Something Feels Off

I acknowledge this is, perhaps, wishful thinking. I acknowledge that going in. But something feels off.

The Republican primary polling shows Donald Trump running away with the race. The general election polls show Joe Biden beating him. Republican voters say they are less interested in beating Biden than voting for someone who agrees with them.

Really?

Something feels off here.

Trump’s fundraising depends on arrests. His expenditures go to lawyers and Ron DeSantis attack ads. No one has attacked Trump on the GOP side from the right, and plenty of attacks exist. More money has been spent attacking DeSantis than all other candidates combined — including against Biden. But DeSantis hangs on as the only other candidate in double digits.

Trump, himself, and his campaign team, behave as if they see something in their own polling that indicts the race is not a sure thing.

Trump’s crowds are smaller. He has less money to fly around and do big events. As a conservative talk radio show host with many pro-Trump listeners, they are far less aggressive than two years ago and more often willing on air to admit they are with Trump in their hearts, but not necessarily in their heads.

The older the voters, the more reticent they are for Trump. Those voters vote more often. But it still feels like something is off.

The other candidates are actually drawing large crowds. Money is flowing to those candidates and not just from the large donors. The enthusiasm for other candidates, particularly DeSantis, rivals that of Trump, and online one is far more likely to find a normal suburban voter who is for DeSantis. Trump’s online crowd consists of many fringe characters like Laura Loomer.

Nikki Haley’s crowds are growing in New Hampshire and even in her home state of South Carolina. Suddenly, people are coming out and taking crowded rooms and turning them into overflow capacity crowds.

Trump, in the South, is still dominant. But Iowa and New Hampshire come first, and momentum can shift. In a two-man race, it is much closer between DeSantis and Trump. It is not a two-man race, but I fail to see how long a Hurd, Hutchinson, Elder, or Burgum can stay in. Christie and Haley divide New Hampshire from DeSantis and perhaps help Trump. Iowa, like in 2016, will be a struggle for Trump.

I suppose he can rebound in South Carolina and Nevada, but are we sure?

Yes, absolutely, if the election were tomorrow, Trump would be the GOP nominee and probably both lose to Joe Biden and cost the GOP some otherwise likely Senate races. Biden and the Democrats will rebound, and Trump voters will blame everyone else like they did in 2020. It is foreseeable. But the election is not tomorrow.

Trump can win, but the odds are worse than other candidates, and the money needed will be so tremendous that it deprives the GOP of down-ballot funding for the House, Senate, Governors, and state legislatures.

But for now, however, I do wonder how many people are talking to pollsters with their hearts while assessing, with their heads, what they must do to beat Biden.

I know too many Republicans who won’t vote for Trump in 2024 under any circumstance. In fact, I dare say there are more of those than there are Trump voters who are only Trump.

If the GOP moves past Trump, it makes every win easier. If the GOP does not, gravity weighs the party down further. I just must wonder if the party, particularly its fifty and older crowd that claims to care so much about their grandchildren’s future, is as invested in Trump as they tell pollsters.

Both parties — after all, we cannot ignore how much voters disdain Biden as well — seem intent on putting their worst foot forward, insisting that everyone will like it or else.

But is that really true? Are the polls measuring support reflective in ballots or just in passions that won’t translate to ballots?

We are in a political realignment, and every voter, myself included, will be forced to feel uncomfortable with portions of their party and its candidates. But I still struggle with the idea that the two men a majority of Americans say are not fit to lead the nation will be their parties’ nominees. Something just feels off about the dynamics and polling right now. Or maybe we are all in a national suicide pact and have chosen the bullet.

Perhaps we’ll get Stolen Election 2024 and more indictments to follow. That’ll help Trump’s 2028 fundraising, for sure.