Who will be the GOP nominee?

[Sunstroke]

...as we start debates and Trump isn't there -- who knows how any of that will play out.

I read that Trump is going to create "alternate programming" to air during the debate.  I'm assuming that alternate programming is just going to be more whining and ranting about which radical leftist DA/prosecutor/special counsel/witch-hunter is evil and liberal and unamerican

[Dave Gray]

I think that Trump not debating is smart for him politically.  His best chance to not be there, have them all to try not to talk about him but the conversation will be all about him anyway, and then to hold some Newsmax softball interview railing against the modern media.  It's shit, but it would be effective.

[Spider-Dan]

Zero reason at this time for Trump to attend the debates.  In fact, as Dave said, his best play is to do simultaneous counter-programming with the debate, on Newsmax or OAN.  It's basically the equivalent of hijacking the debate and replacing it with one where he gets all the shine.

He won't be able to do that in the general, though, because if he tries to, the debate will likely be replaced with a Biden townhall.  Trump holding a town hall on Newsmax while Biden holds one on (say) ABC is not a good trade for Trump.

[Spider-Dan]

It's just about time to wrap this up:

Ron DeSantis Is Quietly Starting to Build His Off-Ramp From 2024

After a humbling loss in Iowa, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is starting to signal that he is building an off-ramp from the race for the Republican presidential nomination, a seeming acknowledgment of his dim prospects of defeating Donald J. Trump given his low poll numbers in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

So far this week, Mr. DeSantis has cast his eyes forward to 2028 with anecdotes about Trump supporters saying they would vote for him next time around if he runs again in four years. He has conceded that Mr. Trump’s thumping victory in Iowa on Monday made for a “good showing in terms of him winning the nomination.” And he has openly admitted that he believes he made a strategic mistake by icing out the traditional media earlier in the campaign.

It all amounted to a kind of frankness that Mr. DeSantis has not always shown in his public comments about the nominating contest — and a marked change in tone for a candidate who spent most of last year brashly promising he would win Iowa, which he lost by 30 points.

On Thursday, the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Mr. DeSantis if his campaign would survive through the end of March. The Florida governor replied that things were not necessarily going to plan.

“Look, my goal is to win the nomination. Had we won Iowa, we would have been in a great spot,” Mr. DeSantis said, before suggesting there would be no point in staying in the race if it were to become clear that he could not win.

“I don’t want to be VP, I don’t want to be in the cabinet, I don’t want a TV show,” he said. “I’m in it to win it, and at some point if that’s not working out for you, I recognize that. This isn’t a vanity thing for me.”

---

DeSantis doesn't have a chance, and he never had a chance.  By the time 2028 rolls around, the GOP will either remain stuck on Trump (if he loses in 2024) or will have moved on to the hot new conservative firebrand (i.e. whoever Trump endorses, which will definitely not be Tiny D).

As I have been saying all along, DeSantis is the 2024 version of Scott Walker.  Walker was able to scrape out a couple of victories in bluish-purple Wisconsin, while DeSantis got a much more convincing win in much redder Florida, but at the end of the day, neither one of those things mean the victor has national appeal.

I don't think DeSantis would have been able to win even without Trump in the race because DeSantis is a charisma vacuum: he has zero ability to appeal to anyone but the hardcore culture warriors, and he's outright terrible when he tries to simulate interacting with normal humans.  He makes Mitt Romney look like Teddy Roosevelt.  But as long as Trump is on this side of the dirt, DeSantis doesn't even have a hypothetical chance.  He was drawing dead from the very start.

[Dave Gray]

I heard an interesting thing from my pundits: Desantis needs a reason to leave.

You can't just finish 2nd and then quit; it weakens you politically.

Desantis kinda needs to get his ass kicked in New Hampshire so that he can step away, endorse Trump, and disappear for a while.  Had he lost to Haley in Iowa, he maybe could've done it then.  But he doesn't want to stay in until South Carolina just to get beat again....that's a long month of getting your ass kicked on a dead campaign.

Trump has this in the bag.  It's just a question of how much Haley support can build, what it means for Trump, and what it means for the future of Haley.  But I don't think anyone has a shot at the nomination other than Trump, short of a medical event.

[Spider-Dan]

Well, it didn't matter: Tiny D announced that he's dropping out and endorsing Trump.

This marks the end of his political career.  He will join Scott Walker in collecting wingnut welfare on the board of some right-wing organization.  And let's be clear that DeSantis will only go down in prestige from here... over the next few years, he is in for the standard ritual humiliation from Donald Trump that is dispensed to all failed challengers to the throne.

Haley is likely to go the John Kasich route, trying to position herself for the ever-pending post-Trump GOP.  She'll lose in 2024, and if/when there is a post-Trump GOP, she will be called out by the Chris Christie-types for being unwilling to speak directly against him.  She is also done.

[Dave Gray]

Desantis quitting also pretty much ends Haley since now all of his votes go to Trump and he’ll beat Haley in the most pro-Haley state.

This is all sealed up.

[Spider-Dan]

Desantis quitting also pretty much ends Haley since now all of his votes go to Trump and he’ll beat Haley in the most pro-Haley state.

I don't know that this is true (at least, the first part).  As CF can attest, much of DeSantis' support was from people who were looking for a not-Trump option.  So I think Haley will actually capture a notable chunk of Tiny D's (remaining) base of support.

That said, you could add literally all the DeSantis primary voters to Haley and it still wouldn't be enough to beat Trump.  So she will definitely lose either way.

[CF DolFan]

Many DeSantis supporters will support Trump ... especially given that DeSantis endorsed him and Trump is speaking well of DeSantis. With that said there is definitely a portion of DeSantis supporters who will never vote Trump even if they don't have anyone else to vote for.

[Dave Gray]

From the polling that I saw, Desantis supporters were also Trump supporters.  They just thought Trump had too much baggage and wish he didn't tweet so much.

Haley is the other lane of never-Trumpers that are the Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, John Kasich wing of the party.

[CF DolFan]

No, hers may be larger but there are a bunch of DeSantis supporters in that camp with me being one of them. I have absolutely no plan on voting him and am willing to accept the fate of that. I have no idea how many of us there are but most of the DeSantis supporters I've spoken to seem to have a similar opinion. Like I said earlier ... we will see how much the sudden bro relationship ends up changing things but that will take time. With that said I fully expect he will be in jail by time the election rolls around so things will only get messier for Republicans anyway.

I'm sure Spider can find it but I said a long time ago that I thought the Republicans had no chance to win the general election because of Trump. There is just too much fraction in the party and it pretty much revolves around him. 

[Spider-Dan]

From the polling that I saw, Desantis supporters were also Trump supporters.  They just thought Trump had too much baggage and wish he didn't tweet so much.

Haley is the other lane of never-Trumpers that are the Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, John Kasich wing of the party.

Christie was the never-Trumper lane (to the extent that such a thing can exist in today's GOP).
Haley and DeSantis are running in the Trump-without-the-baggage lane: they have zero criticism of Trump's policies or his administration, and just think he's personally too much of a distraction.

[Dave Gray]

Christie was the never-Trumper lane (to the extent that such a thing can exist in today's GOP).
Haley and DeSantis are running in the Trump-without-the-baggage lane: they have zero criticism of Trump's policies or his administration, and just think he's personally too much of a distraction.

Agreed.

Haley herself isn't a never Trumper.  I just mean that she's the only candidate that they can go to within the GOP.

[Spider-Dan]

Right, but I think that the majority of DeSantis' support came from the Trump-without-the-baggage wing of the GOP.  So I don't think DeSantis' supporters will necessarily fall to Trump in the primary (in the general, they certainly will).

To draw a comparison: when Elizabeth Warren dropped out in 2020, her supporters didn't fall to Bernie.  They largely went to Biden, because Warren was the preferred candidate for progressive voters who don't support Bernie.  If you were on the socialist left and didn't already support Bernie (the most popular candidate representing that faction), it was because you had some problem with him as a candidate, and Warren dropping out doesn't erase those problems.  So it is with DeSantis and Trump.

[Dave Gray]

Right, but I think that the majority of DeSantis' support came from the Trump-without-the-baggage wing of the GOP.  So I don't think DeSantis' supporters will necessarily fall to Trump in the primary (in the general, they certainly will).

That's just what the polling is saying.  Desantis voters have Trump as their 2nd choice, by big margins.  That could all change and at least they're open to someone who isn't Trump.  But I think this is all sealed up.