Hotair
I led with the good news for anti-Trumpers and/or DeSantis fans in the headline but the truth is that this survey is bad news if you’re hoping for a different nominee in 2024.
It’s less “glass half full/glass half empty” than “glass a quarter full/glass three quarters empty.”
Yes, right, Trump is under 50 percent among Republicans when they’re asked whom they prefer as their next presidential candidate. And we can expect his position to erode a bit more as DeSantis piles up policy wins and cruises to reelection in Florida, as expected. But having the former guy on the precipice of 50 percent after weeks of January 6 revelations that further exposed the travesty of the “stop the steal” campaign is discouraging, particularly amid rumors that he’s about to announce his candidacy and campaign in earnest. And having the rest of the field split evenly between DeSantis and also-rans points towards the same collective action problem in 2024 that cleared Trump’s path in 2016. If anti-Trumpers can’t unite behind a single alternative, he’s going to win. Even if he does it with a plurality.
Add up the numbers for the five non-Trump candidates and you get 46 percent, less than Trump’s haul. As diminished as he is, he still outpolls the rest of the field combined.
Note the demographic divisions too. DeSantis leads among Republican college grads (albeit by not enough) whereas Trump swamps him among those without degrees. “It’s a working-class party now!” populist Republicans like to say. Yes, and the working class prefers the coup-plotter.
To grasp how resilient his support is despite 18 months of him whining insanely about a stolen election, have a look at this new data from Morning Consult. It’s somehow more depressing than the Times poll:
Democrats are more willing to change gears in 2024 than Republicans are even though only the latter party’s prospective nominee has proved himself to be a threat to democracy. Trump’s position relative to DeSantis has actually *risen* in Morning Consult’s polling since Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the January 6 committee, inching up one point to 54 percent while DeSantis has dipped three points to 19.
Meanwhile, 56 percent of American voters — a solid majority — told Morning Consult that they believe Trump committed a crime by trying to overturn the 2020 election. That’s what Republican voters want to triple down on in 2024 despite facing a Democratic Party that’s adrift and ripe for a beating at the polls.
The momentous question for Republicans in 2024 is this: Is there any way to avoid fracturing the party before the general election?
If DeSantis beats Trump in the primary, Trump will do what he always does when he loses. He’ll whine about phantom cheating, make some vague threats about how his “people” might riot over how he’s been treated, and maybe insist on running as an independent or write-in candidate in the general election to play…
