This. I was going to post the same list of candidates. If I had to order them in terms of likeliness to actually become the GOP leader, I’d order them Cruz, Haley, Cotton, Scott, Paul. Of course, four years out is an eternity. The front-runners today may not be even close two years from now.
For the Democrats, I don’t know. They seem to be hollowing out the party of moderates. Cory Booker would be one person that can bridge the gap between the moderates and the left wing of the party. I think maybe an outsider like Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg will try to fill that vacuum.
I agree that Mike Pence is a no-brainer, but not the same way you meant it.
We haven’t seen the last of Eddie Munster (Paul Ryan) and his hard-on for stripping away Medicare benefits. There will come a time when he slinks back and reminds us all of how he was decent when times were harder and how he stood up to blah blah blah.
The 70 million cultists who voted to re-elect in spite of Trump killing a quarter million Americans, could easily throw their weight behind a mental giant like Jr. God help us.
Biden has said he is a transitional candidate which makes me to conclude he sees himself as a transitional president. He rebuilt the blue wall and added Arizona and Georgia to the column for Democrats. He won Minnesota surprisingly comfortable given how close it was last time and how much resources the Trump campaign put in it. They really believed Trump would win that state when you heard their surrogates talk in recent weeks. A President Biden with a Senate Leader McConnell is not going to get any progressive legislation done so all that hot air about statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, packing the court and defunding the police is out. Biden will get a stimulus package done and probably an infrastructure deal. In 2022 if Dems have a good mid-terms the stage should be set for an easy Harris succession on the top of the ticket in 2024. If they have a bad mid-terms Biden should not run again and there will probably be a real battle for the nomination as Harris will be tarred with a do nothing presidency.
On the GOP side the fact that Trumpism was not repudiated but Trump the man has been rejected on the ballot will probably mean they will run the same nationalist populist culture war rhetoric but with a more professional touch to it. It’s awfully clear there was a lot of ticket splitting with Biden winning congressional districts that the down-ballot democrat lost so that’s a sign that independents/republicans turned off by Trump did not abandon the republican party. Pence is too milquetoast to win the Trump base and there’s not enough of the evangelical conservative base of the GOP left to carry him. Haley could overcome not appealing to the Trump base by appealing to suburbia. I don’t think Trump Jr stands a chance.
Only “iffy” if he has some sort of serious health issue. Otherwise, it’s almost automatic, for a sitting president to run for reelection. Barring a health issue, or a major scandal/political disaster, Biden will almost certainly run again.
Joe Biden will be 82 in 2024. I don’t even give him even odds to finish out a first term. He’s looking pretty rickety already. There will also be a lot of pressure on him to step aside ftom younger, more progressive Democrats.
And Presidencies ard hard. they age even younger candidates badly. Obama and Bush both looked 15 years older after their 8 years.
Trump Jr strikes me as just like the bully’s weaselly little pal, who stands to the side and eggs on and strokes the ego of the bully.
In other words, kind of a pathetic joke on his own. I guess it’s possible he’ll surprise me - his dad certainly did. But I don’t think he’s got what his dad does.
At this exact moment in time Donald appears to be the '24 nominee. But four years is an eternity in politics and we don’t know how much he will be hurt by the upcoming meltdown and ensuing litigation.
And some of his support will melt away because he didn’t fight hard enough against the election fraud and some more will desert him just because he lost. But he’ll have some loud support in right wing media and a bigger, more loyal base than even Reagan had (caution: Red Wiggler hyperbole alert) so who knows?
Trump will be 78 years old in four years’ time and he’s not in the best of shape now. He may be spending the next four years dealing with some form of prosecutions (civil and/or criminal, state and/or federal), he’s got a number of hefty loans coming due, and he’s likely to be under a level of scrutiny he wasn’t under before, without a bagman AG to cover for him. Plus he’ll have the stink of loserhood on him. I don’t think he’s going to enjoy the next few years very much.
He may well keep holding rallies to keep the money coming in from the rubes, but the GOP will likely ignore him and go with a younger and more stable (relatively speaking) model like Cotton.
I too hope that Biden will not stand for re-election because of his advanced age, voluntarily leaving the Presidency after a single term, just like…um…no President ever. I’m hoping, but I’m not counting on it.