Day: July 13, 2023

How Trump’s Increasing Craziness Could Throw 2024

Buck Banks

If I were a Republican, I’d be scared shitless about what Trump might do to my party next year. The presidential election won’t be a runaway, because that isn’t how it works anymore. But I’d be very worried that Trump loses all the states he lost in 2020—and by a little more than he lost them the last time—plus maybe North Carolina, which would bump Biden’s Electoral College margin up to 319–219, which in a headline sounds like a rout. And the somewhat higher margins in Arizona, Georgia, et al. would foreclose any serious attempt to cry foul. Swing voters just wouldn’t buy it.

— Michael Tomasky

Murdochs Souring on DeSantis

Buck Banks

“They are transactional and can smell a loser a mile away,” said one Fox insider, to Rolling Stone.

“Since the beginning of the Biden presidency, the powerful Murdoch family has favored the Florida governor in the 2024 presidential primary, largely due to a conviction that DeSantis would be a more electable, and less chaotic, evolution from Donald Trump. But in recent weeks, the Murdochs have grown increasingly displeased with the DeSantis campaign’s perceived stumbles, lackluster polling, and inability to swiftly dethrone Trump. … They have also seriously questioned whether the governor is capable of defeating Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.”

Few U.S. Adults Support Full Abortion Bans

Buck Banks

73%

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 73% of all U.S. adults, including 58% of those in states with the deepest bans, believe abortion should be allowed at six weeks of pregnancy. Overall, about two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, but only about a quarter say it should always be legal and only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal.