Someone said presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is a one-man GOP primary focus group, rehashing what they (say they) want. Every point.
It’s true and he will assuredly do better with them than with us. How well and for how long remains to be seen. After all, Donald Trump hates people competing for his spotlight, but Ramaswamy gets a pass for now (so long as he defends and sucks up to him).
Tom Nichols/Atlantic magazine:
The GOP’s Dispiriting Display
The Republican debate was a mess.
Beyond the scorekeeping, however, what the GOP debate showed is that the Republicans, as a party, don’t care very much about policy, that the GOP contenders remain in the grip of moral cowardice, and that Fox News is just as bad, if not worse, than it’s ever been.
As for independents, Ramaswamy didn’t do as well as the talking heads claimed. From Navigator Research:
Independent participants in the dial group saw Nikki Haley as the winner of the first Republican presidential primary debate, as most responded positively to her remarks on climate change, education, and foreign policy. After the debate, most participants felt Nikki Haley won the debate (45 percent), 21 points ahead of Ron DeSantis (24 percent), the second leading candidate. Haley’s favorability rose by 24 points after the debate (from 61 percent favorable to 85 percent favorable), 18 points higher than the next most favorably-viewed candidate, Tim Scott (67 percent favorable post-debate). Haley ranked first among participants in saying she was the candidate who “seems like they care the most about people like you” (42 percent), “would be a good role model to kids” (39 percent), and “would be most able to get things done” (27 percent). When asked which candidates “seem most likely to beat Joe Biden,” participants ratings were more diffuse, with 30 percent saying Ron DeSantis, 27 percent saying Nikki Haley, and a tie between Donald Trump and Chris Christie for third (12 percent each).
Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramswamy were the leading candidates behind Trump entering the debate among Republican primary voters, but were not as well received initially by independent participants in this dial group. DeSantis entered the night with negative opinions among these participants (net -19; 36 percent favorable – 55 percent unfavorable) and Ramaswamy came in as an unknown quantity with only 36 percent having an opinion on him (21 percent favorable – 15 percent unfavorable). By the conclusion of the debate, both candidates had net negative favorability ratings among these participants (each net -10; 45 percent favorable – 55 percent unfavorable).
In any case, Trump remains the likely nominee.
Yahoo News:
Poll: DeSantis’s support collapses ahead of 1st GOP debate
The survey of 1,665 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Aug. 17 to 21, shows that DeSantis’s support among potential GOP primary voters has fallen farther — and faster — over the last few weeks than ever before, plummeting from his previous low of 23% in mid-July to just 12% today.
DeSantis didn’t exactly help himself during the debate, either (see above).
Politico:
GOP’s ‘anti-woke’ campaigns have voters hitting snooze
Polls show little support for attacks on corporations’ handling of environmental and social causes — even among Republicans.
The data comes as candidates who have anchored their campaigns in attacking big business — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — are struggling to gain significant traction against former President Donald Trump, who leads the field by a wide margin in the polls.
GOP pollsters say the recent data shows that many voters on the right, in line with the traditional conservative ideology, don’t want government meddling in business.
Aaron Blake/Washington Post:
Americans aren’t sold on a Biden impeachment inquiry
Most don’t connect Hunter Biden’s problems to the president in the way the GOP has
As for how Americans feel about all of this, we can say a few things:
- They’ve taken a dim view both of Hunter Biden’s actions and of the fairness of the Justice Department’s investigation of him, believing he might be getting special treatment.
- They don’t necessarily see much of a link to the president.
- There appears to be significantly less support for this impeachment inquiry than there was for those involving Donald Trump.
Let’s take each individually.
Isaac Chotiner/New Yorker magazine, interviewing J. Michael Luttig:
The Constitutional Case for Barring Trump from the Presidency
Does the Fourteenth Amendment empower state election officials to remove him from the ballot?
What would be an example of something else that would be self-executing in a constitutional amendment?
The most obvious example, Isaac, is the age requirement in order to become President of the United States. So suppose that someone who was thirty-two years old applied to be on the ballot in a given state, and it was undisputed that that person was thirty-two years old and not thirty-five years old. It would be the Constitution itself that would empower that state election official to disqualify that candidate from the ballot for the Presidency.
Removing someone from the ballot because of the age requirement seems like it would be easy for an official to do without making a judgment call. Someone’s age is an objective fact. Whereas this seems like it calls for state officials to make judgment calls, which could potentially open things up for abuse. Is there a categorical difference there?
There is a categorical difference. There is vastly more judgment entailed in determining whether, for instance, the former President engaged in an insurrection or rebellion than in determining whether a candidate was thirty-five years old. That doesn’t relieve the obligated election official from making that determination. The process for placing individuals on the ballot varies from state to state. But, under our reading of the Fourteenth Amendment, an individual election official could make that decision himself or herself.
Franklin & Marshall Poll Release:
About one in three (30%) registered voters in Pennsylvania believes President Biden is doing an “excellent” or “good” job as president, which is a slight improvement from his April ratings (27%). It is normal for an incumbent’s job approval ratings to start to increase at this point in their first term. President Biden’s current rating is lower than President Trump’s and President Obama’s ratings in Pennsylvania at the same point in their terms. Despite this, he still holds an advantage in a head-to-head matchup against the former president, 42% to 40%, although many voters are looking for an alternative to both candidates.
While 16% want someone else, we’ll see when it comes down to a binary choice. I suspect more than half will break blue and not red.
Note the improving views of the economy, slowly but steadily:
The August 2023 Franklin & Marshall College Poll finds that the state’s registered voters’ feelings about their personal finances are starting to improve, although many remain dissatisfied. About two in five (39%) respondents say they are “worse off” than a year ago, which is down from nearly half (46%) in April, and more say they are “better off” financially than they were last year (15% compared to 11%). Pennsylvania voters remain more pessimistic than optimistic about conditions in the state, but this sentiment has also improved--two in five (39%) registered voters believes the state is “headed in the right direction” which is higher than the one in three (32%) who felt that way in April. Concern about the economy (23%), including unemployment and higher gas and utility prices, continues as the most important and often mentioned problem facing the state.
From Cliff Schecter: