Month: July 2023

Consumer Sentiment Hits Two-Year High

Buck Banks

72.6

“U.S. consumer sentiment soared in early July to an almost two-year high, bolstered by easing inflation and a strong labor market,” Bloomberg reports. “The University of Michigan preliminary index rose by 8.2 points to 72.6, the highest since September 2021. The reading topped all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists, and the monthly advance was the largest since 2006.”

Memo: Desperate DeSantis Scrambling to Reassure Donors, Reignite Campaign

Pensito Editors
NBC.com

An internal memo from the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign acquired by NBC News provides a rare insight into the inner workings of the Florida governor’s seven-week-old primary effort.

The document, dated July 6, lays out the campaign’s strategy of doubling down on New Hampshire, postponing spending on Super Tuesday and singling out Tim Scott as the only other candidate besides Donald Trump who DeSantis sees as a threat.

The memo sums up the candidate field as the DeSantis camp sees it this way:

As it has been for the last year, Trump and DeSantis remain the only viable options for two-thirds of the likely Republican primary electorate. While Tim Scott has earned a serious look at this stage, his bio is lacking the fight that our electorate is looking for in the next President. We expect Tim Scott to receive appropriate scrutiny in the weeks ahead. We’ve found low to no interest in Vivek, Burgum, and Nikki while far too many voters will not consider Pence and Christie for them to feel remotely viable.

Overall, the memo, which is called a “friends and family update” reads like a self–pep talk, an eho-chamber attempt to slap some lipstick on a pig of a campaign and make it seem like everything is going according to plan, rather than down the toilet, as the media have largely characterized it.

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.