The 2024 Republican
presidential field gets a second entry
this week, and several other prospects
are taking important steps
toward candidacies as well.
The former
South Carolina governor
Nikki Haley, is scheduled
to declare her intentions on Wednesday.
Haley, you might recall
she was Donald Trump's
first ambassador to the United Nations,
will be the only declared
Republican candidate.
Other than her former boss.
Trump so far,
anyway, seems more concerned
about the Florida governor.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,
who is pulling together
his own campaign team.
Trump has repeatedly disparaged
DeSantis in recent weeks
and the New York Times reports.
One big question,
as DeSantis gears up
is whether and when
to return Trump's fire.
This from that story
quote, For months, Mr.
DeSantis has pursued
a strategy of conflict avoidance,
but now he faces the pressing question
of how long this approach can work.
Mr.
Trump has spent weeks trying to goad Mr.
DeSantis into a fight
with rude
nicknames like Ron the Sanctimonious,
a great reporter back with us.
That story also notes
now he's calling it
Meatball as well, apparently.
It is interesting.
Trump has
posted a couple of things
about Nikki Haley saying she promised
not to run if he was running.
She's disloyal,
but he seems much more concerned
about Ron DeSantis.
And if you look at the polling,
this is cited in FiveThirtyEight
in The New York Times today as well.
Ron DeSantis in the thirties ranks
pretty good historically.
If you look at candidates
early in the race,
especially a guy who's never run before.
Yep.
And and if you talk to voters
and you say,
who do you want to be
the Republican nominee?
They often say Ron DeSantis.
If they if they expressed discomfort
with Trump, you say, okay,
then who are you looking at?
Ron DeSantis,
the name Rolls off of Voters Tongues.
At this point,
I will say that it is
an interesting challenge.
Hillary Clinton,
when she ran against Trump,
often responded to his daily slights
and controversies.
And in some ways,
it was the only way
that she could get any headlines at all
was to respond to him.
And her policy message
got completely lost.
Joe Biden took a different tack.
He really did not engage Trump
in the day to day insult.
He just didn't go there.
And, you know,
the coronavirus pandemic
sort of helped with that,
enabling him to ignore Trump.
But he did.
And that obviously worked out
better for him.
But a
primary is a different
beast than a general election.
And you've got to figure.
Ron DeSantis is looking at all
of the wasteland
of candidates from 20, 15
and so this is from
I pose the question at this table.
I know this as well as is Ron
DeSantis the next Donald Trump
or is he the next Scott Walker.
If you roll back the tape to 2014 Scott
Walker was very popular
getting a ton of attention on Fox News
came out ran for president
and it was not successful.
The polling graph
we showed you
DeSantis has very high numbers
for this early
in a campaign goes back to you know
Ronald Reagan Barack Obama
Ted Kennedy very well no names there.
So that's a good number for him
which is why Nate Cohn
smartly writes
the New York Times say what sets Mr.
DeSantis apart from Mr.
Walker to be blunt,
how many people already say
they want him to be president?
Overall, the center says, 32% support.
Mr.
Walker, in contrast,
was in single digits at 7%.
So there is a difference in the numbers.
The numbers can still be very different
from standing on a debate stage
where forgive me,
forgive me, but Trump, you know,
little Marco Lion, Ted, low energy, Jeb
He's a human chainsaw.
Yeah.
And right now, there doesn't appear to be
that much daylight
between Trump and DeSantis.
I mean, policy wise,
they lean very to the right
to Santa, sometimes
more to the right than Trump.
But one area
we were just talking
about, Social Security
and Medicare,
one area
that Trump hit a lot of his Republican
challengers on
in 2016 was
Social Security and Medicare saying
I'm not going to touch this at all,
which was a departure from the GOP policy
point at the time.
And that's something that he's
probably going to hit
DeSantis on again, as well as a number,
as well as Haley,
as well as a lot of these other
Republican potential challengers,
because they all have a history
of voting for cuts
or changes
to Medicare and Social Security.
And so the governors were in town
this past weekend
included Republicans and Democrats.
Spencer Cox
is the new Republican governor of Utah.
It's clear he doesn't want Trump.
The question is, who should it be?
He likes governors
Sununu.
The answer to Santas caution record.
Ace is a good friend.
Nikki Haley. All of those guys.
Governor, former governor.
Yeah, I would love a governor
over anybody
that serves in that building
across the street every day of the week.
It used to be Ronald Reagan.
Bill Clinton used to be
we got governors, right.
But then we had Barack Obama
with Senator
Barack Obama, Senator Joe
Biden, the former vice
president to Donald Trump, businessman
a lot of Republicans
who don't want Trump
are counting on one of these governors
to get traction.
Right.
There's a lot of built in benefits
from being a governor, right?
In a way, just by being governor
that is campaigning in itself.
You're able to hold daily
press conferences
about what you're working on.
And so I understand why
why Spencer Cox is making
that recommendation
or wants to see a governor
ascend to be Republican nominee.
But this is also why
Governor DeSantis doesn't really have to,
I think, engage in this way
with Trump right now.
He is the governor.
He he can afford to have
this strategy of conflict
avoidance as much as possible
because right now,
he doesn't have to sort of
get in the mud with Trump
based on the position he holds.
It served him incredibly well so far.
The question is, does it last well?
And he's been able to get in the mud
with Mickey Mouse and,
you know, one culture war after another,
after another
after another,
making headlines
and raising those numbers of voters
who recognize
and I don't think those serve him
well in a general election
if he does clear the Republican primary.
But it certainly works
with the base voters at the moment.
The question will be
when do we get four or five Republicans
around the table like this
or standing on a stage?
And that will get interesting.