We'll have to wait and see what 3rd party candidates look like next year, but it does feel like they're going to play a very prominent role in 2024 if it's Biden vs Trump again, as this matchup is polling very poorly.

No Labels looks ready to nominate someone (Manchin and Hogan are being considered) if Trump becomes the Republican candidate. And Cornel West announced his third party candidacy for the Green Party nomination this week.

I suspect DeSantis current flailing won’t get better in debates. I wouldn’t be surprised if the anti-Trump de jour changes frequently when they starts like in 2012 election when they talked themselves into guys like Gingrich and Cain for a few weeks at a time.

Hard to not see Trump as the nominee at this point. If the GOP really wanted to challenge him they’d unite behind one guy

DeSantis is going to get steamrolled at the debates.

I would hope he realizes, or has a team who is willing to tell him without getting fired, but he's going to get hammered by everyone. Trump will hit him for being his biggest rival right now. And everyone else is going to hit him for the same reason in hopes of taking his spot to become that single "other" option vs Trump.

He looked visibly emotional when Charlie Crist of all people was taking some shots at him in their debate(s). How's he going to react when Trump is calling him names and everyone else is attacking his policies and such on the national stage?

And DeSantis is doing nothing to help his case. In fact, his quest to be far-right of the far-right for the sake of it is causing those who were considering him an alternative to Trump to sour on him. Some of his "campaign" videos are just to spew hateful messaging and nothing more. He's trying to appeal to a single group of voters with seemingly no attempt to broaden his appeal. His polling hasn't improved a point, and I'll have to check, but he may have even lost some ground this summer. Peaking prior to even announcing your campaign is never good.

The worst thing that can happen is if his answers seemed rehearsed and canned like when Rubio self destructed, this would make the Trump voters turn on him as another establishment politician, and he's not going to win back the actual Romney type voters.

DeSantis in 2021 appeared to be the sane level-headed version of Trump when his polling was at an all time low. Now that his brand is the anti-woke culture warlord, he has put a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. Don’t let the Internet Elites on YouTube and the swarms of comment section spammers fool you, his war on Disney made him super unpopular with those not right of Trump.

His abortion bill sealed his fate. No anti-abortion candidate will ever get elected on the national stage going forward. Trump rightly understands this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVm-yBmBTqQ

The article was paywalled so maybe just click bait, but seeing the headline "Trump plans to expand presidential power over agencies in 2025" is worrying. Feels like were all about to be Padmes, watching the galactic senate cheer for the death of liberty.

And speaking of memes I don't feel like creating, Putin is the black guy rubbing his hands together right now. Just needs to hold out a bit longer. That fight is gonna end very quickly when America switches its resources to the other side.

Now he is praising Xi for the way he "runs 1.5 billion people with an iron fist."

But a few years ago when I said Republicans were trying to turn the country into China everyone called me nuts.

McConnell looks awful.

Predictit odds for GOP nom

Trump - 57 cents
Ramaswamy - 17
DeSantis - 15
Scott - 11
Youngkin - 5

Probably inaccurate, but embarrassing for DeSantis to be below Ramaswamy, I think he was ahead of Trump at one point. Youngkin would've been the perfect guy to replace DeSantis as #2 but he looks like he'll play it smart and try for 2028 with a clean slate. I'll say Scott ends up settling into 2nd on there.

Democrats

Biden - 66
Newsom - 21
RFK Jr - 8
Harris - 6
Buttigieg - 2

America: We don't want to be lead by senile men anymore

Also America: Lets have two 80 year old dudes be the only choices for our leader.

DeSantis falling below 20% in the last four or five polls is pretty rough, to say the least. His average has fallen to 18%.

Going from high 20s/low 30s before even announcing to mid/high teens after 2 months after announcing is definitely not what you want to see as the primaries near. (Yeah, still a while away, but you want to remain stable or trend upward as time goes.)

He's defined his character and campaign in such a way too that it's going to be hard to reverse course because he risks losing that extremist support by looking too soft or whatever. But sticking with this strategy is clearly not going to work, so... he pretty much needs a miracle, in my opinion.

This is great, too (at getting him away). Momentum is everything in politics, and he had it late 2022/early 2023, but he's fumbled it drastically. It's very hard to regain it again, and after his term as Governor is up in 2026, I'm willing to bet he fades away. Maybe he'll try for the Presidency again 2028 or 2032, but with no high profile position to run from and what's turning into a rather epic flop of a 2024 campaign, he could just be ignored.

Of course, this likely means Trump is running for a third freakin' cycle, so that's going to be exhausting. Spending a minimum of 8 years, probably more, of him always in the daily news is ridiculous. One person dominating the news for up to a decade or more is just insane and shouldn't have happened.

That’s Trump for ya. He loves the attention.

It’s very bizarre being a Republican, seeing these poll numbers, and yet not knowing a single other Republican who is voting for Trump in the primary. Every Republican I know personally is sick of him and wish he’d go away lol.

It does seem like the Disney thing killed Desantis’ primary momentum.

Trump should go all in and make Vince McMahon his VP. The rallys with both of them cutting promos would be wild.

Ramsawamy response to Trump indictment was so much better than DeSantis. Maybe it's not crazy that he could be "#2". Trump currently in the lab working on the nickname.

Power rankings for most likely Republican nominee

1. Donald Trump
2. Vivek Ramaswamy
3. Ron DeSantis
4. Tim Scott
5. Glenn Youngkin (Not running but him hiding it until after Virginia Senate race and then trying to come in like Million Dollar Baby is at least more plausible than others who've said no)
6. Nikki Haley
7. Mike Pence
8. Chris Christie

More like

1. Donald Trump
2. Donald Trump
3. Donald Trump
4. Donald Trump
5. Donald Trump
6. Donald Trump
7. Donald Trump
8. Donald Trump

The polling so far this week is brutal for DeSantis. One even had him under 10% (8%). Ramaswamy, on the other hand, appears to on an upward trend. Not much of one, but he's inching closer to 10% (one poll even has him at 12%).

The first debate is going to be huge for DeSantis. If he does anything less than stellar, he's going to be in real trouble since he'll likely be forced to scale his campaign back considerably.

And this Newsom debate he's interested in is ridiculous, IMO. Why is he, a presidential candidate, wanting to debate a governor who isn't running for president? To try and "stick it to the libs?" Well, that's unlikely to happen for one (I've watched two of DeSantis' debates and he's not great), but second it's a huge distraction from his presidential campaign. Newsom has nothing to lose here, and if he would do well, it'd just make him a more prominent name for a future presidential run.

DeSantis is always slowest to respond to Trump indictments, it's like he needs a day for his team to come up with statement for him instead of being able to give the sense it's his authentic opinion

Anyone watch the debate?

Vivek got treated as the "frontrunner" (in this case for non Trump status) in that the other guys like Pence and Christie were going after him, not DeSantis. He kind of seems like a car salesman though and I think Christie comparing him to Obama landed. DeSantis yelling delivery was like his handlers told him to show emotion in a way that felt robotic/inauthentic and it's clear he can only say rehearsed stuff and not argue on the fly. Haley was pretty impressive I think and did a good job finding a way to criticize Trump on legit (non indictment) things like adding to the debt and that he's too disliked to win, but some of her neocon positions are probably not popular enough with Republicans compared to Ramaswamy. Pence and Christie did decent arguing with him but weak otherwise imo. Scott - boring, the Burgum guy seemed decent for one of the 2 who cares guys. Winners: Ramaswamy and Haley.

Considering the target audience were Republicans, I think your arguments are spot on Shack. Haley and Ramaswamy were the clear cut winners and Pence a distant third. Any other interpretation is establishment bullshit.

Christy lost. Which is disappointing. He’s the one who hyped up this debate the most, but folded when given the chance to attack Trump. He couldn’t even say he’d stand against Trump if convicted. He had a chance to turn the tide against Trump here, but failed miserably.

I agree Haley has given Republicans the same pick that DeSantis was suppose to be before he decided to fling himself into the Culture Wars. His choice to play it safe here weakens himself more than it helps, and he is all but cooked.

I read that there were boos anytime one of the candidates dared criticize their God-Emperor?

Remember when Bloomberg paid people to do that for him at the democratic debate? What a mess.