Good conservatives have thrown their hats in the ring for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. In spite of his and his primary supporters presumptions Trump does not own the ring. As Republicans with ideas, with however more or less merits, they have the right to challenge the political situation – just as Trump did in 2016 — in pursuit of what they see is best for America by convincing first the party’s primary voters of their approach. Anticipating electability is properly a big factor in the primary voters’ decision making as to whom to put forward. A lot is at stake.
Trump supporters will insist that he is the most electable and that is certainly a recurring theme for Trump — touting polls (snapshots of opinion regarding a battle that has only just started) that indicate he leads the Republican field and that say he would prevail over Joe Biden. Trump does not usually talk about the margins for that matchup.
But the degree of transference from who is most known to at this point largely unengaged Republicans “Trump leads by a wide margin for Republican nomination” to who is best to defeat Biden/ Democrat nominee is not clear at all. Trump’s current standing is also a result of a situation where Trump owns the media attention and in the conservative outlets that Republican primary voters listen to that attention is largely defensive of him (and rightly so to a great extent). Trump benefits from the attention because the indictments are so unfair.
The current polling “factoids”also indicate that at least one other candidate – DeSantis- is within the polling margin of error vis a vi Biden. In such a poll — if Trump leads Biden by 1% and the margin of error of the poll is 3% or 4% by the same poll Trump could be behind by 2% or 3% and by the same degree of certainty (or uncertainty) a challenger to Trump does better against Biden. However far supposedly behind Trump DeSantis is at this stage of the primary match-up, in those same snapshots DeSantis can (and does) poll to be actually superior to Trump against Biden or essentially as competitive.
Such polls also presume that Biden will be the Democrat nominee. But if Biden is not the Democrat nominee, which we believe a real possibility, and the Democrat nominee presumably cannot avoid debates — we think a Republican superior at debating without eating a live rat on stage* will increase their standing if it is not too late in the process.
Trump is still arguably a risky pick by the very polls he touts.
*always grateful to SF for the descriptor of a candidate blowing up his or her standing on stage by saying or doing something gross or stupid — in Trump’s case unforced errors for lack of a filter or even arrogance.
