Go ahead and cue the Twilight Zone theme song, we’re going to get pretty far out there. But not so far out, that what we’re about to speculate here couldn’t actually happen. Newsweek reported last month that a Civiqs poll showed Ron DeSantis flatlining — and flatlining is putting it charitably. The poll showed DeSantis with a negative 19% approval rating. Even Donald Trump didn’t get quite to that level.
But DeSantis did, because there are more NeverDeSantises (NeverDeSantii?) than there ever were NeverTrumpers. Here are a few details from last month’s article
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seen his approval rating fall dramatically two weeks after announcing his 2024 presidential bid.
According to online polling company Civiqs’ dynamic approval rating graph, DeSantis currently has a net approval rating of negative 19 points, with an average of 55 percent of respondents disapproving of him, compared with 36 percent who have a favorable view of the Republican.
The data shows DeSantis has a major unfavorable rating from those aged 18-34 (63 percent), women (62 percent), as well as African Americans (85 percent), and the Hispanic/Latino population (68 percent).
Young people, women, Black and brown folks all hate him, but hey, there’s elderly white MAGAs, okay? And the evangelical wingnut vote, don’t forget about that. And in all truth, in 2020 a lot of elderly Republicans did in fact turn out to vote. American Prospect reported this morning on this very phenomenon.
Yesterday, the Pew Research Center released a close study of last year’s electorate, which documented that Republicans’ turnout eclipsed the Democrats’ last November, which is why Kevin McCarthy is now the House Speaker.
What made the biggest difference was the drop-off in voter participation. Seventy-one percent of people who’d voted for Donald Trump in 2020 cast ballots in last year’s midterms, while just 67 percent of those who’d voted for Joe Biden turned out (or mailed in) to vote last year. A larger share of 2020 Biden voters cast their ballots for Republicans last year (7 percent) than the share of 2020 Trumpers who went Democratic (3 percent). […]
As in “normal” midterms, last year’s electorate saw less drop-off among older voters and more among the young, who are among the most pro-Democratic cohort. “Voters under 30,” Pew wrote, “accounted for 10% of the electorate in 2022—similar to their share of all voters in 2018 (11%), but down from 2020 (14%).” By contrast, “Voters ages 50 and older were a larger share of the total in 2022 (64%) than in any of the past three elections. 70% of Republican voters were 50 or older, as were 57% of Democratic voters.”
This is some good information to have. It means we need to Get Out The Vote even more than we did in 2022 and the ground game, particularly in swing states, has to be right on the money. But getting back to DeSantis, with the strikes he’s got against him, the elderly MAGA vote is not going to save him, in and of itself.
Josh Marshall has a terrific analysis of where DeSantis is headed and why.
At the moment, DeSantis’s zombie campaign rests on the support of an odd-couple mix of the incel-adjacent far right, the GOP donor class and the operatives who serve them. But if you accept that DeSantis won’t be the GOP nominee, which you should (trust me), who replaces him as the Great Hope of the GOP Donor Class? Or, to put it differently, who is the next non-Trump GOP memestock who will get all the investment and attention before plummeting back to the ground?
First, let me address those who think I’m counting DeSantis out too quickly. After all, what if Trump literally dies? Or what if the legal issues just become so crazy that his supporters abandon him? The problem for DeSantis is that while he has not consolidated any base of support within the GOP, he has consolidated a base of opposition: Trump loyalists. Diehard Trumpers really, really, really despise Ron DeSantis. That’s in addition to the skepticism he’s earned by being a weirdo who is by turns predatory and socially awkward. If Trump somehow leaves the field, there are probably two or three other candidates more able to consolidate Republican support. Put simply, the problem for DeSantis is that there are far more Never DeSantises in the GOP than Never Trumpers.
In normal circumstances what I have described wouldn’t require much further analysis: Trump is the nominee. Period. That remains the best analysis. But there’s a peculiar feature of the current GOP. It has actually become what many Democrats long claimed: a political party controlled — or, at least, funded — by a small coterie of billionaire oligarchs. Of course, “controlled” takes it too far. If it were really controlled by the oligarchs you likely wouldn’t have ever had Trump. You’d have had Rubio or Jeb or maybe even Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. So the GOP isn’t fully controlled by the oligarchs. But it is funded by them. […]
Which brings us back to the quest for the new GOP memestock candidate. While a number of GOP oligarchs have expressly foresworn supporting Trump again, you can rest assured almost all of them will end up supporting him as nominee. But it’s also true that most of them would really, really like to avoid that. That, after all, is the origin of the DeSantis campaign — why he raised and is still sitting on a huge amount of money even as his candidacy is flat-lining. He would rid the GOP of Trump while still owning the libs and delivering on tax cuts and low regulation. That didn’t work out. But the desire to get rid of Trump is still there. There is a vast osmotic pressure of cash and oligarch hopes looking for a candidate to absorb both.
For months the logical hope sponge was Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin is quite right wing but not at all Trumpy. He’s very much a neo-Marco, neo-Jebbite type figure with enough post-2020 culture warring to operate in today’s GOP. I’d been waiting through the Spring for him to jump into the race, rocket to the top of expectations and fundraising before plummeting like DeSantis because of a lack of any mass base of support. But that didn’t happen. Now it’s not clear to me it ever will, with Youngkin or anyone else.
We’re pretty late into the cycle for any real new candidate to get into the race. People talk about late entries. But in practice they don’t work. Or they haven’t worked. The only candidate whose pulling more than trivial support in the race is Mike Pence of all people. Soon we’re likely to see more evidence of DeSantis’s downfall and more evidence of the felony indictments Trump faces in multiple jurisdictions. Perhaps that will focus people’s attention or prompt a Youngkin or other Jebbite-type figure to come off the sidelines. But for the moment it looks like the centers of power in the GOP who aren’t all in for Trump have given up looking for an alternative and begun focusing on accepting that Trump is their guy once again.
The problem now is that there are two many variables to accurately predict what will happen in the GOP primary. Yes, Trump is the frontrunner but all his legal baggage may become too cumbersome at some point. DeSantis tanks himself incrementally with each new appearance.
Some kind of 11th hour salvation may appear in the form of Glenn Youngkin or Brian Kemp but I wouldn’t depend upon it. In a ridiculously split field, Mike Pence might be able to get the nomination, say if he can increase from single digit polling to double digit, even, AND if Trump goes down in flames from his legal problems AND if DeSantis keeps flatlining.
Those are a lot of “ands.” But bear in mind that this political landscape is nothing normal and if there is one thing you can depend upon, it’s that it will stay abnormal. Therefore, in an abnormal situation, Pence rising to the top of the heap is not the most insane proposition. Not saying it will happen, just saying it might.
Or, Trump may stay on the ticket and lead his party to an “epic wipe out” to quote Michael Tomasky a few days back. Bottom line, like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, we need to be prepared. For anything.
One thing is certain, the metaphor for the republican leadership battle is not ‘cream rising to the top’, but rather ‘scum forming’.
I think when it comes to Youngkin those American oligarchs have a conversation that concludes with “maybe”, and when they go to bed spend the night waking up over and over with Scot Walker nightmares. If anything Youngkin has even less charisma than Walker, and unlike Walker in WI Youngkin won’t have a string of GOPer hot-button issue “accomplishments” to feed to the GOP’s primary voters. Like Trump he was lucky as hell to be running against a candidate who wasn’t well liked. The difference is that Hillary Clinton deserved far more love and respect than she got from Democrats, and Terry McCauliffe was a sleazebag. He wasn’t a popular Gov. when he held the office and most people were glad to forget about him in the four intervening years before he could run again.
Another factor was in play and that’s history. While a Virginia Gov. can run for the office again after waiting four years (it’s one & done in VA – a Gov. can’t run for re-election without waiting at least one term) none of the handful who’ve tried have been successful. So Youngkin had the combination of an unpopular oppenent too full of himself to play elder Party Statesman demanding and getting another chance. Virginia, having trended (gradually) more blue was hardly fertile ground and as I’ve noted Youngkin was hardly the type of fire-breathing candidate that would excite the likes of Trump. And Trump was (with good reason) afraid of making a big show of support for someone who might well lose so Youngkin didn’t have too tough a time keeping Trump and therefore association with him at bay. So while it was going to be close with neither candidate inspiring voters it seemed until late like a toss-up. Then McCauliffe stepped on his crank with a tone-deaf comments about parents and schools and it got him a last minute boost in suburbs/exurbs and in particular the western half a Loudoun County which was the area in question that McCauliffe was talking about when he made his gaffe and that was the ball game.
Youngkin’s win was a state level equivalent of threading the needle like Trump did in 2016.
I keep saying it. His name might well come up either as someone the GOP “recruits” or because he decides to get into the race to play “savior.” If he does become a candidate it will be measured in Scaramuchis, or Walkers or whatever but it will be short and like Walker to barely this side of oblivion.
That leaves Kemp as a stalking horse and if not for Trump being about to be indicted in his state he’d be primed to rise to the top of the pile. Except he’s Gov. and MAGAs won’t be forgiving of him not breaking laws to shut down Fani Willis’ prosecution. Kemp may want to be President or he may not. (I think yes) But for damned sure he doesn’t want to go to jail, or spend years defending himself to avoid that fate. I think he’s probably got his eyes on 2028.
I think someone would have better luck sticking their hand in a washing machine on spin cycle and pulling out a specific item of clothing without getting injured than picking who the GOP nominee will be.
It’s really too bad the dems have to depend upon young voters-young voters are highly unreliable.
also young voters don’t care for joe biden. I think Biden beats any Republican candidate, but what coat tails does he bring. Obama brought enough senators across the line to pass ACA in 2008 (shout out to Max Baucus) . Then the wipeout in 2010 when young people sat out. 2018 should have been a down year, but trump changed all that. So here we are in 2024 trying to save seats that were won or held onto just because of trump. Montana, Ohio, West Virginia. Usually in a presidential year there is more interest so more young people turn out. I suspect that will hold true, but will it be enough to hold the senate so that when justice thomas strokes out, Biden will have a chance to select a supreme court justice.
Young voters become older voters. All the trends are that younger voters prefer democrats over republicans. The silent generation is almost gone and baby boomers are following them. Each year brings more democrat leaning younger voters.
I ain’t voting for him.
DeSantis is beginning to tank with Big Business At least10 major conventions have pulled out of FL because of its hostile business client after retaliating against Disney. Tourism.is what the state relies on. Disney is its 3d biggest employer and largest taxpayer. Smart pols don’t bit the hand that feeds them.
Expect companies that were considering moving their HQs or establishing field offices and factories to.FL to do.What they did in TX: look elsewhere because their female and LGBTQ employees do not want to.move to a state with bad schools which teach nonfactual history and sciences,bans abortions,and retaliates against companies expressing even mild criticism.