Nikki Haley is coming up hot on the heels of Ron DeSantis. DeSantis trails Donald Trump at 13% to Trump’s 59% and Haley is now polling at 10%, except in South Carolina, and New Hampshire. In the most recent New Hampshire poll, Haley placed second, with 19% to Trump’s 49%. In a Real Clear Politics polling average, Trump leads the field with 58.3 percent support, DeSantis trails at 12.9 percent support and Haley comes in third with 7.6 percent support.
DeSantis is the inverse of that old song, “Getting To Know You” from The King And I. You recall the lyric, “getting to like you, hoping that you like me.” Well, that’s the problem. When people get to know Ron, they can’t stand him. He got much higher polling figures before he announced and right after he announced he was running. As soon as he actually started going places and meeting people, it all went to hell in a handbasket and that trend has not slowed. Nor is it likely to.
The Desantis campaign in on 🔥. I feel a momentum shift. pic.twitter.com/jMdkWqSbvi
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 15, 2023
I do not mock these people because they’re old. I’m old. I mock DeSantis because he’s putting them to sleep. I wonder how much longer he’ll do this before he gives up? Trump said he’d fold within 30 days and that was last week. And it was also before the latest polling came out showing Haley closing the gap for second place.
“Nikki Haley’s rise or piqued interest, among particularly donors and Trump critics is due more to Ron DeSantis’s falling in the polls than anything else,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.
DeSantis has criticized Haley, but it backfired and he just made himself look stupid.
“I think the U.N. is a worthless organization, quite frankly. So that, to me, is not something. All they do is sanction Israel,” DeSantis said. “I think that their behavior has been a complete disgrace. But you also have the issue of, OK, who’s fluent in this stuff, who knows kind of where they’re trying to go with America’s role, and quite frankly, most of those other Republican candidates, they’re just rehashing the failed foreign policy of the last 25 years where we ended up in Afghanistan for 20 years.”
Spoken like a statesman and unifier — not. And of course Trump doesn’t like Birdbrain, either. You can expect him to attack her more as she rises in the poll. Damn, that would be something if the race got down to Haley and Trump and they debated and he called her Birdbrain. Did Trump ever call Hillary “crooked” to her face?
“Donald Trump absolutely views Nikki Haley as a threat,” Stroman said. “One thing that is going to be a little bit interesting is to see how he goes after her and in what type of way.”
“Nikki Haley was one of the few members of his administration to leave the White House on excellent terms,” he continued. “He’s always going to punch down and the problem for him is that Nikki seems to be on the up.”
Trump’s allies caution about reading too much into the former president’s attacks on his former ambassador.
“I think that that is showmanship and he is dealing with the fact that right now, she appears to be flavor of the month,” O’Connell said. […]
Dan Eberhart, a DeSantis donor, urged the governor [DeSantis] to reassure donors amid the negative headlines surrounding his campaign.
It comes as the Haley and DeSantis campaigns courted megadonors in Dallas on Friday.
“Donors are looking for an alternative to Trump. If not DeSantis, who? It’s on DeSantis to reassure donors that this is a two-man race,” Eberhart said. “Donors were there but have started to waiver because of all the negative media coverage of the DeSantis campaign.”
Still, it’s difficult for many political observers to see how roughly three months out from the first nominating contest anyone can leapfrog over Trump’s massive lead.
“Barring something extreme, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee and there is pretty much nothing that the Trump critics, at least on the Republican side, can do to stop that from happening,” O’Connell said. “They [the donors] are starting to see the field as Trump is and that Trump has unfinished business and it is his time. And I don’t know if anyone can overcome that narrative because it’s setting in and it’s setting in fast.”
Rick Wilson predicted long ago that the donors would look around and then when they saw there was no choice, take out their checkbooks and finance Trump. He must be eagerly awaiting that day. However, there is uncertainty because of his legal problems. If he didn’t have those and was leading the field as definitively as he is, it would be game over. But the truth of the matter is, the legal trials, at least one, possibly more than one, may end up saying when it’s game over.
This is an incredible situation. No other presidential candidate in history has ever been involved in one lawsuit while running for office, let alone five and concurrently. Everybody is turning a blind eye to this like it doesn’t exist. I wonder what will happen when a conviction, let’s say in the Georgia election racketeering case, comes through? I guess we’ll find out.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal problems are the main reason that nobody wants to quit the race. Everybody is banking on Trump being unable to play the starring role on the top of the GOP ticket and so one of the understudies has to then leap in. And they’re all ready, DeSantis in particular. That’s exactly his dream and his game plan all along. Trump folds and the game defaults to DeSantis. Except maybe not.
And let’s face it, Mike Pence is backing on that dream. Unless I miss my guess, his idea is that Trump will be out of commission at some point and then Pence will promise that he will lead an administration that will be the duplicate of the one that he and Trump led. Wanna bet? I honestly expect to hear that from him.
I just hope Chris Christie hangs in for a while for comic relief’s sake. At least there’s somebody on that stage telling the truth. And don’t forget, the next debate is November, in Trump’s backyard, Miami.
How can the self-titled mainstream media continue to ‘bothsides’ anything concerning iDJT?
He is, provably, without doubt, the biggest crook, liar, and cheat to ever appear in US politics.
I never thought we’d see anyone who made Nixon look saintly, but here Trump is.
“How can the self-titled mainstream media continue to ‘bothsides’ anything concerning iDJT?”
Simple. It all comes down to money. While most of the faces of the “mainstream media” may hold liberal/progressive political viewpoints (or, moderate, at the very least), the folks pulling the strings and hiring those faces are decidedly conservative and right-wing. Oh, sure, they’ll espouse the “right” things to say in public (for instance, they’ll push for hiring more minorities and women to be the faces on screen and they’ll endorse LGBTQ+ policies and back Pride parades and such) but, when push comes to shove, they’ll back the right-wing candidate (usually through “private donations” that aren’t directly connected to their media operation) and just keep on doing business as usual, no matter what social policy disagreements they may have.
If the “mainstream media” moguls dared show the GOP, and especially Trump, for the vile, reprehensible, hypocritical beasts they are, then the public (well, the public that hasn’t been brainwashed into blind acceptance of right-wing propaganda) would never seriously consider a single GOP candidate, not even for dog catcher.
Joseph’s right. I’ve been reading the headlines recently from my “post” here up in Canada and without reading anything else, the headlines themselves the “Hooks” are slanted. Not to mention no comments ever in print of how deranged he literally looks and sounds; thnx to clips here I listened to Mr. Slur-py, once, it was all I could take. Not comin’ to my Thanksgiving Dinner, no sireee. Sure, He’s the lunatic front runner of a lunatic party, but…
Have you noticed they’ve shutdown the govt WITHOUT CALLING IT a govt shutdown?!?!?:)
I have to wonder if when DESANTIS was shaking hands with Trump, he might have inherited Trump’s major fault, waving his hands in exactly the same patterns … He just does NOT do the “OK”, sign and other signals to the Magas, but he DOES do the wide spread of arms and the size of the box is this wide … 🙂 🙂
accordion hands. yep.
Preyingmantis should be in jail for the stunt deceiving migrants, who had asylum cases pending, into boarding planes to be shipped to Martha’s Vineyard. Lying POS!
They’re feeling the Ronmentum.
Hard to believe Harvard Law gave DeSaster degrees.