A General thread for 2024 Presidential Elections

[Volkonski]

So, what is Ramaswamy's position on eating beef? Some Hindus do, others don't.

America needs to know.

[raison de arizona]

So, what is Ramaswamy's position on eating beef? Some Hindus do, others don't.

America needs to know.

He's a vegetarian.

► Show Spoiler

[Volkonski]

A vegetarian! Like all those left wing liberals who won't drink meat-based beer which is what god intended men to drink?

[RTH10260]

Lets see the video clip where he goes shopping for crudités ...

[bob]

538: Why A Third-Party Candidate Might Help Trump — And Spoil The Election For Biden:

We don’t need to have major-party presidential nominees to have a conversation about a third-party spoiler candidate affecting the 2024 presidential election. Faced with the prospect of a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, at least two alternatives have already emerged: The bipartisan No Labels organization is working toward fielding a centrist presidential ticket, while Cornel West, a well-known public intellectual and political progressive, has launched a bid for the Green Party’s nomination.

* * *

Since late May, five surveys have tested potential nominees for the No Labels ticket or West’s Green Party candidacy.

In each poll’s head-to-head matchup, Biden either held a small lead over Trump or the two were tied. But when pollsters added in West or a hypothetical No Labels candidate — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland — Trump gained a little ground and usually took the lead.

* * *

Nevertheless, these early polls demonstrate how a third-party option could affect the election and potentially boost Trump in a rematch against Biden. Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario using the 2020 election. Biden won the national popular vote by about 4.5 percentage points, but he carried Wisconsin — the “tipping-point state” that gave him a majority in the Electoral College — by just under 1 point. We can’t know precisely how a national swing to the right of the magnitude found in these early surveys might’ve played out in each individual state, but suffice it to say that a shift of 1 to 2 points in margin toward the GOP could have handed Trump victory via the electoral votes in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all of which were decided by margins under 1.2 points. Given that recent presidential elections have been close — we live in an era of intense partisanship in a pretty evenly divided country where five of the past six had a national popular vote margin smaller than 5 points — there’s ample evidence to suggest that 2024 will be another close election, by historical standards.

* * *

[Ryan Clancy, No Labels’s chief strategist,] cited Ross Perot’s campaign in 1992 as precedent for how No Labels hopes to broadly appeal to the electorate. Back then, exit polls suggested Perot’s voters would’ve split evenly between incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, and around one-fifth would’ve voted for a different third party or wouldn’t have voted at all.

* * *

While No Labels understandably pointed to the Perot example, a potential centrist ticket isn’t guaranteed to take roughly the same from each major party. In the 1980 election between Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan, moderate independent John Anderson won roughly 7 percent nationally and may have cost Carter victory in some Northeastern states, as the ABC News exit poll suggested Anderson’s supporters would’ve split for Carter 49 percent to 38 percent over Reagan. To be sure, Anderson didn’t “spoil” the election for Carter (Reagan won easily), but he did take more from one side and likely affected the outcome in a few states.

And two other third-party contenders from the past 60 years also attracted a disproportionate share of voters who might have otherwise supported one major party in close elections. In the extremely tight 2000 election, one study estimated that 60 percent of Green Party nominee Ralph Nader’s nearly 100,000 voters in Florida might’ve preferred Democrat Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush, which would’ve probably flipped the decisive state — and the election overall — from Bush to Gore. And in 1968, Republican Richard Nixon won while only edging Democrat Hubert Humphrey by less than 1 point in the popular vote, even as independent segregationist George Wallace won roughly 14 percent nationally and carried five Southern states. Yet Nixon might’ve had a more comfortable victory had Wallace not run: Gallup’s pre-election polling found voters who backed Wallace strongly preferred Nixon to Humphrey.

Early 2024 polls demonstrate how, in a close election, third-party campaigns from the center and left could potentially help Trump against Biden. Of course, other scenarios could also drastically alter the electoral environment. For instance, if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were to win the GOP nomination, a May poll from Ipsos/Reuters found that Biden would be primed to easily defeat DeSantis if Trump — who has not agreed to sign a pledge to back the eventual GOP nominee — ran as a third-party candidate and split the Republican vote. We are still months away from having a firmer idea about how third parties might shake up the 2024 race — but they definitely could.

[raison de arizona]

Ramaswamy: “I would negotiate a deal that ends the Ukraine war. Freeze the current lines of control. Yes, that means giving part of the Donbas region to Russia. I would make a hard commitment that NATO never admits Ukraine…”

[Dave from down under]

This message was brought to you on behalf of the Kremlin.

[pipistrelle]

Yeah, really. Russia is the unwarranted aggressor. Our would-be "dear leaders" keep treating Ukraine like the set piece villain for being invaded.

[Grumpy Git]

As I'm a foreigner, there's elements of your presidential elections that I haven't quite grasped yet, so I may have some questions for you boffins over the coming months, starting with this topic.

When some of these GOP wannabe candidates inevitably drop out of the race, what happens to the unspent funds they raised? Do large donors get some kind of partial refund or do the candidates have creative accountants who miraculously show that no donations were unspent?

[bob]

When some of these GOP wannabe candidates inevitably drop out of the race, what happens to the unspent funds they raised? Do large donors get some kind of partial refund or do the candidates have creative accountants who miraculously show that no donations were unspent?

When not creatively spending, like hiring a spouse to "consult," funds could be transferred to a different committee, including one you own, control, or intend to use for a future campaign.

The latter could be an indirect partial refund.

[bob]

538: The Creative Fundraising Tactics Some Republicans Are Using To Make The Debate Stage.

Executive summary: Some of the lesser Republican candidates are spending money to increase their number of unique donors. Figuring it is a loss leader that'll pay dividends after the debates.

[Ben-Prime]

538: The Creative Fundraising Tactics Some Republicans Are Using To Make The Debate Stage.

Executive summary: Some of the lesser Republican candidates are spending money to increase their number of unique donors. Figuring it is a loss leader that'll pay dividends after the debates.

It's what my counterparts in 20+ other regional workforce boards of the State of Florida and i -- the data analysts measuring staff and vendor performance in these regions to report back to the State-level board -- called the Rule of Unattended [sic[ Consequences: "What gets measured gets gamed."

[RTH10260]

Biden raised nearly as much money as all the Republican candidates combined, showing the power of the somebody-other-than-Trump vote

Cork Gaines
Mon, July 17, 2023 at 10:04 PM GMT+2

• Biden continued his impressive fundraising with $72 million in the second quarter.
  That is nearly as much as all the Republican candidates combined despite his low approval numbers.
  This could be a sign that many voters are willing to support Biden just to keep Trump from winning.

President Joe Biden's approval numbers are still in the tank, but that hasn't hurt his campaign fundraising for the 2024 election.

In the second quarter of 2023, Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised $72 million for his reelection campaign. That was more than twice the amount of top Republican candidate Donald Trump and nearly as much as the entire GOP field combined ($75 million).

This haul comes in the same quarter Biden made his reelection campaign official, which likely helped to boost the total. However, it also comes when Biden's approval numbers are still hovering near 40%, the lowest level in a year.

While the numbers are a big win for Biden and the Democrats, the sizeable haul could say more about the strength of the somebody-other-than-Trump vote than anything. Trump not only fell way behind Biden in fundraising this quarter but was also being outpaced by the rest of the Republican field ($40 million to $35 million in the second quarter).

As Republican candidates start to fall out, the real question will become how many of these donors are some-other-Republican-besides-Trump voters and how many are truly anybody-but-Trump voters? In an opinion column for The Washington Post, conservative commenter George Will said he believes that eventually, a non-Trump, non-Ron DeSantis candidate will emerge out of the GOP field. He called both Trump and DeSantis "brittle" and described Trump as "stale as a month-old crust of sourdough."



https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-raised ... 05607.html
(original: INSIDER)

[Suranis]

If it was the power of the "Someone other than Trump" vote rather than their poll aggregates being wrong (AGAIN) wouldn't the other repub candidates be soaking in Cash?

[raison de arizona]

If it was the power of the "Someone other than Trump" vote rather than their poll aggregates being wrong (AGAIN) wouldn't the other repub candidates be soaking in Cash?

Someone other than a Republican?

[raison de arizona]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Way to go, Asa!

[raison de arizona]

Vivek Ramaswamy says the debate stage is central to his plans to surpass former president Trump and Gov. DeSantis to win the Republican nomination.

More: https://trib.al/0zcpLzo

[AndyinPA]

I actually got an email from him today. Quickly deleted it, but if I see one again, will report it as spam.

[RTH10260]

Never Trumpers get ‘brutal wake-up call’ as Republican candidates flounder
With the first caucuses six months away, the former president’s campaign is still going strong despite his various legal problems

David Smith in Washington
Mon 24 Jul 2023 06.00 BST

For Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, there were boos and chants of “Trump! Trump!”. For Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, there were jeers and cries of “Traitor!” And perhaps most tellingly, there was no Florida governor Ron DeSantis at all.

The recent Turning Point USA conference brought thousands of young conservatives to Florida and there was no doubting the main attraction: former president Donald Trump, who made a glitzy entrance accompanied by giant stage sparklers. In a less than rigorous poll, 86% of attendees gave Trump as their first choice for president; DeSantis, who polled 19% last year, was down to 4%.

Events and numbers like this are cause for sleepless nights among those Republican leaders and donors desperate to believe it would be different this time. The Never Trump forces bet heavily on DeSantis as the coming man and the premise that Trump’s campaign would collapse under the weight of myriad legal problems.

But six months away from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, none of it seems to be working. DeSantis’s campaign is flailing and leaving some with buyers’ remorse. Hutchinson and Chris Christie, outspoken Trump critics, are polling in single digits, sowing doubts about voters’ appetite for change. Never Trumpers have reason to fear that his march to the Republican nomination may already be unstoppable.

“They’re experiencing a brutal wake-up call that the party is not interested in hearing critiques of Trump,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign. “The Trump challengers’ candidacies have been astonishingly poor and learned nothing from 2016. When the leading candidate gets indicted and all of his opponents besides Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson just echo his fake persecution complex talking points, it’s going to be hard to beat him.”



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... g-desantis

[raison de arizona]

Well that went over like a led zepplin.

IMG_5457.png (269.27 KiB) Viewed 5537 times

https://www.threads.net/@accountablegop ... QwaJVAWtZ/

[RTH10260]

Trump's rivals let GOP voters believe he's a winner — and it's coming back to bite them

Alex Seitz-Wald
Sat, July 29, 2023 at 2:00 PM GMT+2

Donald Trump’s primary rivals have had a hard time convincing GOP voters that they’d be more electable than the indicted former president — but they may, at least in part, have themselves to blame for it.

Most of the 2024 candidate field has spent the past two and half years validating or turning a blind eye to Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, priming the Republican base to believe that Trump is a proven winner against President Joe Biden. Now they have only a few months to try to undo that perception but appear reluctant to press the case.

“A lot of these GOP primary contenders are paying the price of enabling Trump throughout the course of the last three years,” said former Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Trump critic. “The best way to beat him is by ... showing that Trump and his movement have been rejected in general elections three times in a row. But you don’t hear [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis or the other candidates speaking to voters in this way. It’s impossible to defeat someone by following them.”

Trump, of course, has obsessively promoted conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him — a falsity that crystalized into fact among many Republican voters after it went mostly unchallenged for years by most of the party's leaders.

Numerous polls show a majority or large plurality of Republican voters believe Biden won in 2020 only through cheating. And if those voters believe that Trump effectively beat Biden once, they may be more likely to believe he’s the best candidate to do it again.

“If Trump didn’t really lose then why should GOP voters look for someone else who is a winner?” Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist who has since broken with the party over Trump, said. “Trump set this trap for his opponents and they all have walked right into it.”

A new Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found that 69% of GOP voters said Trump is either “definitely” (45%) or “probably” (24%) the strongest candidate against Biden in next November's general election. Fewer than one third said another candidate would be stronger. And only 13% said another candidate would "definitely" be stronger.

Polls of key early voting states paint a similar picture.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-rival ... 00524.html
(original: NBC News)

[Slim Cognito]

[RTH10260]

[bob]

"For completeness," the eight are: Burgum, Christie, DeSantis, Haley, Pence, Ramaswamy, Scott, and maybe the coward.