also those who are right leaning or centrist or even dissident Leftists who do not like Trump but can recognize a stitch up for what it is.
It also ignores the risk of alternatives. If people believe that respectable politics has failed them and they cannot gain satisfaction through the ballot boxes, there is the risk of them breaking out. Of people who decide that if the Left will rig the elections one way or the other and call people like the Jan 6th Protestors Insurrectionists, they might as well cause actual insurrection.
In any case, truly scary stuff, made worse by the environment. It seems like the Left in the US and elsewhere has taken the likes of Mexico’s PRI and China’s CCP as mentors rather than cautionary stories.
To answer Neo’s question, I don’t think the polls mean anything at this point. President Trump has a significant lead because his supporters are already committed– the rest haven’t given it much/any thought at this point.
I don’t think voters engage until late summer.
As to support for Haley, I would think it’s a no brainer that if I were to chose an alternate to Trump, it would be a governor– which both Haley and DeSantis are/were.
My daughter, who I suppose represents soccer moms, but more importantly has succumbed/being held hostage by DEI nonsense in the education cabal, said recently she would never vote for DeSantis, based on his banning books and teaching Black history.
She will also never vote for Trump– so Haley is probably the closest thing to a Republican she would support. I get the impression that Haley is a BaU (business as usual)/FT (free trader) type, so in some sense she is probably the best choice as a true alternative to Trump or for that matter DeSantis.
Vivek is a fiery/VSG (very smart guy), but I don’t, at this point, trust him with the reins. Might make a NaWG (not a white guy) alternative for VP, but why wouldn’t Haley (NaWG) make a better choice as she clicks that box plus a bonus PoC– unless Indiacans don’t count (it’s hard to keep up).
I’m curious why people here supporting DeSantis don’t get on the Haley bandwagon.
Brian E:
For the same reason people supporting Trump don’t get on the Haley bandwagon.
She’s not conservative. DeSantis is, although his many enemies on the right like to say he’s not.
I agree with Old Flyer and Neo in that I support DeSantis, and think that the attacks on him from Trump and his minions have been unfair. Yes, Trump is more entertaining, but we need a solid leader more than a Celebrity President. If Trump is the GOP nominee, I will proudly vote for him.
I wouldn’t discount Haley, if she were the nominee. She can run against four years of unmitigated disasters. She is of Sikh ancestry, although USA-born and with a southern accent. Sikhs are tough people. And she is a Woman!
What exactly disqualifies her as a conservative?
She supports Lindsey Graham’s 15-week abortion ban, so she’s not an absolutist on abortion.
She has flipped on gay marriage from 2013, and she did talk against a bill in the SC legislature that would have required use of biological bathrooms, but she also said the Florida bill restricting sex ed at early grades didn’t go far enough. I would say at the least she’s trying to thread the needle there– though she could have principled reasons for her stances.
She’s talked tough about China, Iran and Russia.
I suspect she’s a free trader, though she has talked about bringing jobs back from China.
If she happened to win the nomination, I’m pretty sure everyone here would vote for her, given the alternative. She can’t be any worse than Romney or McCain.
Brian E:
She is generally on the hawkish side. Also, her recent comments on internet anonymity. In addition, she turned on Trump and the J6ers. Many Trump supporters turned on her for that. Also, I seem to recall that in one of the early debates, which I happened to watch, she leaned on the idea that she should be voted for because she’s a woman. I can’t find the quote, but it was something like that.
Of course, if she’s the nominee, I’ll vote for her. But I don’t think she will be. I think Trump will be.
@Bauxite
I see two major issues.
A: That there’s a much shorter gulf between “approved Leftist paramilitary” and “Lone Wolf” than even the terrorist godfathers on the Left care to admit, and as Hodgekinson showed there is the risk of some of them getting supplies and then going off the reservation to act on their own accord.
B: I’m not sure Leftist Dark Money WON’T be agitating for it. The militancy and vitrol of the pro-Hamas propaganda and activists is something to behold even given how godawful it makes them look, and while a lot of that can be explained by Islamist networks that doesn’t ignore the role of the Left in fanning the flames. If you want more of something, subsidize it. The Left’s dark money big wigs have been subsidizing and encouraging bad behavior from everything like the Black Panthers at polling stations with truncheons to AntifA. I briefly considered they might crack down on the paramilitaries after initial smackdowns in Biden’s term, but that’s stopped.
Agreed regarding DeSantis, but Haley I think shot herself in the foot badly with the internet anonymity issue.
I think you underestimate these people. It might hold less purchase when not against Trump but these people have been delegitimizing every Republican Presidential Candidate since W. Bush in 2000, and demonizing every one of them since Nixon if not Dewey as a Nazi.
They could be real, or they could be a calculated ploy by those opposed to Biden or otherwise trying to clear the area to force him out and put in Harris or who have you.
I’m reminded of this intentionally politicized exercise exercise the German army conducted on November 1932 in the sort of twilight after the Weimar Republic died but before Hitler took over, which purported to “show” that it could not hope to simultaneously crush simultaneous Communist and Fascist uprisings and guard the Polish frontier. That may have been true, but it was in reality designed by Defense Minister Kurt von Schleicher in order to finish ousting his old ally turned rival von Papen from the Chancellorship so he could replace him. Papen realized this and tried to get Schleicher fired, but couldn’t and Schleicher went on to become the last Chancellor before Hitler.
Largely agreed.
Possible, but 2020 should be a fluke as well.
@neo
Understandably. I am on the hawkish and interventionist side in terms of foreign policy myself, but the betrayal about Jan 6 is all but unforgivable for me. The stupidity about internet anonymity was just more dirt on the grave.
She supported the rioters was provaccine mandate and pro ukraine over border aecurity she went on a cancel culture rampage after charleston
The voting process has been corrupted with mail-in ballots. This won’t change and we will not ever see another Republican President. The Democrat primary will become the true test for the Presidency. The Republican Party will become a regional party and that will be it’s fate. In 20 years the country will not be recognizable.
Don Surber is down on Nikki. And I mean the old fashioned meaning of down.
“CNBC reported, “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon urged Democrats to support Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, arguing that she offers a strong alternative to former President Donald Trump.”
Dimon said, “If you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you to help Nikki Haley, too. Give them a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”
ABC reported, “A group of self-styled political independents filed paperwork with the FEC this week to launch a new Super PAC aimed at swinging independent voters to support former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her bid to secure the Republican presidential nomination.”
Never Trumpers want Democrats and Independents to vote for her in the Republican primaries to kneecap President Trump and MAGA Republicans in the general election.”
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/all-hail-haley?utm_source=substack&publication_id=1115457&post_id=139254674&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=35rfl
I fear William is correct. With a little effort in PA, GA, MN, WI, and AZ, they can manufacture 50,000 votes (or manage to disqualify votes for the R side).
Today the Democrat Arizona AG, who won by 7,000 votes, indicted two outstate Republican county commissioners for not voting to certify their county count quickly enough. Naturally the Arizona Republic, once a conservative paper, thinks this is just swell.
I should say that the Democrats practice very effective lawfare. They have rich donors who put up the money to train cadres of lawyers ready to go to court, and to take over state bar associations. This way they can tie up a lawyer they don’t like in endless ethics hearings, and as we’ve seen in Georgia, they’ll indict a Republican candidate’s lawyers–something once unthinkable.
When Republican candidates go to court, they get celebrities that don’t know the relevant laws, and drunks like Rudy. Meanwhile the Democrats know it inside out. This is how Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Coleman had a trial lawyer, who put the word out to recounters to be reasonable and not pushy. Democrats were led by Marc Elias, who told Dem recounters to fight every single vote. By the time the Republicans figured out it was a street fight, Franken had switched enough questionable ballots that he led throughout the count.
This is how they got Sarah Palin out of the governor’s office in Alaska. They took advantage of a law that let any citizen make accusations, which the state then had to investigate at no cost to the complainant. But Palin had to defend herself out of her own pocket. After four of these baseless accusations, she saw bankruptcy ahead and quit to protect her family’s home and bank accounts.
Correction to the above: Kris Mayes, the Dem AG, won her race by 58 votes.