Republican voters have been doing their own research on twice-impeached, thrice-indicted Donald Trump, and the more they think about it, the more they like what they see.
In polls and focus groups alike, Trump is just "so dominant,” as Sarah Longwell, host of “The Focus Group” podcast, noted after conducting two focus groups of repeat Trump voters on the heels of new criminal indictments over the fake electors scheme to steal the 2020 election.
Republican voters "almost universally" think Trump was a fantastic president, including those who like Trump but think the party should move on, according to Longwell.
"It is taken as faith that Donald Trump was a great president who did great things for this country, who did a great job," Longwell said on ”The Next Level Podcast” this week.
Sure enough, Trump's favorables are actually ticking up in Civiqs tracking, though he remains nearly 20 points underwater at 37% favorable, 56% unfavorable. Trump's rising fortunes, indictments be damned, are most pronounced among independent voters, where he's netted 7 points since his first criminal indictment dropped in March. At the time, he stood at 33% favorable, 57% unfavorable while he currently sits at 37%-54%.
Trump also continues to dominate the national aggregate by some 40 points over his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently fired his campaign manager in yet another campaign shakeup.
Unfortunately for DeSantis, he can't fire himself as he flames out in both national and statewide surveys alike. Perhaps the most brutal tell comes from Longwell's focus groups over the last couple weeks. After participants were asked to offer up their second choice beyond Trump, not a single person mentioned DeSantis. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy each netted several mentions.
But it gets better. When specifically asked about DeSantis as an alternative, one voter offered that he “might be deep state."
Brutal.
Okay, the caveat remains that early states matter and disruptions can still ensue, but DeSantis' Iowa and New Hampshire polling aren't looking any better than his national outlet. As one Daily Kos reader noted this week, John McCain came back to life from a near-death experience in the 2008 cycle. In fact, McCain actually thrived while mixing it up with voters in his post-shakeup bare-bones operation, but DeSantis is no McCain.
As Longwell surmised, "You cannot beat something with nothing and nothing is what this field is giving you."
To the extent there is a next man up, it's likely Scott, who's running third in Iowa and generally competing with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in New Hampshire. Unlike DeSantis, Scott is gaining ground, not losing it. But given the entire GOP field's relative weakness to Trump, it's hard not to view the contest as more of a veepstakes exercise at this point.
Trump is certainly playing that card in an attempt to neutralize anyone he views as a potential threat, no matter how distant. In an interview earlier this week with the right-wing outlet Newsmax, Trump praised both Scott and Ramaswamy for having "been very nice."
In other words: Stay in your lane, boys, and you might be in the running for vice president.
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