OFFICIAL ****Donald Trump versus Ron DeSantis*** thread...

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Who?mikejones!
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aggie93 said:


This race was primarily about people still liking Trump or even moreso feeling they needed to support Trump because of how he was being persecuted by the Left.


And, Trump successfully achieved victim status. All the dems did with their indictments was galvanize trumps support.

It's not solely about who is the best potential leader. It's about righting a wrong, or getting Trump his allegedly deserved 2nd term, or showing the Man who is in charge

Fire is surely right about one thing- desantis never had a chance. He didn't offer anything different enough from Trump and he didn't achieve victim status.
J. Walter Weatherman
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Shocker. Almost like some of us have been saying this since the beginning.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/23/trump-moderate-republicans-problem-00137112

Quote:


Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There's a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.

It's an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it's a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.

"I can't vote for Trump. He's a crook. He's too corrupt," said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. "I voted for him, and I didn't realize he's as corrupt as he is."
Primary elections can create intra-party divisions that, in the moment, seem impossible to heal. In 2008, a bloc of Hillary Clinton supporters started the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) movement as a threat to never back Barack Obama after that bruising primary. Bernie Sanders' supporters vowed to never support Clinton eight years later. In 2016, Trump himself faced pushback to his nomination all the way up to the convention floor.

But 2024 is different. Trump is not making his pitch to voters as a first time candidate. He is a known quantity who is being judged by the electorate not for the conduct of his current campaign so much as his time in office. And that, political veterans warn, makes it much harder for him to win back the people he's alienated, including those once willing to vote Republican..
LMCane
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GMaster0 said:

I won't pretend there is massive enthusiasm for Joe Biden, but there is absolutely intense enthusiasm to vote against Trump. The lack of enthusiasm is what beat Hillary in 2016.

2024 comes down to undecided voters and I predict they'll just want Trump to go away. Assuming you don't feel strongly either way about Biden or Trump, I don't see the average person voting for a guaranteed 4 years of non-stop chaos.

Life in the 2020's has already been chaotic as hell, first with COVID and now with the post-COVID economy. More chaos is not what any of us need.
FireAg
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AG
aggie93 said:



Maybe 10% of the folks in the DeSantis or Trump camp are "Only Trump" or "Only DeSantis". Most are on the spectrum between the 2 with the most common being "I like both and will vote for either but I prefer X vs Y". That's also the most common sentiment among Republicans.

The thing that irritates DeSantis supporters btw isn't that Trump has some crazy followers. DeSantis has some too. The irritating thing is that Trump elevates them and sometimes pays them. He will introduce them at his rallies and encourage people to listen to them and he gives them credibility. It seems the more outrageous they are the more he does it. I'm long past the "outrage" phase with Trump but it is irritating if for no other reason than it is so counterproductive when he does it. Trump is who he is though and there is no changing him, mainly he just isn't a serious person when it comes to policy and just loves to be loved. He's far more celebrity than politician but that's part of the game and there are far worse than him.
I think it's less than 10% on both sides...but I agree it is a great minority within their overall support...

I don't know who Trump/DeSantis/Haley/Obama/Biden/Clinton pay to act as influencers and such...and I'm sure ALL of them have to some extent...

My point is...I just don't think that many folks are listening to them...I know I sure as hell don't...the only posts I ever see from Twitter or Truth Social are on TexAgs...

I mean these influencers are all certainly slanted and claim to have all the facts...but I just don't buy into them...I trust my own eyes...

I also believe that most voters will "vote the D" or "vote the R" out of habit...some in the middle might be more apt to listen, but when I look at the polling averages, I'm simply saying that there isn't a raging anti-Trump sentiment in the actual polling averages just yet... Still could be, but it's not there...


On this date in 2020, the RCP polling average was Biden +4...today, it is Trump +2.9...

Both are within the MOE, but both show different leaders...you can see similarities in the battlground state polling from 2020 and now as well...but again, with Trump having the edge (yes, razor thin in a couple of states), which is the opposite of 2020...

Here's what I'm watching...as Trump gains the nomination, and it becomes a Tump v Biden argument again, will that +2.9 grow or shrink for Trump moving forward? I don't have that answer, and that's why I am against speaking in absolutes...

What also has me on guard? The "what if the Ds replace Biden" threat...not only would it be unprecedented, I think it could create wild swings that take time (perhaps up to election day itself) to normalize...so that's why I'm saying all bets are off if that were to happen...
Rapier108
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J. Walter Weatherman said:

Shocker. Almost like some of us have been saying this since the beginning.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/23/trump-moderate-republicans-problem-00137112

Quote:


Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There's a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.

It's an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it's a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.

"I can't vote for Trump. He's a crook. He's too corrupt," said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. "I voted for him, and I didn't realize he's as corrupt as he is."
Primary elections can create intra-party divisions that, in the moment, seem impossible to heal. In 2008, a bloc of Hillary Clinton supporters started the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) movement as a threat to never back Barack Obama after that bruising primary. Bernie Sanders' supporters vowed to never support Clinton eight years later. In 2016, Trump himself faced pushback to his nomination all the way up to the convention floor.

But 2024 is different. Trump is not making his pitch to voters as a first time candidate. He is a known quantity who is being judged by the electorate not for the conduct of his current campaign so much as his time in office. And that, political veterans warn, makes it much harder for him to win back the people he's alienated, including those once willing to vote Republican..

Took about 3 days for this to start, like everyone that didn't live on pure feelz knew it would.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
LMCane
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Enviroag02 said:

It's hard to believe there are a substantial number of Republicans who hate Trump enough to give in to another 4 years of Biden who is objectively one of the worst Presidents of all time.
Trump won 96% of GOP voters in 2020. As I have posted the citations many times on THIS thread

and yet he lost.

what happens when he only wins 95% of GOP voters this time?

oh, right! as Matt Gaetz tells me Trump is going to win a huge amount of black and latino votes- a majority of them!
BMX Bandit
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Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s

FireAg
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Agthatbuilds said:

aggie93 said:


This race was primarily about people still liking Trump or even moreso feeling they needed to support Trump because of how he was being persecuted by the Left.


And, Trump successfully achieved victim status. All the dems did with their indictments was galvanize trumps support.

It's not solely about who is the best potential leader. It's about righting a wrong, or getting Trump his allegedly deserved 2nd term, or showing the Man who is in charge

Fire is surely right about one thing- desantis never had a chance. He didn't offer anything different enough from Trump and he didn't achieve victim status.
Believe it or not, I agree that this is at least part of the explanation...

Where I take issue with some on here is the claim that this only moved the needle for the "extreme end" of his support...

My contention is that many, many Americans, eventhough it's Trump, are very much against political persecution...

I think many folks have been bombarded by so much "Trump's a crook" bull**** that they have taken the time to look into different things on their own (or at least listened to the outlandishness of the alleged crimes...wondering how those are even crimes) to realize what has been going here...

There is a very high power in the country that fears Donald Trump...he is the anecdote to their agenda...he mucks up the works for them...and they want him gone at all costs... That's why they've continued to try to bury him once he was eleceted and once he was out of office... They don't want him anywhere close to the White House...and they see no other feasible route (for now) to accomplish that...
TRM
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LMCane said:

Enviroag02 said:

It's hard to believe there are a substantial number of Republicans who hate Trump enough to give in to another 4 years of Biden who is objectively one of the worst Presidents of all time.
Trump won 96% of GOP voters in 2020. As I have posted the citations many times on THIS thread

and yet he lost.

what happens when he only wins 95% of GOP voters this time?

oh, right! as Matt Gaetz tells me Trump is going to win a huge amount of black and latino votes- a majority of them!
That's an inaccurate quote.

"for every 'Karen' we lose, there is a 'Julio' and a 'Jamal' ready to sign up for the MAGA movement."

But trading 30% of the electorate for 12% seems like a smart move.
Who?mikejones!
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I agree. I think it had greatest effect with those former Trump voters who maybe weren't 100% trump or were considering desantis but would be content going either way
aggie93
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AG
BigBrother said:


https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/22/no-there-was-nothing-desantis-could-have-done-to-beat-trump/

Quote:

Now that Ron DeSantis is no longer a presidential candidate but merely a governor who endorsed Donald Trump, the media are about to misdiagnose his failed bid as a case of bad campaign strategy. Some of the concerns will be real, but to focus on strategy is to miss the forest for the trees. Months of polling trends tell an unmistakable story, and it's more about Trump than DeSantis.
___

As DeSantis entered the race last spring with a surge of momentum, Trump was about to get a mugshot. A month before Trump's first indictment, and three months before DeSantis launched his campaign, the two were separated by about 13 points in RealClearPolitics' polling average. The race really narrowed between DeSantis' impressive reelection in November and the Manhattan grand jury proceedings over Trump in late March. That number actually started to rise just as talk of the indictment rose.

____

Could DeSantis have known this a year ago? By the time he launched, the post-Bragg gap was already widening. He had success and money and support, and voters were open to an alternative. It's easy to second-guess his decision now. Yet with the benefit of hindsight, it's also easy to see the window was closing for reasons that had nothing to do with DeSantis before he even entered the race. He said as much in his departure speech.


This is it in a nutshell. I would also add that many including myself expected that people would tire of the indictments and victimhood narrative for Trump and want to talk about issues and the future. That was a fundamental plank of DeSantis' platform that if Trump is running the election will be about Trump. If not then it will be about Biden's failures and issues. That is still the case but we have decided to have it be about Trump. I also think DeSantis made some tactical errors but fundamentally nothing could overcome that, especially with Fox and the conservative media talking about whatever the fresh outrage was against Trump today and only mentioning DeSantis to talk about polls. He just couldn't get enough oxygen to shift the conversation.

Thus he focused on Ground Game and retail politics to see if he could break through literally one by one in the early states to shift it. It didn't work but I also don't think running more TV ads or going completely nuclear on Trump would have either. At least he did get some benefits out of this. He got a lot of respect from conservatives with his policy positions and campaign and very few true negatives (No, wearing Cowboy boots is not a true negative). He developed relationships with the key players in the early primary states. He showed he is an elite level debater and destroyed the biggest rising star in the Democrat Party. Most of all he is set up for future runs.

Compare that to Ted Cruz for instance who ran a very good campaign in '16 and did far better in terms of votes and delegates in a different environment. Still he made multiple errors that still are a problem for him. 1)He didn't handle the personal attacks from Trump well and looked weak. 2)He made the desperation move of naming Carly Fiorina as his VP that did far more damage than good to him and 3)He didn't endorse Trump at the Convention. That resulted in him almost losing to Beto in '18 and he's still in a tight race this time. It makes it very hard for him to be a serious Presidential candidate again too. I say that as someone who was a HUGE Cruz supporter in '16 (I guess I have a talent for picking guys that lose to Trump, lol).
FireAg
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Agthatbuilds said:

I agree. I think it had greatest effect with those former Trump voters who maybe weren't 100% trump or were considering desantis but would be content going either way
I fully admit that, while I prefer DeSantis's overall policy trackrecord as it relates to my vision for this nation, I have zero issue getting behind Trump because I do believe he has been wrongfully persecuted, and weaponizing the government the go after one man no matter what, no matter how false the charges, is categorically wrong... My vote in November will now be my way of standing against that...
aggie93
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BMX Bandit said:

Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s


Trump and his supporters have a lot of work to do.



Here is the Penn poll btw. Notice the guy we could have had instead of Oz is running tight with the very popular Casey but he was a Cruz guy not a Trump guy so we got Fetterman (who has been far better than we expected but still a Dem). Trump is a drag on the ticket in Penn.


Waffledynamics
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BMX Bandit said:

Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s




Wow, what a shock! Expect to see more and more of this.

I'll happily eat crow if Trump wins in November. I doubt Trump's sycophants will if he loses, though. We're about to see one of the biggest "I told you so" moments in American political history.
Rapier108
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Exactly as I predicted.
Quote:

Polls will now start to shift back to showing Trump losing to Biden or any Democrat. Their job is now done and time to try to make themselves look credible again.
https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3440037/replies/66832741
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
Rapier108
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Waffledynamics said:

BMX Bandit said:

Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s




Wow, what a shock! Expect to see more and more of this.

I'll happily eat crow if Trump wins in November. I doubt Trump's sycophants will, though. We're about to see one of the biggest "I told you so" moments in American political history.
They won't care. They'll just blame "muh fraud" and start preparing for Trump 2028.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
fc2112
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Remember - one day before the 2016 election, polls showed Hillary winning a landslide.
AggieVictor10
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fc2112 said:

Remember - one day before the 2016 election, polls showed Hillary winning a landslide.

Polls only matter if trump is winning.
hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. good times create weak men. and weak men create hard times.

less virtue signaling, more vice signaling.

Birds aren’t real
Lol,lmao
Fjb
Deputy Travis Junior
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For all his baggage, I think Trump has a real chance against Biden. Biden' term has been terrible and his energy and lucidity are cratering. He's made everything worse and he looks and acts like your chain email-forwarding grandpa who lives in a nursing home.

If the democrats do manage to swap in somebody else, and I mean anybody else, it will be a Reagan versus Mondale-esque landslide.
Who?mikejones!
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Who?mikejones!
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Wrong face. That's an encouraging poll
Rapier108
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Agthatbuilds said:

Wrong face. That's an encouraging poll
Wait until the next one, it will likely look more like 2020.

Any poll taken before this weekend is worthless. Now we'll see just how much the polls were gaslighting.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
Who?mikejones!
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It will tighten but we must take into account how unpopular biden actually is
No Spin Ag
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AggieVictor10 said:

fc2112 said:

Remember - one day before the 2016 election, polls showed Hillary winning a landslide.

Polls only matter if trump is winning.


And if Trump loses, again, he and his maga will cry foul, again; but this time they'll point back to these polls saying that it was rigged, because how could he lose if at one point he was ahead in the polls.
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance. Hippocrates
JWinTX
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Pennsylvania is lost no matter what because Philly is used to create ballots and stop certain precincts from accepting voters during key parts of the day. Philly, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Las Vegas are all corrupted.
J. Walter Weatherman
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Agthatbuilds said:

It will tighten but we must take into account how unpopular biden actually is


He's nowhere close to as unpopular as Trump will be once people start paying attention again and see just how much he's lost it.
FireAg
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aggie93 said:

BMX Bandit said:

Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s


Trump and his supporters have a lot of work to do.



Here is the Penn poll btw. Notice the guy we could have had instead of Oz is running tight with the very popular Casey but he was a Cruz guy not a Trump guy so we got Fetterman (who has been far better than we expected but still a Dem). Trump is a drag on the ticket in Penn.



That poll is definitely one to watch, and it is included in the RCP average...current RCP has it factored in and showing the result as Biden +0.6...

Like I said...nothing is certain either way at this point...
AggieVictor10
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No Spin Ag said:

AggieVictor10 said:

fc2112 said:

Remember - one day before the 2016 election, polls showed Hillary winning a landslide.

Polls only matter if trump is winning.


And if Trump loses, again, he and his maga will cry foul, again; but this time they'll point back to these polls saying that it was rigged, because how could he lose if at one point he was ahead in the polls.


Either trump wins or it was rigged.
hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. good times create weak men. and weak men create hard times.

less virtue signaling, more vice signaling.

Birds aren’t real
Lol,lmao
Fjb
Beat40
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FireAg said:

Agthatbuilds said:

I agree. I think it had greatest effect with those former Trump voters who maybe weren't 100% trump or were considering desantis but would be content going either way
I fully admit that, while I prefer DeSantis's overall policy trackrecord as it relates to my vision for this nation, I have zero issue getting behind Trump because I do believe he has been wrongfully persecuted, and weaponizing the government the go after one man no matter what, no matter how false the charges, is categorically wrong... My vote in November will now be my way of standing against that...
How many Trump supporters do you think are supporting Trump for this reason? I am talking about before Iowa.

I've seen this sentiment on this board a fair amount.
Beat40
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Deputy Travis Junior said:

For all his baggage, I think Trump has a real chance against Biden. Biden' term has been terrible and his energy and lucidity are cratering. He's made everything worse and he looks and acts like your chain email-forwarding grandpa who lives in a nursing home.

If the democrats do manage to swap in somebody else, and I mean anybody else, it will be a Reagan versus Mondale-esque landslide.
I think Biden is the only candidate Trump has a shot against, but I believe it's still an uphill battle for Trump against Biden.

I'm going on record I do not think Biden will be the Dem candidate in Nov'24.
FireAg
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AG
Agthatbuilds said:


I think those are fairly indicative of where things stand presently...
FireAg
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Beat40 said:

FireAg said:

Agthatbuilds said:

I agree. I think it had greatest effect with those former Trump voters who maybe weren't 100% trump or were considering desantis but would be content going either way
I fully admit that, while I prefer DeSantis's overall policy trackrecord as it relates to my vision for this nation, I have zero issue getting behind Trump because I do believe he has been wrongfully persecuted, and weaponizing the government the go after one man no matter what, no matter how false the charges, is categorically wrong... My vote in November will now be my way of standing against that...
How many Trump supporters are supporting Trump for this reason? I am talking about before Iowa.

I've seen this sentiment on this board a fair amount.
It is my opinion, and merely a personal opinion, that this sentiment, combined with 2020 buyer's remorse, is something that the Left did not correctly anticipate... I know that many on here have espoused that the Left went to great lengths to keep indicting Trump to sitr up his rabid mouth-frothing sycophant *drink* culist base to get them to push Trump over DeSantis because Trump was easier to beat with Biden...

Again, that, to me, is 2020 thinking... I think the Left has continued chasing Trump in an attempt to paint him as too toxic to vote for, perhaps a "constitutional crisis" just waiting to happen... Why? Trump has been polling better than DeSantis when put head-to-head against Biden for a fair amount of time now...definitely since late Summer/early Fall... So I think if the Left had there preference, they would have preferred a far-right DeSantis vs Biden because it would be very easy to make that contrast, and one of the top issues the Left was going to hammer was going to be DeSantis's 6-week abortion ban...the abortion issue played well for the Left during the 2022 midterms...

I know the popular take for awhile was "Trump can't beat Biden, but DeSantis can!" This is one of those wish-casting things I am referring to...polling has shown clearly for several months that Trump does better vs Biden than DeSantis...

The fact that Trump is polling better with independents, and in the overall, general picture right now is why I am almost expecting Biden to be replaced...I think that's the Left's nuclear plan...
FireAg
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Beat40 said:

Deputy Travis Junior said:

For all his baggage, I think Trump has a real chance against Biden. Biden' term has been terrible and his energy and lucidity are cratering. He's made everything worse and he looks and acts like your chain email-forwarding grandpa who lives in a nursing home.

If the democrats do manage to swap in somebody else, and I mean anybody else, it will be a Reagan versus Mondale-esque landslide.
I think Biden is the only candidate Trump has a shot against, but I believe it's still an uphill battle for Trump against Biden.

I'm going on record I do not think Biden will be the Dem candidate in Nov'24.
If I assume that the Left strategy was to make Trump too toxic to vote for, and that strategy failed (at least so far), then I can't think of another way they can secure the White House for 4 more years...legally anyway...

I know if I were in their shoes, I would tab someone else last minute...

I still think the Newsom/DeSantis debate was a trial balloon for the Left...and they didn't care for the results...
aggie93
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FireAg said:

aggie93 said:

BMX Bandit said:

Wow, who could've possibly ever see this coming /s


Trump and his supporters have a lot of work to do.



Here is the Penn poll btw. Notice the guy we could have had instead of Oz is running tight with the very popular Casey but he was a Cruz guy not a Trump guy so we got Fetterman (who has been far better than we expected but still a Dem). Trump is a drag on the ticket in Penn.



That poll is definitely one to watch, and it is included in the RCP average...current RCP has it factored in and showing the result as Biden +0.6...

Like I said...nothing is certain either way at this point...
Oh you know how much faith I have in polls to begin with and it is WAY too early to get in a twist either way. My main point is the idea that Trump is super popular in some of these states is also overstated and he's going to have a tough time. Philly and Suburban Philly hate him and Pittsburgh isn't much better. That's a lot of votes to make up.
FireAg
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AG
The RCP average prior to this poll factoring in basically had them in a dead heat...that's where I think PA stands right now...on the extreme side maybe +3 Biden, but within the MOE...

This was one of the swing states I was referring to as having a slight lean toward Biden but well south of what I would typically have expected...
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