Prepping the battlefield for removing Biden.
55% of respondents say they would vote for Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, compared to 29% who say they would vote for DeSantis. Other Republicans receiving support include former Vice President Mike Pence (6%) and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (3%).
55% of respondents say they expect Trump to be the nominee regardless of whom they support, compared to 35% who say they expect DeSantis to be the nominee.
58% of Democrat primary or caucus voters say Biden should be the party's nominee in 2024.
42% of respondents say it should be someone else.
44% of voters say they approve of the job Biden is doing compared to 48% who disapprove.
They couldn't pull that off in 2016, when it was much easier. I doubt they can pull it off now.
They didn't try. The GOP pinned all its hopes on Jeb Bush, thinking Trump was going to be another sideshow attraction like Herman Cain or Fred Thompson. By the time Trump was parading through Florida, mopping up delegates, the only candidates they had left to rally around were Ted Cruz and John Kasich.
They did try, but as you point out they started circling the wagons too late, and it didn't work. Part of that is initially viewing Trump as a sideshow, but part of it was a lack of internal coordination. Some party figures may have preferred Jeb, but they weren't organized enough to do what Democrats did that same year -- run basically a one-candidate primary and kneecap any upstart challengers.
Now that there are some number of Trump loyalists in the party, that type of coordinated fix seems impossible. They don't have a popular ex-president who can swoop in and do it, and there will likely be a few more "serious" candidates to further fracture the establishment opinion.
Hillary nearly made the same mistake. She thought she was in a one-candidate primary and then ceded Sanders the entire Midwest.
Then she stumbled into the general election thinking "Oh, but this time I've got a lock on the win" and still lost on an electoral-college technicality.
Definitely more difficult. But if the Dems pile on, I can still see him losing. If Trump can't campaign in New York and California because the AGs are chasing him with warrants? And the Dems do for DeSantis what Hillary did for Trump six years ago, just thumbing the scale in his favor wherever they've got state control? I could absolutely see Buttigieg's Shadow Inc losing count of all the Trump caucus voters in Iowa.
I could also see national media just kinda... ignoring him. Like, he simply doesn't appear on FOX or CNN or MSNBC for a few weeks before the primary. They do the Bernie Sanders trick of forgetting to put his name on polls or into infographics.
Will it guarantee a defeat? No. Will it do anything for a lame schmuck like DeSantis? Probably not. That guy sucks and he's going to struggle outside the Gulf Coast. But I can see some other candidate catching fire - a Greg Abbott or Kristi Noem or some high profile business clown like Herman Caine - and simply eating into Trump's margins because mass media won't stop talking about them.
Just kinda hinges on whether corporate news can resist Trump doing something Trumpy and not pointing at him.
:rip-bozo:
She didn't really 'cede' the Midwest. It was more of an elite contempt. In the days before the general election, Dems in those states were screaming that Hillary needed to fly in and inspire people, there was a real chance she could lose. She was going to jam the election in their faces and prove she could win without them. Fuck flyover territory.
When it didn't work, guess whose fault it was? Hillary's for failing to campaign? Hell no it was those deplorable middle Americans fault for not voting the way the corporate media clearly told them to. They can't even follow simple fucking instructions.
The Clintons incinerated much of their goodwill in the Midwest when they signed on to Bush Sr's NAFTA bill in defiance of the Midwest voter base. They spent the next twenty years just doubling down.
I think she was avoiding the state in large part because she wasn't welcome.
No shortage of pro-Republican corporate media in the Midwest