The GOP candidates are frittering in, even as the majority of Republicans believe that the 2024 presidential nomination for their party will be either Donald Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis, still undeclared, is having a good old time shipping undocumented asylum seekers, now with new legislative funding, to blue cities in the north, and purging books and teachers that seem to violate his much touted Stop Woke Act from the state’s public educational institutions and libraries. He knows that this law will be challenged in court as violative of at least the First Amendment, but the resulting trials and appeals are just more free publicity for a GOP leader building his candidacy on culture wars. He has carefully sidestepped promulgating a right-to-life antiabortion agenda and, with a state filled with seniors, championing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Assuming somehow Trump, still sounding his fading one-note stolen election mantra, is able to survive his litany of legal nasties, he remains only narrowly ahead of Governor Ron in the GOP national polls. And slipping. Many, probably including DeSantis himself, believe Trump will not survive to run in 2024. If Trump does survive, that’s good news for Joe Biden if he is still in the Democratic race. Age won’t matter in that event. Two old guys running is pretty much an age-issue wash. But if Trump falls away, not an unreasonable expectation, DeSantis may just have a lock on the GOP nomination… unless he self-destructs along the way.
The GOP has consistently cut government contributions, state and federal, to public education and have made tuition support more heavily dependent on student loans, a debt load which is rising fast with interest rates climbing. Just looking at the demographics of both GOP candidates, in a general election, DeSantis has a significant edge. Setting aside his clear age-issue advantage over Biden, which alone might get him into the White House, that cherished “educated” voter that typically leans heavily Democratic (and even some RINO republicans) these days finds Trump distasteful but is slowly moving towards a begrudging acceptance of Governor Ron. The above chart, published by David Lauter in the February 24th Los Angeles Times, says it all.
While that culture war, very much against DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) and DeSantis’ continued marginalization of the significance of climate change may not resonate with younger educated voters, the Florida Governor is still likely to capture the MAGA vote (the base) and pick up more than a few educated voters who are threatened by rising non-white, non-Christian minorities in all walks of American life. That might not seem significant except for the rising importance of “swing states,” where it does not take much to move an entire slate of Electoral College votes to push a Republican to victory in a presidential race. It might also move down-ballot candidates for legislative and congressional office onto a higher probability plane to shift control to the GOP.
In California, a dramatically blue state, DeSantis polls vastly higher among local GOP voters. Seema Mehta, writing for the February 24th Los Angeles Times: “About 37% of GOP voters backed DeSantis, while 29% preferred Trump, according to the new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. These numbers are a near mirror image of the support for the two in an August poll conducted by Berkeley…
“California matters to Republican presidential contenders despite its overall Democratic majority. Nearly 2.3 million voters cast ballots for Trump in California’s March 2020 primary, the most in any state in the nation… Among California Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020, DeSantis leads by 11 percentage points in the new poll; he trailed Trump by 14 points among such voters six months ago… ‘There is serious defection among his ranks,’ said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. ‘These voters are now on board with DeSantis more than Trump. That’s fairly significant.’” The significance is less “California” than “educated voters.”
This should be a canary in the coal mine for Democrats. Even as Biden’s approval numbers are solid, there is growing consternation among Dems that Biden is just too old to run the country. Well into his 80s for the 2024 run, he would be the oldest president we have ever had. This in an era of accelerating technology, complex social reconfiguration, continued extreme political polarization…issues that younger voters believe can only be handled by a more in-touch president, not someone seen as much too old to understand.
Mehta: “The [above noted] survey also illuminated Californians’ complicated views about President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in a state where fellow Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 among registered voters… Although Biden’s approval ratings improved in recent months, with 57% of the state’s voters now praising his job performance, the same share of voters don’t want the 80-year-old to run for reelection next year.
“Even with Harris’ California roots, nearly 6 in 10 of those surveyed were not enthusiastic about her running for the White House if Biden decides to not seek another term. She grew up in the Bay Area and served as San Francisco’s district attorney, the state’s attorney general and California’s U.S. senator.” With DeSantis getting national traction very quickly, not only is he the likely GOP candidate to beat, but if Biden waits and does pull out of the 2024 race, DeSantis will have had a massive head start in a national campaign. And if Biden does not face Trump in the 2024 race, age won’t an issue for him; it will be the issue staring him in the face.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I think the Democrats need a reality check, a wake-up call if you will, on running Biden against anyone but Trump.
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