Lawmakers and voters on both sides of the aisle are hoping for new options.
Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday a 2024 matchup between President Biden and former president Donald Trump would be “really the worst scenario.”
Voters and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to agree.
Seventy percent of Americans said they do not want to see Biden run for reelection in 2024, according to a new CNBC All-America Economic Survey. Respondents cited the 80-year-old president’s age as a cause for concern in weighing whether he should pursue a second term. Just 19 percent of respondents said they would support another Biden run.
Even 57 percent of Democratic respondents said they do not want Biden to run for reelection. Eighty-six percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents agreed.
In Trump’s case, 61 percent of respondents said he should not run in 2024, while 30 percent said they would support another bid. Thirty-seven percent of Republicans said they do not want Trump to run, as did 61 percent of independents and 88 percent of Democrats.
Meanwhile, a progressive group has launched a television ad in New Hampshire urging Biden not to run for reelection as part of its “Don’t Run Joe” campaign. Biden has previously suggested he plans to run again in 2024 but has not formally announced a bid.
“We can’t afford to risk the White House to a Republican who can defeat status quo Joe,” another voter adds in the RootsAction ad.
The voters claim “our ideas are way more popular than Joe Biden is” and call for action on the “climate emergency,” bringing universal health care to the U.S., and protecting “abortion rights.”
Still, some Democrats are worried an intraparty battle over the nomination could increase the odds of another Trump term in office.
“We’re all scared to death of letting our idiosyncrasies open the door to an authoritarian movement,” Representative Colin Allred (D., Texas) told Politico.
On the Republican side, Hutchinson explained his “worst scenario” comment by telling the Associated Press: “That’s almost the scenario that Biden wishes for. And that’s probably how he got elected the first time. It became, you know, a binary choice for the American people between the challenges that we saw in the Trump presidency, particularly the closing days, versus Biden, who he made it that choice.”
The outgoing 72-year-old governor said he will make a decision early next year on whether he will run for president himself. He dismissed concerns that a crowded primary field could lead to Trump once again winning the nomination, as it did in 2016.
In October, Hutchinson hosted an ideas summit that featured former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as its keynote speaker. The summit, which featured talks from experts on the economy, education, and “other challenges facing our country,” seemed to be an attempt by Hutchinson to wade into national politics.
Former president Mike Pence also told Fox News this week that he thinks “we’ll have better choices in 2024” than Trump. Pence himself is widely considered a possible contender and said the response to his new memoir has been a “great source of encouragement as we think about the way forward and what our calling might be in the future.”
Other Republicans seemed to begin paving the way for a future Republican Party without Trump.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.) told CNN he rejects “the premise that [Trump is] the leader of the Republican Party.” He suggested Republicans could move away from his influence. Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) told Politico that Trump’s run “shouldn’t deter anybody else from running.”
A number of one-time Trump allies have yet to endorse the 45th president’s new bid, Politico notes, including House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, and Arkansas governor-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Senator Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.) told the outlet he’s “still not convinced he’s all-in” in explaining why some Trump allies have yet to voice their support. “Losing another election could be very damaging to his pride. It’s all so unsettled,” he said of Trump’s future.
Yet some Republicans, like Democrats, have voiced concern about intraparty turmoil that could split the vote and lead to a Biden win if the party fails to coalesce around one strong candidate.
“I can imagine a Trump–anti-Trump war over the next two years that just guarantees Biden’s re-election in a landslide and guarantees that Democrats control everything,” former speaker Newt Gingrich told the New York Times.
Thus far Florida governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as the leading non-Trump Republican candidate. In one recent poll, he appeared as the leading candidate — period.
DeSantis led both Biden and Trump in their respective hypothetical 2024 matchups in a new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today. The same poll had Biden leading Trump in a hypothetical contest.
“With Republicans, what we’ve been seeing is candidates who are strong in a primary but weak in a general or the other way around, but DeSantis is a double-barrel shotgun,” Suffolk pollster David Paleologos told NBC News. “DeSantis’ support spans many columns and crosstabs, and that includes Trump voters and lots of them are anti-vax.”
DeSantis placed himself to the right of Trump on the issue of vaccines this week when he announced plans to empanel a grand jury to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” involving Covid-19 vaccines in the state. DeSantis did not elaborate on what “wrongdoing” the grand jury would investigate and most health officials agree that the Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are safe and effective at preventing serious illness or death from Covid-19.
Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone spoke out against the announcement, telling NBC News:
“Prior to this, his position was identical to Trump’s, and he advocated the efficiency and safety of vaccines. That’s his record.”
Another unnamed Trump adviser said: “This is a shot across the bow. We know exactly what Ron is up to.”
“The fact is, we’ve seen this coming for a year, ever since Ron started to get anti-vax,” the adviser added. “Yes, there’s a portion of our base that is anti-vax and some people could walk away from Trump over it. That’s why Ron is doing it. It’s so transparent.”
Another unnamed Republican defended the governor, telling NBC, “This isn’t about 2024. This is about what DeSantis believes in.”
Around NR
• Dan McLaughlin offers context on that USA Today/Suffolk University poll that has DeSantis trouncing Trump:
This particular poll comes from a reputable pollster: Suffolk was rated B+ by FiveThirtyEight entering 2022, and nailed the outcome of this year’s contested Senate races. The poll is still probably at least something of an outlier.
A newsworthy result, nonetheless, he concludes.
• “Whatever political instincts Trump once had, they appear to have deteriorated. Severely,” Jim Geraghty writes. Trump’s behavior since formally announcing his 2024 bid has hardly shown he is in it to win it:
He hasn’t held any other events or rallies, he hasn’t given any other major addresses, he hasn’t unveiled any major new policy proposals. No, apparently the only thing he’s doing is hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and raging about whatever irks him at any given moment on his Truth Social app. At this point, it seems fair to ask just what Donald Trump wants to do with his time. He says he wants the nomination, but right now he seems to expect a coronation, not a hard-fought contest.”
• McLaughlin says the “Open Liberal Rooting for Trump Has Begun”:
When your political enemies tell you whom they fear and whom they don’t, you should listen. Democrats, liberals, and progressives do not fear Trump. They are terrified that he will go away. Republican primary voters should think long and hard about that.
• The revelation that Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema has swapped her party affiliation from Democrat to independent “could shake up what was already shaping up to be the most interesting and consequential Senate race of 2024,” John McCormack says, explaining that the race is one to watch because “a Democratic purge of Sinema and victory in the general election are essential for Democrats hoping to nuke the legislative filibuster in 2025.”
Nuking the legislative filibuster is a necessary first step for Democrats hoping to pass sweeping federal legislation on abortion, voting, immigration, statehood for the District of Columbia — thereby handing themselves two extra Senate seats — and more.