BTRTN Election 2024 Point/Counterpoint: Who Will Win the GOP Nomination, Trump or DeSantis?

[tgards79]

Point: "Don’t underestimate Trump. He may be wounded but he is hardly done. In fact, Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024, barring some truly incredible unforeseen circumstance or event. And by “unforeseen” I don’t mean an indictment or even jail time. Those, at this point, are foreseeable. I mean something truly unforeseen. And it is hard to imagine just what, at this point, that could possibly be. It all boils down to two essential facts: 1) Trump has unshakeable control over roughly 40% of the Republican Party, and those “Unshakeables” are far more likely than other Republicans to vote in primaries. 2) Trump’s opponents, including Ron DeSantis, cannot afford to attack Trump at will, because they need those Unshakeables behind them to have a prayer of winning in November, 2024. But here's the catch -- how you defeat Trump without attacking him...?"

Counterpoint: "Donald Trump has no idea what is about to hit him. Huh? Sure, the current wisdom is that Ron DeSantis will be eaten alive by the vicious, candidacy-destroying venom of Donald Trump, just as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz found in 2016. Well, there’s a case to be made for pretty much exactly the opposite: that Trump has never been put on the defensive by a hyper-aggressive, uber-ambitious killer with an instinct for the jugular. Trump has never faced an opponent who is as natively cruel and soullessly Machiavellian as Ron DeSantis. This is going to be a battle to the death between two velociraptors, and this bet is on the younger, more prepared raptor..."

[Walleye]

1. Don't know why they would continue to nominate this loser, we already beat him once

The old normal Republican Party would never have nominated someone who lost

[genxlib]

2. While I don't disagree with the analysis

The framework of the analysis is off.

Looking at this as a two person race at this early stage is just silly. By the time the real primary season rolls around, there will be double digit contenders.

This will play out like the 2020 primary did for the Democrats. Bernie looked unbeatable because he had a sizeable lead in a crowded field. But his support was more or less capped out while all the other candidates were vying for the same voters. As they dropped out of the field, Biden consolidated the lion's share of those votes.

I believe teh same thing will happen here. Trump will lead early but will eventually lose to whomever can consolidate the non-trump vote.

It might be deSantis but I have my doubts about him. For one, he shares a lot of the voter pool with Trump so I don't see how they end up both being strong contenders. Besides that, I think he is overreaching in Florida and some "reasonable" Republican is going to take him to the woodshed for wielding government power as a weapon.

I think it is more likely to be a mainstreamer that harnesses those 60% of non-trump voters. I don't have a guess as to who that will be yet but history tells me those kinds of candidates often surge out of nowhere late in the process.

[tgards79]

3. Your facts are simply wrong

Biden led in 2019 throughout, before the primaries, with Bernie a trailing second and no one else ever coming close. In fact, it looked a LOT like 2023 so far, with one candidate ahead, another trailing, and no one else getting close. Bernie never led in the pre-primary polls.

[genxlib]

4. I stand corrected

I remember a time frame when Bernie had a lot of momentum and looked like he was leading. My memory was faulty that it was a fairly short period of time during the early primaries. Bloomberg had really cut into Biden support and Bernie was surging.

I just remember there being a lot of talk about Bernie being a frontrunner at that time.

My point was that he had sort of maxed out the votes available to him while Biden picked up every endorsement of the candidates dropping out. In essence, they coalesced around Biden and buried Bernie.

I just remembered the time frame wrong.

I still believe that the non-trump vote will ultimately gang up against him.

[lees1975]

5. Who says Trump has "unshakeable" control over 40% of the GOP?

The polls are all over the place on this. That he polls 40% preference in some polls, no doubt. That it is "unshakeable," maybe 15% of it is, maybe a little more or less. Reality is that even 40% of the Republican party is less than 15% of the whole electorate, where a solid 67% say NO! to any mention of voting for the buffoon.

Of course, on a 24 hour cable news cycle, where the only contested race, basically the Republican nomination, is the only big topic on which to speculate right now, and where the mention of indictment and jail for Trump, which would be real justice, is anathema, this is the speculative conversation and the whole world.

Here's the bottom line. If there is real justice in America, we will never know, because he will be convicted of crimes and serving time in prison before the first Republican has a chance to cast a primary ballot.