Yeah, my first response was that Utah wasn’t exactly representational of Republicans nationally. In that context, it’s actually concerning that DeSantis, who is a next-level MAGAt, is their first choice…
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I’m not saying that the GOP base will rally behind her.
I’m saying that IF they were smart enough to nominate her, the Republicans would win the next Presidential election pretty easily. She’d pull in a whole lot of voters in places like Ohio and Georgia and Michigan, voters who only voted Biden because they couldn’t stand any more Trump. Sub in Liz Cheney in a general election, all the red states stay red, the blue states stay blue, the purple states all turn red.
Liz Cheney scares me as a candidate a lot more than Donald Trump, because she’s electable and I don’t believe he is any more.
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The Turnip has never been popular in Utah, which is why Mitt Romney has been free to speak his mind and vote his conscience all this time
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Perhaps. But she would also turn off a whole lot of Republicans, because she’s a woman who dared to work with the Dems and opposed TFG.
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Republicans have spend the past two years shitting on her. Calling her a RINO, saying she’s a socialist, a secret Democrat, a traitor, and subsequently voted her out of office. Never mind she’s one of the most consistent Republican votes in the House; she voted to impeach the Dear Leader and therefore she’s a pariah. She’ll never serve in public office again, and there’s no way the RNC would ever back her.
Mike Pence has all but said he’s running, but I don’t think he has a chance either. He’s too damaged from his association with Trump to be a serious contender. He’s too mealy mouthed and wishy-washy to electrify anybody. He’s basically come right out and said he wants to impose his religious beliefs as the law of the land. That may thrill the small but powerful evangelical crowd, but I don’t think most the women of America are going to be very happy about this.
Only DeSantis has a real shot, and that’s fucking terrifying. He’s just as much of a dangerous and power-hungry nihilist as Trump is, but he’s actually good at what he does. It doesn’t help that the media won’t stop swinging off his sack right now giving any potential presidential run of his more oxygen.
I don’t think Trump has much of a shot of winning 2024, but who knows.
Joe Biden may not be super popular according to the polls (and who really trusts those anymore anyway?), but he’s managed to accomplish quite a bit while in office. Things that actually help people in tangible ways, not just foment schadenfreude like the previous guy did.
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Almost certainly. He’ll either be the Republican candidate or run on his own. I cannot imagine any scenario at this point that doesn’t include him on the ballot. Except for maybe screwing up the paperwork to actually get on the ballot in every state.
Almost certainly, this too. Which leaves us with Trump as the Republican candidate and Cheney as an independent or someone else as the Republican candidate and Trump as the independent.
Which doesn’t matter. She’ll clearly not win a Republican primary, however it’s not like she got 0 votes in the primary either. Running as an Independent in the actual election, nationally she’s likely to get some non-trivial number of Republican votes. It doesn’t matter that it’s not enough to win. It’ll be enough to impact the result. If the election was ranked choice it may or may not matter, but since it isn’t, it will be enough votes to impact the winner.
These taken all together, it’s almost certain that the general election will include 3 candidates, with either Trump or Cheney playing the Independent. If it is DeSantis, someone else, or Trump as the Republican is the big question.
If it is Biden as the opponent is the other big one, but way less drama.
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This poll is within a percentage point of how many Utahans actually voted for Trump in the 2016 primary so it certainly looks like a plausible number to me. Which is not to say that the poll actually implies what the headline would seem to suggest it implies.
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She didn’t win her primary in Wyoming.
There’s also the elephant in the room of the US electorate’s underlying collective misogyny. Their base just won’t vote if their candidate is a woman.
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From who? I think you’re vastly overestimating her relevance even as a spoiler.
She’s far too conservative to win over any democrats or left-leaning or centrist independents. Her only redeeming quality would be, “at least she has some standards.” Not a very persuasive argument.
Almost no Republican would break ranks to vote for her, and any that could be swayed (those so-called “moderates”) would be more likely to vote for a democrat, or more likely than not just stay home.
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I don’t think it’s like the Cheneys have super deep roots in Wyoming either, they just know it’s the cheapest state to carpetbag
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It wouldn’t take much to change the outcome. If just 5% of Republican voters. Actual conservatives that agree with Cheney’s positions instead of whatever random word salad Trump and the official Republican platform is that is most definitely not a conservative policy position. That would be enough to change the outcome.
People that feel the need to vote for someone on the ballot. As compared to the few Republican politicians of late that have said stuff like they didn’t vote for anyone or they wrote in someone. Having an actual name on the ballot is a huge reduction in friction to just pick a different person.
The same dynamic as in Alaska that put Peltola over Palin where enough Republican voters preferred Begich over Palin, but then when Begich was eliminated, not enough changed to Palin. Most of them did, but enough changed to Peltola or just didn’t vote a second choice. That small percentage was enough to change the outcome. Had that race not included Palin at all, likely Begich would have won.
The head to head race is so close that even a 5% change would be enough to change the outcome.
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