https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/26/desantis-drops-ramaswamy-rises-in-polls-00113076
What has changed, and what has stayed the same.
Was it the 2016 GOP primary when a different candidate took a turn leading the polls every few weeks?
Even then it felt like the voters just didn’t like any of the candidates. Feels like the same thing here.
2012 is probably the year you are thinking about. 2016 IIRC Trump took the lead in the fall and it was more of a churn between Bush/Rubio/Cruz for second.
Yes, they're all also rans. This is competition for VP at best. Also a great showcase of how far off the rails the Republican party had become
Vivek is not gonna win even if Trump doesn't run. Why? Cos he's Indian and the GOP base is inherently racist. It's the same reason the Conservatives in the UK have not chance winning an election with Rishi in charge. Simple, really.
That's a bit of an over simplification of Rishis problems. Sure some racists won't vote for him, but some of the Tory base he should have as banker votes won't as he stabbed Boris in the back and the cult of Boris the Bludger doesn't forget. He's also tainted with the shit of the late stage Tories economy, COVID parties, constant expensive fuck ups with small boat immigration/HS2/NHS/schools/etc., and about to open a massive can of worms with the Indian trade deal and freedom of movement. The latter will annoy racists further and anybody working in the sectors about to be opened up
Plus he's absolutely useless in a debate and regularly goes missing when it's time to make public statements
I agree with all that. At the same time, I still think that Rishi would lose an election even without those issues because of his race. A lot of Tories will just stay home, I reckon.
They will stay home because he and the Torys have been monumentally shit for a long time now. If racism was that a big a problem outside the internal Tory party votes for leader (which is a pool of approx. 180k people) then he and other PoC would never get in repeatedly as Tory MPs, either for local selection or local elections.
That's a fair counter point. But there are different stakes between picking a brown MP and a brown PM. It's gonna be easier for a brown Tory MP to win in a safe seat as Rishi did as opposed to winning a general election. The UK is still pretty racist.
I wonder if Desantis freezing had anything to do with it.
🦌💡💡
I could see Trump picking Vivek as his running mate.
But I don't know enough about him to know if he would be a MAGAt guy or not.