Tag: Ron DeSantis

Haley v. Trump

The AP has called the New Hampshire Republican primary for Donald J. Trump. But Nikki Haley's campaign says she will not drop out of the GOP presidential nomination race no matter the results. Be sure to read Stephen Macaulay's column calling out Trump's dog-whistle on Haley's ethnic background, "Teach Your Children Well", by clicking on The Gray Area at the top of this page.

TUESDAY 1/23/24

Trump Edges Up -- With 16% of the vote in, Trump has 54.2% of the vote to Haley's 44.9% the AP reports.

Early New Hampshire Returns -- With 8% of the Republican primary vote in, Donald J. Trump leads with 52.8% of the vote, to Nikki Haley's 46.6% of the vote, according to the Associated Press. Though he has already withdrawn from the race, Ron DeSantis nabbed 0.6%.

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On to South Carolina -- Nikki Haley will not drop out of the GOP presidential race even if she loses New Hampshire to Donald J. Trump by double-digits, Mark Harris, lead strategist for the pro-Haley super PAC SFA Funds Inc. told reporters at the Manchester expo center Tuesday.

"I think turnout is trending in the direction we need it to be so we're optimistic about tonight," Harris said, per The Washington Post. "But regardless we're on to South Carolina tomorrow morning."

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Haley Takes Early Lead – Nikki Haley had a 6-0 lead shortly after midnight Tuesday over Donald J. Trump in the New Hampshire primary. All six registered voters in Dixville Notch voted for the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor when the town opened its polls briefly, NPR reports. New Hampshire’s 221 towns are required to open polls from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at a minimum, though with some flexibility, as with Dixville Notch. Twenty-one names are on the Democratic ballot, none of them “Joe Biden.” The president’s supporters are urging write-ins for him.

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MONDAY 1/22/24

Trump Up – Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is ahead of Ron DeSantis in national polls, but Donald J. Trump remains far ahead, according to a national poll averaging by Decision Desk HQ/The Hill. Trump has 67% and Haley, who as of this writing is still in the race, has 12%, one point ahead of DeSantis, who is not.

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Haley’s Comet – New Hampshire is the never-Trump traditional Republicans’ one and only shot, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now officially out of the GOP presidential race and Nikki Haley polling second behind the former president. Like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and uber-libertarian entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, DeSantis apparently wants a shot at a post of some sort in a second Trump term and is backing his former rival. Apparently, the three former challengers have concluded it’s best to hunker down from inside an authoritarian government rather than from the outside.

Haley’s droll comment after DeSantis’ withdrawal: “May the best woman win,” per The New York Times.

Haley probably will need first place in New Hampshire in order to stay in the race. Her best hope is that a sufficient number of independents and Democrats vote Republican in the primary, which they are allowed to do in the Granite State.

Koch refreshes?: The Koch Brothers early last year vowed to use their super-PAC to stop Trump, and have since put all their campaign money behind Haley. What happens if/when she has to suspend her campaign?

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Is This Anything?

Miami Mayor Enters GOP Race – Miami’s second-term mayor, Francis Suarez (above), has filed paperwork to enter the 2024 presidential race and was scheduled to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Thursday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Suarez, in his second term as mayor, says he did not vote for Donald J. Trump, nor for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Suarez, a Cuban-American and son of a former Miami mayor has called DeSantis’ actions against major Florida employer Disney a “personal vendetta.” He is a darling of the tech world who says he takes his (part-time) mayoral salary in Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald earlier this week reported that the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have opened investigations into Suarez, NPR notes.

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From the old days of broadcast TV, the eponymous host of The Late Show with David Letterman had a “bit” we have borrowed for the headline above. We raise the question over the turn Trump administration UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has made on the former president’s 37-count indictment in the classified documents case. 

Initially, Haley parroted Trump’s Truth Social diatribes against Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment as evidence of a “double standard,” siding with fellow GOP presidential candidates Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (SC) and Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Monday, Haley had this to say: “Two things can be true at the same time.” The Justice Department and FBI “have lost all credibility with the American people.” And … “If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. … This puts all our military men and women in danger, if you’re going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we could go about invading or doing something with our enemies. …

“You know, we’re looking now, this is the second indictment. We’re looking at a third indictment coming in with Georgia.”

By Tuesday, Haley was rationalizing a pardon for Trump if she becomes president, according to Politico, though in a Ford-pardons-Nixon sort of heal-the-nation way. She will need to pull her poling numbers up by the bootstraps before she can promise the current GOP frontrunner a pardon, though.

Scott also came around, a bit, on the seriousness of Trump’s charges, saying “This case is a serious case with serious allegations, but in America you are still innocent until proven guilty.” Not quite a Chris Christie “stop him at all costs” position, but a noticeable shift from both candidates, heretofore unwilling to criticize Trump.

So … is this anything? Is this finally a shift from control by the president-ex-president who has held the GOP by the throat for six years? What would David Letterman say?

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Florida Man Fading?

A week of punditry suggesting undeclared 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has peaked in his effort to topple Donald J. Trump has culminated in a Wall Street Journal poll Friday showing the former president leading the Florida governor in a two-man race, 51% to 38%. That’s a swing from a 14-point lead for DeSantis in a WSJ poll taken last December, the newspaper says. 

The Wall Street Journal also polled for a potential field of 12 Republican contenders, which adjusted Trump’s lead to 48% versus 24% for DeSantis. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was third in this poll, at 5%. 

Conservative and liberal pundits seem to agree that DeSantis isn’t a very good candidate, even before declaring. Traditional Republicans question whether DeSantis is even a true conservative considering his “culture war” vs. free enterprise stance in a very public fight with one of his state’s biggest employers, Disney. 

Semafor reports Friday that Trump has been dominating DeSantis in the race for endorsements from Florida’s congressional delegation. Neither has the support, yet, of Sen. Marco Rubio, who told the news outlet he isn’t ready to take sides, but “recently hung out with Donald J. Trump at a UFC event” and “hasn’t heard from DeSantis for a ‘number of months.’” 

Not a University of Florida branch: Yeah, sigh, we had to look it up. “UFC” stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Left Side Rising

We’re still awaiting results from three Senate races, in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia before we know for sure which party controls the Senate. (If the GOP wins both Nevada and Arizona before the December 16 Georgia runoff, Republicans will already have the majority). There’s even a chance, albeit minute, that the Democratic Party could hold off Republican control of the House.

While we’re waiting, why not let us know your thoughts – left or right, but always with civility – about the November 8 midterms. 

How did the Democrats manage to hold off a Red Wave? Is the Democratic Party’s November 8 “success” overstated? 

Are Republicans truly ready to move on from Donald J. Trump? Will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis save the party?

Write your opinions in the Comment box in this column or in the right column, wherever appropriate. Or email editors@thehustings.news and let us know how you lean in the subject line.

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Florida, New York, Oklahoma Primaries

(WED 8/24/22)

Florida: And so, a former Republican governor challenges incumbent Republican governor and presumed 2024 challenger to Donald J. Trump for the GOP presidential nomination Ron DeSantis. Rep. Charlie Crist (pictured), now a Democrat from Florida’s 13thDistrict, won his party’s gubernatorial primary Tuesday, 59.8% to agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried’s 35.3% (per Ballotpedia). Fried is the only Democrat holding a statewide office in Florida, which now counts more registered Republican voters.

Rep. Val Demings easily won the Democratic Party’s primary, with 84% of the vote, to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio for his seat in the November 8 midterms. 

New York: Rep. Jerrold Nadler easily beat Rep. Carolyn Maloney, 56.3% to 24.2%, for the state’s redrawn U.S. House 12thDistrict, which pitted two 30-year incumbents for the seat covering the East Side of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Challenger Suraj Patel took 18.3% of the Democratic primary vote. 

A special election to replace former Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado for his 19th District congressional district seat is seen as a bellwether for the midterms in general. If so, count it as good news for Democrats, with Pat Ryan taking 51.1% to Republican Marc Molinaro’s 48.8% -- decisive, though hardly commanding in a district that encompasses the mid-Hudson Valley and New York Catskills region, which NBC News' Steve Kornacki describes as a "classic swing district." Ryan will serve the remainder of Delgado’s term, to January 3. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul selected Delgado as her lieutenant governor after replacing former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

In the Democratic race for the House 10th District seat, 17th District incumbent Mondaire Jones came in third with 18.2%. Daniel Goldman, with 25.7%, edged out Yuh-Line Niou at 23.7% for the win.

Oklahoma: U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who represents the 2nd congressional district, won the Republican Party’s runoff for a special election in November to replace Republican Sen. James Inhoffe, who is retiring with four years left in his term. Mullin will face the winner of the Democratic runoff, cybersecurity professional Madison Horn. 

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On the 31st Anniversary of Ukraine's independence ... The White House has announced a new $2.98-billion "security package" for Ukraine in its fight for sovereignty against Russia's invasion. The package is for weapons and assistance as provided by the Ukrainian Security Assistance Initiative, Politico reports.

--TL

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Primaries Tuesday (TUE 8/23/22)

Florida: In the Democratic gubernatorial primary to challenge 2024 GOP presidential candidate and incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis, progressive candidate Nikki Fried, commissioner of agricultural and consumer services, has been gaining in the polls against moderate Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist. Fried since 2019 has been the state’s commissioner of agriculture and consumer services. Crist was Florida’s Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, and since 2017 has served as the state’s Democratic representative for the 13th District. Crist has been considered the stronger candidate to take on populist cultural warrior DeSantis, though Fried has been hammering Crist on his prior history regarding abortion rights when he was a Republican, according to NPR’s Morning Edition. 

In the race for U.S. Senate, Rep. Val Demings (10th District) is very likely to beat three other Democrats to take on incumbent Republican Marco Rubio November 8. Like Crist, Demmings, a former police officer, is currently serving her second term in the House of Representatives.

New York: Redistricting has forced Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of the 10th District to compete with Rep. Carolyn Maloney for Maloney’s 12th District seat. Both are powerful representatives, with Maloney chairing the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Nadler chairing its Judiciary Committee. 

Oklahoma: Both major parties have runoffs Tuesday for the November midterm to replace Republican Sen. James Inhoffe, 87, who is retiring next January with four years left on his current term. In the Republican runoff, it’s Markwayne Mullin v. T.W. Shannon while on the Democratic side it’s Jason Bollinger v. Madison Horn to replace the conservative five-term senator (per Ballotpedia).

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Up for discussion … Donald J. Trump is suing the U.S. Justice Department over its FBI search of Mar-a-Lago for White House documents. The former president’s attorneys argue the government provided no reason for its search of Trump’s Florida residence and that the search raised questions about Fourth Amendment rights, Newsweek explains. ... Meanwhile ... The New York Times reports that Trump had taken more than 300 classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago. Federal officials “became alarmed” after the National Archives found more than 150 sensitive papers among the first batch received from the former president in January. … A federal judge has given Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) attorneys to Wednesday to provide a list of questions they think a grand jury can and cannot ask a sitting senator, Yahoo! News reports. Graham’s testimony before the Fulton County, Georgia grand jury investigating Trump’s alleged attempt to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results was temporarily halted by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has to next Monday to respond to Graham’s list of questions. … Dr. Anthony Fauci has announced his retirement in December, after 38 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He also serves as chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation and as chief medical advisor to President Biden. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

CPAC is Bargain Basement Wholesale Politics

By Andrew Boyd

The only thing more stomach-churning, to me, than retail politics is wholesale politics, and CPAC is bargain basement in every respect, with a double dose of bombast and the gross absence of humility or measured speech that infects every corner of the body politic today. Giving it as much ink as I’m about to do here is a thoroughly detestable exercise, but that’s the assignment.

First off, CPAC polls are not terribly predictive of real outcomes, so proceed with caution. Yes, Trump pulled 55% of voters in the straw polling, twice that of second-place finisher Ron DeSantis and 13 times that of third-place Kristi Noem. Trump made it clear that a third-party candidacy is not the offing, for him at least. Blessed be he who refuses to commit political suicide. Trump, being transactional by nature, knows better. 

It’s still Trump’s party, as I’ve previously argued, though one might wonder in what kind of shape Trump will be, physically and psychologically, four years hence, when his likely opponent would be Kamala Harris, who never saw a lie she didn’t consider first in terms of its political utility, which makes her just another D.C. bed bug. 

More likely, to my mind, is a Ron DeSantis-Kristi Neom ticket. Other front runners might include Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Challenges from the anti-Trump pseudo-conservative wing of the party would include Nikki Haley and Liz Cheney. As of today, however, I’d say, there is no path to nomination that doesn’t run through Trump. Even swampy swamperton, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has tacitly acknowledged as much.

More interesting to my mind is the ranking of issues in said polling, with election integrity (62%) running well ahead of more traditional kitchen-table conservative pain points like border security (35%), the economy (32%), gun rights (26%), taxes (22%), national security (20%) and abortion policy (16%). 

For my left-leaning friends, this probably reads as the triumph of misinformation and QAnon-style conspiracy theories. I’m not of the belief that Trump was necessarily denied a landslide victory, but I am not afraid to assert that our election process is a shit show, systemically not up to the standards set forth by the likes of post-war Iraq. Maybe that purple dot thing isn’t a bad way to go, kind of the club stamp of democracy.

Four years may seem a long way off, but it’s really not, and I fear that we’re marching toward a political abyss; that the failure of our politicians to address well-founded concerns surrounding mass mail-in voting, error-riddled voter rolls, the death of voter ID, and the plainly extra-legal actions of state election officials and absence of legal remedy for same (thanks for nothing, SCOTUS) represents an existential threat to democracy and our peaceful co-existence; for if a plurality of the voting population does not believe in the essential propriety of national electoral outcomes, in a country so politically and cultural polarized, the cancer of political violence and mass social unrest will metastasize.

It’s high time that the adults in the room, if they exist, take a step back from the uber-cynical, morally bereft trench warfare of institutional party politics and mainstream media shout fests (yes, I’m including Newsmax and Fox News) and consider how we work together to keep this thing from going altogether off the rails. And don’t look to CPAC or its leftist equivalent for answers. You won’t find any.

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Read the full list of CPAC’s presidential candidate straw poll — click on Forum.

Shifting Allegiances in The Villages

By Jim McCraw

The Villages, in Central Florida, is the country’s largest retirement community, with some 130,000 residents in one contiguous settlement spread across three counties. It has been a Republican stronghold for a long, long time.

The population here is vastly white, upper middle-class Christian, with a few Jewish, Black and Hispanic residents.

The Villages boasts the world’s largest American Legion post. It helped elect U.S. Navy veteran Rick Scott governor twice, then helped send the Republican to the U.S. Senate.  He was replaced by former Congressman Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican and now the youngest governor in the country, just 42 when he took office.

The Villages are represented in the House by Republican Daniel Webster. Almost all of the county supervisors in Sumter, Lake and Marion counties, on which The Villages are built, are Republican. 

Sumter county routinely has the highest voter turnout in the entire state. Trump was swept into office in 2016, but his margin over Hillary Clinton was 1.2 percent in Florida. That’s about 112,900 votes.

Things have changed over the last four years, and now there is much more support here for Democrat Joe Biden. Disenchanted Republicans have been coming in to The Villages Democratic Club headquarters in Wildwood, the largest in Florida, since May to complain about Trump and ask how they can volunteer to help Biden’s campaign, says its president, Chris Stanley. 

She estimates 5.8 percent of Republicans in The Villages who voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for Biden on Tuesday. The disaffected cite three big reasons for switching candidates. 

“Reason number one is his handling of the coronavirus and his lack of leadership.  Reason number two is his view of military veterans as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’ They don’t like that. Reason number three is policy, the elimination [deferral] of the payroll tax [to mitigate economic effects of pandemic shutdowns], because it will affect their children and grandchildren.”

Republican Voters Against Trump recently completed a $3 million disgruntled-voter billboard campaign across Central Florida with messages like “I’m a Republican.  I’m a patriot.  I’m voting Biden.” … “I’m a Republican. I’m a Marine veteran.  I’m voting Biden.” …  “I’m a Republican. I’m a Christian. I’m voting Biden.”

“A lot of Republican voters are going to be casting their votes for Joe Biden because the last four years, what they expected they were going to get from the Trump administration has not been what they want, and Joe Biden is offering them an alternative to bring this country back,” says Daniel Henry, a young, Black Republican voter.

This year more than 40 percent of the state’s 14.4 million registered voted early, and Florida election experts predict the turnout in 2020 will exceed the 1992 record of 83 percent -- which could mean more than 100,000 from The Villages alone. There are signs that Florida could swing to the Democratic side, much as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin flipped to the GOP four years ago, and The Villages, so solid-red for so long, will contribute to this swing.

Jim McCraw is a semi-retired writer and columnist. He has been a resident of The Villages for nearly five years.

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