Just a quick reminder. A few days ago I wrote an article about Trump’s phantom army. In 2016 final polls appeared skewed, and the pollsters looked like schmucks, but it wasn’t their fault. People lied. Turns out that there was a phantom army of secret Trump supporters who were embarrassed to admit to family and friends that they favored a louche imbecile, so they lied to pollsters, then voted for Trump, skewing the polls.
My point was the based on trending polls I was seeing, as well as interviews with GOP caucus voters in Iowa, Trump may have reversed the trend. In 2016 people were embarrassed to admit they liked Trump. Now, in 2024, after he flexed his racist and far right loony muscles, people are scared shitless to admit that they won’t vote for him.
We may have a peek. Today we got the gold standard. Today was the release of the first NBC News-Des Moines Register Iowa caucus poll. Caucuses are notoriously difficult to poll, because the caucus base can change in a heartbeat. The woman who did today’s poll has been doing it for 30 years now. And if it ain’t her poll, it ain’t worth reading.
The top line is interesting in the way that seeing a ladybug on your arm is interesting. Traitor Tot is at 42%, followed by the Flop Gov from Florida at 19%. Nobody else is even in double digits. Not really much different from what we’ve been seeing in other polls.
But it’s the details that count, and this poll has them. Does anybody out there even have a shot at Trump in Iowa? As Steve Kornacki of MSNBC explained today, define shot. For aid Kornacki went to the favorable/unfavorable sub tab, and showed the rift. Candidates like Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence and Will Hurd, who are willing to confront and criticize Trump directly are so far underwater they need scuba tanks. Those such as Nikki Hayley, Ron Pissantis and Tim Scott, who refuse to directly engage Trump, have goodwill to spare. The secret is for one of them to find a catch phrase that attracts support away from the others.
But the real meat and potatoes is in a different subtab, and there is where we can start to see the outlines of some ghost boot prints. The question basically asked Who should be leading the GOP going into 2024. Trump got the lions share at 41%, which isn’t exactly looking invincible. But here’s where the wicket gets sticky. Second most popular response was trump was a great President, but it’s time to at least consider somebody new going forward into 2024, followed by The party need a new leader with better personal behavior and habits, and a different management style.
Those last two responses? Combined they assay out to 57% of Iowa GOP voters. Trump may be leading in Iowa, but only because he’s being opposed by a bunch of 3rd rate losers that everybody either already hates, or who have tried and been found wanting before. If there was just one centrist, mainstream Republican candidate running against Trump in Iowa, refusing to engage Trump, but instead preaching a mantra of a positive and constructive mainstream conservative agenda, Traitor Tot would be in deep sh*t. Right now, Tim Scott and Nikki Hayley lead that pack, but just as in 2016, there are far too many flaming muckbills in the race, diluting the pool.
Iowa can be a tricky place to try to pull off an upset like that, simply because nobody foes into a booth and pulls a lever, they stand in a school gym in the camp of the candidate they want to support. Everybody in the room knows where you stand. And with His Lowness’ Trombie army, that’s dangerous.
But what’s important in this caucus poll is the fact that, for the first time in my memory, the majority of a state GOP caucus are not only willing to look at someone other than FrankenTrump to lead them, but actively want somebody new, and won’t vote for El Pendejo Presidente regardless.
It’s funny. In 2016 I found that a Trump Phantom Army skewed the polls by lying, making Trump’s surprise victory even more shocking. But in 2024, there’s an almost Hitchcockian twist to the story. By what I’ve seen in Iowa, if the pollsters ask the right questions, anonymous GOP voters are more than willing to share the fact that they’re at least willing to look at someone else leading the GOP, if not outright hostile to voting for Trump under any conditions. Hopefully other pollsters in other primary states are smart enough to pick up on those questions and use them. It would be nice to be able to establish a trend.
But for the first time in seven long years, we have at least partial evidence that the moderate GOP base is so over Trump, and ready to move on to new leadership. And if the Democrats can secretly duplicate those polls themselves, come up with the same results honestly, and create an effective ad strategy to capitalize on the moderate GOP’s revulsion with not only Trump, but the Trumpian GOP, 2024 could be a slaughter not seen since Nixon v McGovern in 1972. Don’t touch that dial.
So the villagers in MAGAtsylvania are starting to fear the monster that THEY, themselves created.
*smirk*
Karma……you reap what you sow…..and all of that.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Don’t forget FAFO. lmao
Marching maybe but where? It’s hard from this data to see whether there’s a “cadence” that has everyone in-step and headed in a specific direction. This makes me think back to that time when I was being transformed from a civilian into a Marine. Drill Instructor’s would mess with us in many ways, sometimes as part of a larger purpose (that we’d eventually understand) and sometimes because we’d pi$$ed them off. Embarrassing us in public was a trick in their toolbox and drill out on the “grinder” (the huge parade deck) or movement (marching) from one location to another gave them multiple opportunities every day. Sometimes, for whatever reason instead of “marching” us they’d cause/force us to “mob.”
If you’ve ever seen a disciplined, “tight” unit marching right by it’s impressive. Everyone in step, so attuned to each other and the individual directing their march that all we in perfect step with the sight and sound of each boot hitting the ground at the same instant. When our DIs would “mob” us we looked silly. “Mob March!” was an “uh oh” for us because even if we all started with that “30 inch step with the left foot” things would quickly break down as the DI wouldn’t call cadence. And then, with the dreaded words “Hippity Hop – Mob Stop” the punishment would begin. Often, with no cadence and instead of calling out a change in direction so that everyone could hear it, given where the Sgt. was positioned the platoon would split up with those towards the front continuing one direction, those close enough to hear the command making the change and those in the very back who also didn’t hear the change doing what those of us up front were doing (continuing the direction we’d been going) we did in fact look like… Well, a mob!
Seems to me that’s what’s going on hear. Whatever ‘cadence” is being called isn’t loud and clear and people in the platoon, or the successfully larger number of platoons that make up successively larger units aren’t in step or even sure of the direction they are supposed to be going.
Even if the bulk of them wind up getting more or less where they’s supposed to go it will look pretty ugly. Which will make both those in the units marching and the crowd observing seriously question the person in command. Trump might win Iowa and/or NH but failing to do so decisively, and having at least one candidate within ten or twelve points will likely mean he’s in deep sh*t for the contests ahead. Whether any of the criminal trials are underway by then or not he’s still going to be caught up in all that and if he does have to drop off the campaign trail (to a significant degree) because he’s got to be in court for several weeks or more watch out.
Too bad Jesus hasn’t appeared, that is, unless he’s detained in lockup somewhere for looking like a Muslim. He could drive out this legion of demons and send them into a herd of pigs and over the cliff. The sheer number of so called ‘Americans’ willing to support a child rapist, fascist, serial liar, and murderer is sickening to my soul. It’s not looking good for the human species when there are this many phucked up people wandering around in a country with 400 million guns on the street. If there is a Hell, there must be one hell of a party going on there.
YES, I’m becoming disillusioned, AGAIN! This “ride” on the road to Justice, is making me nauseous!
Murf, when I saws that poll on TV yesterday (with the sound off) I had the very same thought. Thanks for recording the whys & wherefores.
From your lips to god’s ears. I keep thinking about Nixon v McGovern in 1972 myself.
Guess we’re showing our age. 😉