While I personally think it unlikely, suppose SCOTUS decides that Trump is ineligible to be president due to the whole insurrection thing.
I think the current people, except DeSantis, with their hat in the ring are not being very serious about it. They’re doing it for name recognition, future appointments, and a possible future run (or as a grift in Vivek’s case). But with Trump out of the picture, there will be a real race for the ring.
Who do you think emerges as the next candidate?
DeSantis is second in the current race except as above it isn’t really a race. He lacks charisma, so I can see others easily overtaking him. But he has the same kind of hate-filled policies that MAGA loves so maybe he is the successor.
Total chaos. Trump would attempt to run third party, or a write-in campaign, and demand all the other Republicans back him up in this effort. If that didn’t work Trump would call for mass protests and maybe worse.
Haley would probably be the one on the ballot and Trump would want a write-in campaign.
Although, I am unsure if the RNC can change ballots.
For the sake of argument let’s say Trump is kept off enough ballots to be unable to win the presidency even if he won all the rest (assume the courts have assented to this…it’s a done deal).
But, Trump won primaries to be the front runner in all those states. So, in the states where Trump is prohibited from being on the ballot do they just go with the #2 winner in that state (and what if there was no one running against Trump in the primary)? Then, can the RNC dump him from all ballots even if he won the primaries in states that have not kicked him off the ballot because he literally could not win?
I have no answer to the above. Curious how it would play out.
But if the Court declared him ineligible the write-ins would be void, would they not? What else can ineligible mean? IANAL, of course, just going by the normal use of the words.
Yes, of course, but we have that already. Just imagine he wins the primaries and the Electoral College!
If the Supreme Court rules that Trump cannot be on ballots nationwide, Trump would make predictably nasty statements and call for wild demonstrations. I’m afraid there might be several deaths. But looting will be negligible. So, I disagree on chaos.
He can’t run third party — too many deadlines are past.
As for a write-in campaign, this is a Democratic dream that won’t happen. It would mildly be in Trump’s interest that the GOP ticket win, and he is not as dumb as some think. The only reason he might not endorse the GOP candidate is that if the Supreme Court makes Trump a complete loser, his endorsement is worthless.
I hope the nominee would be Haley, but the pessimist in me says DeSantis.
Biden’s chances against a middle-aged GOP nominee are quite poor.
You underestimate just how malignantly narcissistic he is. He’ll spend the entire year flinging shit at whoever gets the nomination entirely because it isn’t him.
“[Candidate], a very low-rated RINO who begged like a dog for my endorsement when running for [current office] (would not have won without me!) is a very disloyal loser who turned their back on “Donald J. Trump” after they got what they wanted. DO NOT VOTE FOR [pronoun]!”
As many here have pointed out to me, year-before horse race polling is historically not predictive.
I’ve claimed, not very persuasively, that Biden-Trump is the exception because both men are well-known to even the lowest information voters. I think DeSantis would give us a normal situation where there is a pivot to the center after the nomination is locked up, and then you would see movement in the polls.
I can’t see how it’s anyone but DeSantis. Sure, he’s polling poorly right now, but that’s because he’s the only one who’s actually competing with Trump. And that’s also why, if Trump were decisively eliminated, he’d be the only choice.
And I agree completely with that assessment. Even in the links I provided you can see the polls are changing from month to month. So clearly where he is at is not going to be where he’s at later.
But, the trend has been only downward for him. And I mean it when I say that his campaign is just about done. He might not even be a candidate anymore by the time they decide if Trump is eligible.
I will also acknowledge that if Trump is out of the picture, that could change things dramatically.
But I also think he’d do a lot worse than Trump in an election. He’s like Trump without the followers or charisma or, well, anything that Trump has that makes him electable. I reject the idea that his age alone will allow him to beat Biden. I think he’d lose in a landslide.