What Did Trump Do Before the 2016 Midterm Elections? The First Three Years of Donald Trump’s Running for the 2020 Presidential Campaign and His Failure to Win in 2024
A number of Trump’s potential primary opponents declined invitations to the event. DeSantis, a CPAC speaker in past years, is widely seen as Trump’s biggest primary threat if he gets into the race.
The results of the election resulted in Trump being no longer the most electable Republican. A Marist College poll in mid-November found that just 35% of Republicans thought he gave them the best chance to take back the presidency. That was down from 50% in late 2021.
The first thing is that the majority of the candidates in Trump’s position went on to win their primary. Take a look at all the candidates who were averaging at least 35% in past national primary polls in the first half of the year prior to the primary (e.g., January to June of 2019 for the 2020 primary).
Since 1972, about 75% of these candidates have gone on to win the nomination when they faced at least one major challenger. Those polling between 35% and 50% at this stage of the primary campaign have won about 67% of the time.
It would be easy to dismiss Trump’s numbers as merely the product of high name recognition, but history suggests something different. The eventual nominees from this group include, among others, President Gerald Ford for 1976, Vice President George H.W. Bush for 1988 and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole for 1996.
Candidates in the position have not been as successful as they could have been. Those polling between 20% and 35% have gone on to win their party nods about 40% of the time since 1972.
Trump was especially struggling following Republicans’ underwhelming performance in last fall’s midterm elections. Over the last 10 days of December and November, his poll lead over his opponent fell by an average of 10 points. Trump’s share of GOP support went from north of 50% to about 40%.
The reason was pretty clear: Much of the blame for the GOP’s historical midterm underperformance for an opposition party was laid at Trump’s feet. He supported candidates who supported the falsehood that the 2020 election was illegitimate.
When Trump campaigns, he can remind Republicans what they liked about him in the past. He can put the memories of a bad 2022 election behind him. The percentage of Republicans who now think he represents their best shot to win in 2024 is back up to above 40% in Marist surveys.
DeSantis has also had to deal with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declaring her bid for the presidency. The non- Trump vote is further divided by the fact that South Carolina governor is polling a little better than she previously was.
What’s happening at CPAC? A Republican Democrat apologized for his alleged sexual misconduct during his run-republican campaign in 2016
It’s only if we plow ahead and announce with one voice that the era of woke and weaponized government is over. Our mission is to accomplish that task. And this is the turning point and the time for that decision,” Trump said, speaking to a crowd of CPAC attendees at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland. The speech comes more than three months after he announced another bid for president.
The former president spoke for more than 90 minutes, ticking through a list of pledges for a second term in office while also hitting on points he’s repeatedly made in past speeches since leaving the White House, notably the lie that he won the 2020 election.
He went after the establishment Republicans that led the party in the early and mid-2010s.
He said that the republican party was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open borders and fools but they would never return to it.
There are three speeches at CPAC this year, the most recent being Trump’s speech.
And while CPAC has morphed into an event spotlighting Trump-backed political allies and conservative media personalities – including giving speaking time this year to the far-right former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro – the Republican conference has long been seen as one of the most significant annual events for GOP leaders to lay the preliminary groundwork for potential presidential campaigns.
The Washington DC area has not seen CPAC since 2020. But it’s been embattled in controversy, as Matthew Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which oversees CPAC, faces allegations of sexual misconduct – which he’s denied. The event also faced an enthusiasm problem, noting a drop in ticket sales compared to previous years.
Other Republicans rumored to be weighing presidential runs were also absent throughout the conference, including former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
Many of them are attending a weekend event hosted by the conservative economics organization Club For Growth that did not invite Trump. The group publicly split from Trump in 2022, when he began endorsing far-right candidates that the organization did not support.
The split events indicate a potentially larger divide within the GOP as the party continues to decide if Trump is still the best candidate to face off with the eventual Democratic nominee in another presidential matchup.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/05/1161180126/donald-trump-cpac-2023-republican-haley-ramaswamy-desantis
The story of Donald Trump in CPAC 2023: a conversation with Michael Boatman, Nikki Haley and the other friends of the White House
A group of friends wearing red, white and blue bedazzled jackets, each wearing a t-shirt that said “Trump”, were with Wolf, who said he had talked the talk.
Wolf is not the only one who thinks like that. Trump’s name is written all over the walls of CPAC – or rather on the shirts, hats, banners, buttons and stickers a handful of attendees sported.
He needs to finish his term in Florida and go on to serve in the US Congress. Michael Boatman, who traveled to CPAC from Indiana, told NPR that they should let Trump run for four years.
Boatman goes to the former president’s rallies and claims that Trump helped win the governor’s race for the first time in his career by campaigning for him.
“DeSantis isn’t even running yet, so I guess we’ll see but good luck,” he chuckled, “Nikki Haley showed up yesterday, and people were chanting, “we love Trump,” so good luck.”
CPAC isn’t a good place to appeal to voters who aren’t in favor of the Republican party because they are already locked in. Mitchell doesn’t think the GOP presidential candidates will be as aggressive with younger voters.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/05/1161180126/donald-trump-cpac-2023-republican-haley-ramaswamy-desantis
How Can We Bring Back the Old, Red, and Red-Meat Issues for the Future of America? The Case of Trump and the Arkansas Federation of Teens
I enjoy Trump’s policies a lot. I believe he should keep trying to promote them. Jordan Pyeritz said that he didn’t think he should be president.
Biden is being criticized because he’s old and senile by Republicans. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be exactly the same age. Most people agree that it’s ridiculous that we have a president who is 80 years old if you’re for or against him.
To 18-year-old Anna Hopper from Arkansas, Republicans need to start welcoming more young people into the party. The leader of the Arkansas Federation of Teenage Republicans supports Trump, but she isn’t ready to pick a candidate yet.
We need someone who is genuine, who can connect with the youth and who knows how to tell them that we care about them, and that we don’t just care about you because of your vote. Hopper said that they would appreciate your vote because they respect you as the next generation coming into the party or as the new workforce.
“We need a win back, those 10 to 20 percentage points of youth voters that normally, at the ballot box, end up voting for top ticket Republican candidates that now voted down ballot Democrat,” Mitchell said, who’s the founder of RunGenZ, an organization that supports young Republicans running for office.
In the second highest turnout for Democrats in a midterm among this voting group after 2018, voters under 30 broke for Democrats by a 28 point margin. Mitchell wants to get back to the days when margins were less than 10 years ago.
To provide conservative viewpoints to the young people who care about environmental policy, education, abortion and guns, Republicans need to address these issues.
That’s not the voting base in the primary. They are going to be going after those red-meat issues for older Republican voters, the people that are consistent and will come out and vote.”