Former President Donald Trump, I love—I mean, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but at least half of your followers have grown cold on you. Sorry, but, just like so many men before them, they want a new and younger version of you.
They want someone to take the party to an even darker and more racist place where there are police election units and book bans, and saying the word “gay” and teaching the actual history of America (including slavery) doesn’t happen. They want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to lead them. Bye, Felicia.
According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, 64% of Republican voters under 35 years old and 65% of Republicans with a college degree said they’d vote against Trump. The New York Times reports that one in five respondents said they were sick of his whining about losing the election, saying he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.” That said, cultists gonna be cultists, and 49% of those polled overall said they would support Trump in a third nomination.
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DeSantis seems to be the popular boy at the GOP dance right now, with support from 25% of all respondents and 32% of Republicans with a college degree.
It’s not just his voters who are considering taking a little break and getting some space away from Trump. His party has also lost faith—particularly around his announcing a run before the midterm elections.
The GOP is praying Trump will wait until after the midterms to declare his candidacy, hoping they can flip the House and Senate and get the seats they desperately need to dominate both chambers of Congress.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota told Politico, “The political landscape and environment is favorable. And I think the fewer disruptions, obviously, the better… Anything you have that takes you off of what your message is, or creates distractions, is obviously something you’d have to adapt to.” And by distractions and disruptions, he’s obviously pointing the finger at the numerous investigations into Trump’s involvement in the insurrection on Jan. 6 and his meddling in the 2020 elections.
But according to reporting from Daily Kos staff writer Kerry Eleveld, “the most convincing sign that Trump is losing some of his swagger comes from the latest Focus Group podcast hosted by never-Trumper and The Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell.”
Longwell focused on “two groups of Trump voters: those who voted for him twice, and what Longwell calls ‘reverse-flippers,’ or those who voted against Trump in 2016 but decided they liked what they saw enough to switch to voting for him in 2020,” Eleveld writes.
"In both of these focus groups, for the first time ever, I had two focus groups back-to-back where not a single person thought Donald Trump should run again,” Longwell said.
One of the “reverse-flippers” openly rejected the idea of Trump running for the GOP again:
"I think in the Republican Party there are other better candidates that should run, and I feel like Trump running, it will just dilute and put a bad taste in people's mouth,” the voter said. “Now if he wants to go run independent, like, sure, whatever—go do your thing cuz I guess you can. But the Republican Party should move on, turn the page, and go focus on a better candidate cuz there are better candidates out there."
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