Between Trump, DeSantis, and Kanye, who do you think has the greatest chance of being the Republican nominee in 2024?

Guessing it won’t be any of those. DeSantis has the advantage though.

@Blackwater_Park We probably have a little bit longer to wait until we know who the finalists are, but a part of me thinks by this point if we haven’t heard of them, they’re probably not going to win the nomination. Like, it’s already clear that Biden will be the Democratic nominee. There is absolutely no one else.

I’ll answer the questions a bit out of order here.

First, I don’t think it’s accurate to say DeSantis and Trump are similar ideologically. Certainly there is some overlap there. But I don’t even think it’s accurate to say that Trump HAS an ideology. Trump will say whatever it takes to get attention. Populism is a tactic more than an ideology, and Trump is a populist first and foremost, but I don’t think he REALLY gives a flying F about the ideologies. He’s anti-immigration because it’s convenenient. Because Pat Buchanon and others had already created a large anti-immigrant movement within the GOP for him to exploit. If it were hating the number Six, Trump would be a Six-Hater.

By contrast, yes, DeSantis is an immigration hawk…but much less so than Trump. Yes, he’s a populist, but one who I think actually has his own views and ideas that ground him. Agree or disagree with them, I don’t think Trump ever really had that. Trump adopted some stereotypical conservative positions after being on the opposite side prior to his 2016 campaign. For example, Republicans seem to forget that Trump was pro-gun control…until 2016. He’s tailoring his ‘ideas’ to what he thinks will get him the results he wants.

Second, I don’t think Democrats want DeSantis. They want the GOP to nominate Trump some more. It’s good for TV ratings and website clicks for one thing. But also, Trump is REALLY bad for the GOP. He might even be worse than (for example) Bernie would have been for the Democrats. Trump ‘won’ in 2016, but lost by proxy in 2018 and 2022, and lost himself in 2020. Even his ‘win’ has to be in sarcasti-quotes because he beat a terrible candidate who ran a terrible campaign and he STILL needed the 7–10 split of politics to do it – namely winning the electoral college without winning the popular vote. Which is rare and hard to do and signals a weak win.

Democrats spent the last three election cycles DESPERATELY trying to tie Trump to every downballot Republican. Voters have generally been splitting their tickets the last few elections, which is historically rare. They vote against Trump and Trumpy-Republicans, and FOR non-Trumpy Republicans. The GOP is making inroads for the first time in decades with blacks and hispanics….and yet, Trump-endorsed candidates lose in all but the safest races. Being endorsed by Trump is the kiss of death unless you’re in a heavy red district. So they WANT him to be nominated because they’re confident that they can run LITERALLY ANYONE against him and win. If Trump looks like he’s sailing to a nomination, expect the Democrats to nominate a more radical candidate because they’ll feel more confident that they can win the general.

Third – who get nominated? That’s SO hard to say this early. I’m not even 100% sure that DeSantis is the main challenger to Trump, though it sure looks like it right now. I think Trump’s base is SO passionate for him and has constructed this little echo chamber where they just disbelieve all the negative that if I had to bet the mortgage, I’d probably put it on Trump. But it’s a tough call. DeSantis has something Trump doesn’t – competence. A track record of success. But Trump’s core clearly doesn’t care about that kind of stuff or they wouldn’t have voted for him in the first place.

I think there’s a very substantial chunk of the GOP that doesn’t want Trump. A majority in fact. But I don’t know if they’re the kind of voters that show up for primaries. Primary voters tend to be the most partisan and the most energetic. That’s part of why primaries are a bad construct for narrowing down candidates and I’d like to see them replaced with an instant runoff system like Ranked Choice or Multivote instead. And I think that plays into Trump’s strength. Say what you like about them otherwise, but Trump inspires PASSION…both for and against him.

So ultimately, I think I’d give an edge to Trump winning the nomination.

Here’s the other thing you didn’t ask though—If Trump loses:

1) Will he accept the loss or claim fraud?
2) Will he mount a third party campaign to split the GOP vote as an act of revenge?

I think the answers are Yes and Yes.

I don’t like invoking Kanye’s name, especially as a joke. Antisemitism is on the rise and Trump is despicable to entertain him and the other Neo-Nazi.

As for opining on candidates, I’m happily taking a break from election hysteria. Wake me up in another year.

To put Ye’s name in that little list is not even funny, in my eyes.

I don’t know; we all thought Trump was a joke and look what happened. I don’t realistically think Kanye has a chance the way Trump did, but I don’t think anything can be discounted, just to be safe (there was a lot of talk of “memeing Trump into the presidency”. Ye would be the one most likely to benefit from a repeat of that tactic). @Entropy makes a good point about Trump’s endorsement being a negative, though. The midterms are the strongest evidence so far of exhaustion with Trumpism. That said, I’m not convinced of DeSantis’ viability either. He does well in Florida, but is Florida representative of the country at large? Or is DeSantis just the Republican version of Gavin Newsom? DeSantis is great at passing laws against whatever right-wing Twitter happens to be outraged by in a given week. Does that play as well nationwide? It remains to be seen.

kenye is not a joke. He is something that needs wiped off of my shoe.

I think DeSantis. The only thing that might stop him is if he decides the timing is better to try in 2028. He’ll still be governor of Florida in 2024, and if he finishes his term he will have 2027/28 to just campaign for president without other distractions and obligations.

He can always play it off as wanting to do the right thing by the Floridians who voted him in.

DeSantis.

How to pick from these three stooges?

DeSantis.

I heard that when Ye had dinner with old 45 that he told him that he was running in 2024 & asked 45 to be his VP. Supposedly it didn’t go over very well!!! Since I didn’t get invited to dinner, I don’t know firsthand that it actually happen, but I can see Ye doing something that simpleminded!!!

Ye has his paperwork in for running for President, Trump doesn’t.

DeSantis out of the three but Doug Ducey from Arizona is a maybe.

DeSantis

That would be a hoot. Trump, Kanye and Desantis battling it out for the REPUBLICAN nomination. Elitist or not, politically correct or not, the unspoken issue totally absent from the public forum is this matter of the Republican Party as the signpost for the dumbing down of America. No lengthy justification of this exceeds the single concept: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green and SENATOR Herschel Walker.

I suspect that if Trump didn’t get the Republican nod he would immediately switch to an Independent ticket.

@kritiper Me too, and he’ll split the vote.

Who is Ye?

Ye is Kanye.

It sounds like a joke. “A President, a governor and a rapper walk into a bar.”

I just went to the PO to mail a letter and there was a sticker on the mailbox that said “Trump for Prison, 2024.”

@Dutchess_III Not “Who is Ye?” but Ye who?

@Blackwater_Park Definitely!