If we assume, for a moment, that someone will wrest the GOP nomination away from Trump—DeSantis, Pence, Haley, someone else—is the GOP impaired by all the Trump MAGA loyalists who’ll view the nominee as their worst enemy, or is what I’m describing just another interparty squabble such as regularly goes on every time there’s a tough primary slog?
The other way around, I have no doubt that they’ll all come back to vote for Trump. I don’t think it’s enough to win the general, but it’s still scary because as 2016 shows, you never know, and shit happens, and never say never.
The other option is that a non-Trump GOP nominee loses the hard-core MAGA voters but picks up some Biden-hatin’ independents who wouldn’t have voted for Trump, in which case my original question gets rephrased as “Are there more independent votes to be gained than MAGA votes lost for a non-Trump candidate?”
Is this, in other words, more like your typical post-primary lovefest, in which the worst of political enemies reconcile as if nothing had happened during the primary, or do you think the Trump/MAGA loonies are too far gone in their cult-like adoration of their dear leader to accept another nominee for the GOP nod?
My feeling is, they will come back into the GOP fold unless Trump runs on a spiteful 3rd party ticket just to maintain his standing as a presidential candidate to keep DoJ and various state AGs from indicting him during the election period.
It depends on which Republican ends up with the nomination. I think they would come back for DeSantis, but not for any other Republican whose name is thrown about as a POTUS contender. Definitely not for Pence.
Before Trump loses in the primaries he will decide he doesn’t want to be president again. He’ll find any excuse not to end up as a loser again. Maybe he’ll claim a constitutional basis because he’s still president now and he can’t run for a 3rd term. Whatever it is, he’ll then throw his full support against some fascist GOP candidate in order to make sure Biden loses, because he never won in the first place. I know it’s hard to follow but you have to think like one of them, which means as little as possible.
My observations are that they are much more in support of Trump than they are Republicans, which they (mostly) see as part of the uniparty. Those who vote will definitely vote R, but I think there would be a significant decrease in enthusiasm and therefore turnout.
Trumpites have shown that they don’t care about the purported ideals of the Republican Party but instead are part of a personality cult/wrecking crew. Somehow dislodging Trump and winning the GOP nomination is bound to alienate that sizable core of Trumpites so much that many will sit out the election in 2024 or direct votes to a third-party candidate, whether or not that’s Trump.
I’m not massively worried that Trump will win the general election again. It could happen, but what’s more worrisome is that so damn many of them won’t put aside the “win however you have to” approach, including “who cares whether we actually get more votes, what matters is getting some of the right people to say we did”.
The MAGAs will vote enthusiastically for any GOP candidate that demeans themselves by kissing Trump’s ring. If Trump thinks they have a chance of beating Biden he will frame that candidate as his proxy.
When has Trump ever done anything that helps anyone other than himself? Unless he’s in prison and needs some other GOP POTUS to pardon him, I can’t see him ever supporting a proxy.
I look at it this way: 40% of the voters are reflexively going to vote D and R out the gate. Probably a third to a half of the R voters will vote for TFG no matter what party he aligns with - he could run as a Green Party candidate and they would still vote for him. The only way to dislodge those voters from TFG is if he is not in the race, and by default they would simply vote for whomever has an R next to their name.
I do think there are conservative independents who would vote for a non-TFG R candidate and probably would prefer that to having to chose between TFG and Biden.
Considering the transactional way he views pardons, I wouldn’t be surprised if he waged a war against Desantis, for example, and lost the nomination, but as a “party-healing-gesture” he offered to support Ron D. in explicit exchange for a pardon. That’s just good business.
Yeah, that could work – but they’d have to keep it totally hush-hush, or else he’d taint DeSantis’ chances in the general. Good thing Trump’s good at keeping quiet!
Their loyal followers are a lost cause. They’d have to keep it secret from Trump-hating moderate voters who might be tempted to vote for DeSantis but won’t if they know he’ll pardon Trump.
If Trump loses to another candidate in the primary, then that candidate will lose substantial amounts of the GOP base. This won’t be like other years where, the had policy differences but shake hands at to convention. It will be scorched earth from beginning to end, with Trump declaring the that the GOP rigged the election in the opponents favor as part of the deep state. Trump is more likely to endorse Biden in the general election than he is to endorse his Republican rival, and if he tells his followers that DeSantis is a traitor many will believe it and not vote for him.
As for a moderate GOP candidate gaining more swing votes than he lost in core votes, I don’t see any way a non-extreme Republican could win the nomination, so its a moot point.
The links above are for all voters, but you can drill down, with some of the polls, to see the party breakdown.
The it’s-too-early claim might be made to put aside current poll results as a final number. But I can’t understand why it could be that today the Trumpers are fine with voting for DeSantis but they would change their minds in November 2024.
These numbers don’t vary much, week to week or month to month. One reason is that Republicans vote for Republicans regardless of candidate identity. Even if they love Trump twice as much, they only have one legal vote.
So the answer to the thread question is definite — YES.
Modern US presidential elections are won and lost on turnout in the few swing states. Not by attracting the largely mythical independent or centrist. Nor by producing popular vote blowouts in hard-red or hard-blue states.
The problem with any of these polls now is they don’t have a realistic way to ask these two trenchant questions:
After almost two years of incessant rancorous wrangling and non-stop news coverage demonizing everyone involved …
Will you bother to go vote or will you just say “Screw it! I’m tired of the whole shebang.”
How does your answer change if your preferred primary candidate is not your party’s nominee?
The actual way the actual voters in the 6 (or is it 4 or 10?) swing states actually answer those two questions on polling day (plus early voting where still legal) are what will determine who is elected on Nov 2024. The rest is useless details.
