I supported President Trump until January 6, 2021. However, when Trump made it clear that his endgame was urging his supporters to go up to Capitol Hill and “make your voices heard” to urge Vice President Pence to “do[] the right thing” — “[b]ecause if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election” — and reject the certification of the electoral college results, I got off the train. I thought it was a shameful day and said so at the time. Accordingly, I hope Republicans nominate some candidate other than Trump to bear their standard in the 2024 presidential election. That’s where I’m coming from.
I also harbor the thought that Trump’s nomination would lead to practical political misfortune — that Trump may be the only Republican Biden can beat and that Trump would lead Republicans to defeat in otherwise winnable down ballot races. However, it is difficult (difficult for me, anyway) to calculate the behavioral effect of another GOP candidate on Trump supporters. Perhaps we are in an no-win position. Perhaps we should fall back on doing the right thing as we see it.
The AP story on the poll is posted here. The poll was conducted August 10-14, before the Georgia indictment was handed up. The AP story reports: “Overall, 35% of Americans have a favorable view of Trump and 62% unfavorable. Among Republicans, though, seven in 10 view the former president favorably, and about 6 in 10 say they want him to make another run for the White House.”
Lest readers dismiss the poll results out of hand, consider these highly plausible findings:
Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults — 17% — say they have “a great deal” of confidence in the people running the Justice Department. The low level of confidence spans the political spectrum, with just 26% of Democrats, 14% of independents and 7% of Republicans saying they have a great deal of confidence in the federal law enforcement agency. About half of Americans have “only some” confidence in DOJ, while about a third have “hardly any confidence at all.” Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to have hardly any confidence in the Justice Department, 48% to 18%.
Josh Holmes drew my attention to the AP/NORC poll on the site formerly known as Twitter.
Tough general election reality in these numbers for GOP to consider.
35%+ gap in Trump fav between primary and general electorate.
64%(!!) say they definitely or probably would not support Trump in Nov ‘24. 53 definite. https://t.co/bkaSxbiEhM
— Josh Holmes (@HolmesJosh) August 16, 2023
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