America

US Midterms Election Night Blog

November 9: Yesterday, over breakfast with an America ex-colleague from long ago,  she noted with a smile that the omens were in alignment with the polls. Election day would see the Democrats gutted — there could be no doubt about it, with even a spectacular ‘red moon’ to match the anticipated red wave that was to sweep the GOP to undisputed control of House and Senate.

And this morning?

Well there are losers, two in particular. The first and most immediate casualty is the poling industry, which has added another entry to its unblemished record of recent failures. Who now can take their findings with anything but a grain of salt?

The other big loser is Donald Trump, who appeared on no ballot but was everywhere all the same. Some of the candidates he backed got up — JD Vance in Ohio, for instance — but many not only failed to get their predicted 50+ per cent, they trailed dismally. Consider Pennsylvania (more on the Keystone State below), where Trump pick Mehmet Oz went down to John Fetterman (pictured below) and his pick for governor, the ardent Trumpist Doug Mastriano, was not merely beaten but thrashed.

The one bright spot for Republicans is Florida, where governor Ron DeSantis (atop this page) turned the state red from the Keys to the Georgia border. And what did Trump do just 24 hours before DeSantis delivered Republicans their one and only cheerful result? He not only derided the all-conquering Floridian as ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ — a poor gag, well below his usual acerbic standard — but also let it be known that he has a voluminous dirt file on the man likely to be his chief rival in the presidential 2024 primaries. In short, he hasn’t done his presidential hopes any favours. Take John Hinderaker’s analysis at the Power Line blog:

At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States. He has teased a “big announcement” in the next few days. I hope he announces that he is moving to Bulgaria.

That ‘big announcement’ was supposed to be his official declaration that he is entering the hunt for the Oval Office, the timing intended make the election of his candidates and Republican victories a mere overture to his self-coronation as the king of all the contenders. One guesses Trump will now reconsider his timing, although being Trump there are no guarantees.

The big winner, Joe Biden.

True, the House will fall narrowly to Republicans, while the Senate, although it would be a skin-of-the-teeth thing, could still see the GOP end up in control, that result depending on the results of slow-counting Nevada and Arizona in particular. Even so, Biden can boast that the electorate’s defiance of history — midterms are notorious for the wallopings they administer to the party occupying the White House — is an endorsement of sorts.

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November 8: All told, with the exception of 2020, when COVID was the scourge and I wasn’t allowed out of the country (and in Victoria, no more than 5km from the front gate), I haven’t missed a US election, presidential or midterm, since Jimmy Carter had Ronald Reagan breathing down his neck. Thing is, they keep getting more weird and the one that will be decided tonight  — or perhaps tomorrow or the day after, as Joe Biden has warned — has so far been the strangest of them all.

This blog will updated as the night and the count continues

Where to start? Pittsburgh in the distant west of Pennsylvania is as good a place as any, especially its satellite town of Braddock, which was billed as the greatest argument in favour of voters elevating Democrat John Fetterman (above) from state lieutenant governor to US Senator. As mayor he turned the Rust Belt relic around, or so the narrative went, restored vibrancy and optimism to a city that had lost its industrial base and would forever revere the implemented vision of his bold and daring leadership.

So I drove there to have a look and was reminded yet again of politicians and their spinners demanding voters believe them rather than their lyin’ eyes. A large, bald, tattooed lump of a man who is in the process of recovering from a May stroke, if Fetterman brought Braddock back from the brink, well he didn’t drag it more than a few mere inches. Empty shops, cracked pavements, streets poxed with potholes, shuffling bums, uncollected trash — it’s all there and worse besides. When I paused my unguided stroll about what passes for the town centre to enjoy the late-spring sun and a smoke on a bus stop bench, three locals hit me up for cigarettes. Three in the time it took to reduce a Camel to ash and butt. That so many are on the bum suggests a town going nowhere but down.

What then is the basis for the claim that Braddock is a showpiece example of what Fetterman aims to do for America as a whole? I looked and walked and looked some more before the truth dawned: it’s the vibe, man. All around town their are murals and art works, some by schoolkids others the work of professional artists, with joyful, upbeat themes. Suddenly I felt almost as if I were  back in Melbourne, where the city fathers and mothers presiding over a CBD in decline reference laneway grafitti as proof that all is well. It isn’t at home and most definitely isn’t in Braddock, where a lick of paint (right) and a smile can’t hide the truth.

Pennsylvania is key, one of several, to Republican hopes of recapturing the Senate, currently tied 50-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris’ vote the deadlock-breaker. If the GOP candidate, TV doctor and fixture on Oprah, Mehmet Oz gets up, Republicans will likely have their majority and it will be a very, very different Washington, which also explains the sheer venom in the candidates’ competing ads.

Oz, according to Fetterman, is a quack who has grown rich gulling the little people. The return volleys paint the Democrat as a rabid socialist who would empty the jails, legalise drugs, shun the police, and back teachers and school boards against the best interests of children and their parents wishes. As memories of the Coalition’s infuriating ‘there’s a hole in the budget, dear Labor’ mercifully fade, both Republican and Democrat spots set a new standard for attack ads.

Describing your rival as the spawn of Satan is standard operation procedure, of course, but in this instance there are very big questions surrounding Fetterman’s post-stroke capacity to do the Senate job he wants. That became apparent when, finally and after some one million early votes had been lodged, he finally agreed to debate Oz. It wasn’t a pretty spectacle. Fetterman stumbled often, found himself lost for words and, rather unconvincingly, attempted in a stuttered sentence marked by painful pauses and syntactical confusion to insist his former opposition to frakking was no more.

In this he has received no help whatsoever from Joe Biden, who has twice in the past few days announced his delight that fossil fuels will soon be left in the ground as America and the world switch to wind and solar. His first vow to kill off reliable energy sources was walked back by his White House handlers — ‘apologists’ would be a better term these days — who insisted his remarks had been somehow ‘twisted’. But when they let him out again, he said it all over again, this time with even greater conviction. Is it any wonder the Democrats are trotting out Biden only in places like New York City, which backed Hillary Clinton to the tune of 92% in 2016, and would vote for a trained seal if it wore a blue coat. The hard stumping in battleground states and cities has fallen to Obama and Bill Clinton who, unlike the incumbent, at least know what not to say in states where coal and gas have been mainstays of the local economies.

The latest Pennsylvania polls have Oz and Fetterman tied, but those numbers don’t take into account the vast number of early votes out of deeply Democrat Philadelphia. Factor them in, salt with the inevitable ballot-stuffing, and you have a recipe for Fetterman to emerge the eventual winner. Perhaps I’m wrong. We shall see, no doubt later than sooner. The clip below doesn’t inspire confidence.

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Regardless of voters’ sympathies, be they red or blue, there can be no argument the rival parties began their respective campaigns with radically different appraisals of what voters wanted to hear. In the Democrats’ case, they made the mistake of believing the rest of the nation shares their fixations, especially in regard to Donald Trump. Convinced that their fellow countrymen despise him as much they do, they adopted a two-prong strategy.

On Capitol Hill, there were the January 6 hearings which generated months of anti-Trump memes — hardly surprising given that all but two panelists are Democrats hand-picked for their vehemence by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As for the two Republicans, both were Never Trumpers, GOP blueblood Liz Cheney being the better known. The drubbing she received in her Wyoming primary should have clued wiser heads that Trump isn’t and never would be the issue; attempting to frame the election as a referendum on Orange Man Bad wouldn’t succeed and hasn’t.

The second line of attack was to build on the first by backing with Democratic campaign funds GOP candidates perceived to be hard-line Trumpists. Yes, hard to believe, butthat is what the Democrats actually did, running ads that attacked more moderate candidates in the belief that the Trumpists would be easier to beat today.

One of those primary candidates enjoying Democratic support was Arizona gubernatorial contender Kari Lake (below), who is favoured to win the state — electoral fraud and incompetence notwithstanding. The best laid plans, as they say. Below, Lake hours ago noting that problems with voting machines are appearing in red districts while everything is going smoothly in the blue zones.

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32 thoughts on “US Midterms Election Night Blog

  • Tom Lewis says:

    “New York City, which backed Hillary Clinton to the tune of 92% in 2016, and would vote for a trained seal if it wore a blue coat.”

    Great line! Was there recently, and would have to agree. Has the worst Metro in the USA.

  • Peter OBrien says:

    I believe Trump was a great president and undoubtedly he had the election stolen (not just in terms of dodgy vote counting). He was vilified from the moment he was elected and some of his odd and provocative behaviour must surely be put down to his idiosyncratic response to that. I can sympathise with his desire to be vindicated by getting another term. And if he were re-elected he would probably do just as good a job the second time around, in the, admittedly highly unlikely, event the 2016 reaction was not repeated. Trump did himself no favours in my view with his treatment of Mike Pence.
    But de Santis looks likely to be equally as good as Trump as President and will have none of Trump’s baggage.
    If this setback causes Trump to withdraw, that may well be a good thing in the long run..
    Gutted by the result, nonetheless..

  • Farnswort says:

    “The other big loser is Donald Trump, who appeared on no ballot but was everywhere all the same.”

    Trump’s take on Truth Social:

    “174 wins and 9 losses, A GREAT EVENING, and the Fake News Media, together with their partner in crime, the Democrats, are doing everything possible to play it down. Amazing job by some really fantastic candidates!”

    • BalancedObservation says:

      Farnswort
      .
      You make a good point.
      .
      And also a large number of Republican endorsed candidates always lose in elections. That’s the case when the Republicans win. It’s the nature of politics. The same of course applies to the Democrats.
      .
      So to argue that Donald Trump is a loser because a number of his endorsed candidates lost doesn’t hold up. Most of those he endorsed actually won anyway.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    I’m a little skeptical of the conventional wisdom – especially what Democrats and their media friends are saying – surrounding the results so far.
    .
    If this is what President Biden maintains is “a clear and unmistakeable message” that voters wanted to preserve democracy it doesn’t bode too well for democracy. Because it looks like the Republicans, those who he maintains want to wreck democracy, are still favoured to win the House and seem to have at least a good possibility with the Senate.
    .
    It’s probably likely a number of voters may have been influenced by the Democrats’ long-running and persistent tactics of accusing the Republicans of attempting to wreck democracy but overall the votes cast certainly don’t send that as “a clear and unmistakeable message”. If most of the people believed Joe Biden’s dire claim arguably you would have expected a clear win for the Democrat’s in the House and the Senate, regardless of the usual disadvantage of presidential incumbency in the mid terms.
    .
    The Democrats and many ( perhaps most) in the media seem to be mesmerized by a euphoria of relief that the Donald Trump backed Republican Party has not been as successful as the opinion polls and most thought it would be.
    .
    Donald Trump has never been accepted by the Democrats and their media friends as a legitimate president or potential president. They used every means they could to pull him down from the day he was elected as president. They’ve never stopped. Even though he had a good record as president. That didn’t seem to make any difference. So understandably they’re relieved.
    .
    But in their mesmerized state of relief they’re making some unsustainable claims like Joe Biden’s that voters have saved democracy. One of the most demonstrably wrong claims I saw was a claim that the results so far prove Nancy Pelosi was right when she claimed before the election that the Democrats would win the House. They might, but they certainly haven’t yet. On the results so far they’re not favoured to either. But that doesn’t matter in the midst of anti Trump relief euphoria.
    .
    To say that Donald Trump was a loser because a number of the candidates he backed were unsuccessful just doesn’t hold up. Most he backed were successful. Usually when Republicans win elections a large number of Republican endorsed candidates lose. That’s always the case. It wouldn’t matter whether Trump or others backed them.
    .
    I hope Donald Trump still runs for President. He has a good record in the job and the world needs strong leadership from the leader of the West now more than ever. The current President isn’t a strong leader and doesn’t have a good record. And the presidency is a huge step up from where other potential contenders are now. Give me Trump, warts and all, with his proven record and strong leadership over other potential contenders.

  • Farnswort says:

    Raheem Kassam: Blame Trump for the ‘Red Trickle’? Nonsense – https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/blame-trump-for-the-red-trickle-nonsense

    • BalancedObservation says:

      Thanks Farnswort .Interesting, informative link.
      .
      Refreshing opinions. Good counter to the group think we see in the mainstream media – on the left and the right.

      • Farnswort says:

        I particularly liked Raheem’s point about people becoming “dumber and more pliant and there’s no ignoring that anymore, especially when you see how the TikTok generation turned out, and broke for the far-left.”

        The Dems seem to have the brainwashed youth vote locked up. The same dynamic is evident here in Australia. This is what happens when you let neo-Marxists capture your education institutions. Conservatives across the Anglosphere have allowed this to happen.

        • BalancedObservation says:

          Yes – I got a lot out of what he said. It acted as a good counter balance to what the media is generally saying. Media on the left and right.
          .
          I think he made a fairly obvious and telling point : that Donald Trump isn’t a loser simply because he didn’t meet the high expectations that everyone had set for him including the media and opinion polls. And probably himself. That’s what most of media reporting is implying.
          .
          That doesn’t make Joe Biden a winner either. It’s probably unlikely Biden will have control of both houses and he started out with that. Joe Biden is at best a default president and deep down everyone knows it.
          .
          Also Donald Trump may endorse and encourage a number of candidates to his liking but he isn’t responsible alone to run the overall strategy for the Republican Party at the mid term elections. That’s something I’d failed to think about. The situation would be a lot different in a presidential contest.
          .
          I’m not familiar at all with American schools. However I’m not sure Democrats have brain washed youth locked in though. My view would be that schools tend to emphasize the dominant paradigm rather than initiate it.
          .
          Conservatives probably generally need to publicly contest issues more. And as I said I’m not knowledgable on the issue but I seem to recall they get more of a chance to do that at the school level than people do in Australia.
          .
          From my very limited personal experience – educated Americans seem to have fewer left biases than educated Australians.

          • Farnswort says:

            “Also Donald Trump may endorse and encourage a number of candidates to his liking but he isn’t responsible alone to run the overall strategy for the Republican Party at the mid term elections.”

            Watch this short clip of former Trump advisor Stephen Miller warning back in August that Mitch McConnell and co. were sabotaging the Republicans’ mid term prospects:

            https://twitter.com/StephenM/status/1590368420805357570

            Why aren’t more fingers being pointed at the likes of McConnell?

            • BalancedObservation says:

              Farnswort
              Thanks for that clip.
              .
              It makes a lot of sense. If Donald Trump were overall in charge of the agenda to run against the Democrats he’d be picking the issues that count. It would make a big difference. But in these mid terms he didn’t have that level of control.
              .
              Of course in a presidential election he would be the most influential in setting the overall campaign strategy and the issues.

            • BalancedObservation says:

              Farnswort

              In a round-about way that clip and your comment got me thinking, together with an earlier comment by Peter O’Brien. It got me thinking about this: how much would Donald Trump be reliant on the Republican infrastructure for votes if he gets the Republican nomination? How many does he attract directly himself?
              .
              Peter O’Brien – though like us seemingly impressed with Donald Trump as president – thought he had baggage. (I assumed he meant by that really damaging electoral baggage in contrast with the sort of baggage Donald Trump’s significant personality foibles would represent. Because he certainly has some of the latter baggage to my mind. Real leaders often do. But my view is warts like that can be worth tolerating when a person has superior leadership qualities. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are in that category for me – and arguably voters tolerated their warts to elect them).
              .
              The point of view above that I’m assuming Peter O’Brien’s holds is not an unusual one to hold. In fact it’s probably the dominant one right now – particularly for example in much of the media on the left AND right. I’d argue the mainstream media don’t like Trump because they are part of the establishment he thinks is letting the US down.
              .
              But I’ll ask another question : how much baggage does the Republican establishment represent for Donald Trump?
              .
              My view is the political establishment on both sides of politics in the US had been letting many voters down for years. That’s what made Donald Trump’s presidential election possible. He came from nowhere with significant personality foibles, without the support of a significant number of Republican establishment leaders, without media support but with real leadership credentials to win the presidency. He attracted a larger share of black voters to the Republican Party than had been the case for many years.
              .
              So the Republican establishment ought to be careful about attacking Donald Trump and pushing him too hard. He just might go independent. And, if he were to win as an independent against all the odds, the Republican Party could be in terminal trouble. Remember when he did win it was against all the odds. He won against the Democrats, some senior Republicans, the media and the political establishment in general. Maybe he’d do even better as an independent.

            • BalancedObservation says:

              Peter O’Brien

              In reply to Peter O’Brien’s comment above.

              How much baggage do you think the Republican Party represents for Donald Trump?

  • Farnswort says:

    The also appears to be some demographic sorting and separation underway in the U.S.:

    “The country is in the midst of a partisan moment. Most people are fully committed to one side or the other, and even most of the independents de facto belong to one camp or the other.

    All of the factors that make observers speculate about a coming civil war or “national divorce” play out in more modest ways in ordinary elections. Thus, a brain-damaged stroke victim has been elected to the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, and Republicans have rallied around a man with a nonexistent intellect and a checkered past to the Senate in Georgia.

    Partisan commitment has also led to a great shift of the population. COVID spawned an increase in “work from home,” which led culturally conservative people, who could live wherever they wanted, to move to places like Tennessee and Florida. In these states, Republican candidates blew out the opposition in statewide races. For all the worries about carpetbaggers, it turns out there is a lot of ideological self-selection when people “vote with their feet.”

    As a result, the red states have become redder, and the blue states bluer, with predictable (and sometimes absurd) results.”

    https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/09/so-much-for-a-red-wave/

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Farnswort

    Thanks for that clip.
    .
    It makes a lot of sense. If Donald Trump were overall in charge of the agenda to run against the Democrats he’d be picking the issues that count. It would make a big difference. But in these mid terms he didn’t have that level of control.
    .
    Of course in a presidential election he would be the most influential in setting the overall campaign strategy and the issues.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    Three days later we see Donald Trump setting up a fight between himseslf and De Santis.
    This worries me. He’s getting his retaliation in first, trying to take control of the obvious good image that runs through the media narrative now about De Santis. He’s hardly fair to the real achievements of De Santis. His own achievements were of course much greater and he’s obviously stung by the way they have been sidelined. But sometimes that’s just the way things are. I suspect that Trump won’t win again if he does run, because there is so much media baggage in people’s minds about him. Important too is that there will always be political shenanagans behind the scenes and neither Trump nor De Santis are free of commitments unknown to voters but part of the system in which they are playing. De Santis though is my pick for having fewer problems in train than Trump.
    ps. my husband, an astute political observer, thinks otherwise. For him, only Trump will eschew the RINO desire to accept the Democratic narrative of a need to ‘heal’, which generally means to accept Democrat policies even if Republican. I however think that De Santis won’t fall for this Democrat RINO ploy.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Peter O’Brien

    In reply to Peter O’Brien’s comment earlier near the top.

    How much baggage do you think the Republican Party represents for Donald Trump?

  • BalancedObservation says:

    America now needs Donald Trump far more than when he was elected in 2016.
    .
    I think the US has been through the process of electing a President with the least amount of baggage, someone less likely to offend anyone by their own leadership vision because they didn’t actually have one.
    .
    That’s how the Democrat primaries coughed up Joe Biden to run.
    .
    The people have had enough of someone who purported to be all things to all people yet turned out having far less than what was required.
    .
    America and the West need someone who can actually lead. There isn’t someone currently holding a top leadership position on the Western world stage who can effectively stand up to the tyrants who, as a result, have started pursuing their evil agendas with greater enthusiasm in the leadership vacuum.
    .
    The US and the world need someone who’s proven they can actually perform at the incredibly challenging leadership level of US President. Someone the increasingly assertive tyrants would think twice about crossing.
    .
    That may be a pretty popular Governor Ron De Santis but we don’t really know. It’s a big step up to President.
    .
    We do know Donald Trump is up to the task.
    That will make him very electable despite what baggage he might have. The people are ready again.
    .
    The mid terms that the Republicans are likely to win – yes likely to win – are nevertheless a glitch. But Donald Trump wasn’t a candidate despite how the media want to portray him.
    .
    But he’ll win the presidency again if he stands. He’s done it against all the odds before. He can do it again. I hope he does.

  • Peter OBrien says:

    Let me make myself clear. I thought Trump was a great President. I believe the 2020 election was stolen from him. I believe he deserves a second term and that he would do a great job. But he does have baggage the most prominent is that he mobilises the Democratic base against him like never before and struggles to get clear air. That’s primarily because the msm is against him. That (to use a term I normally avoid like the plague) is not fair. But that’s politics. If de Santis gets up that would be unfortunate for Trump personally but it would not be a disaster for the USA. Nor for us.

    • BalancedObservation says:

      Peter O’Brien

      I understand what you’re saying. It’s what a number of senior Republicans and most of media, left and right, are saying about Trump’s baggage. Hilary Clinton was saying the same sorts of things about his baggage in 2016 – implying people had no choice but to vote for her because of how bad Trump was. That went well didn’t it?
      .
      The media has never liked Donald Trump because he thinks they’re part of the problem. And he’s right. Many in the Republican establishment were against him in 2016. And of course his potential opponents would be positioning against him now because he’s the person to beat for the nomination.
      .
      The mainstream media were against Donald Trump in 2016. So was the establishment. And Donald Trump has never contrived to to project a personality that was not his. We’ve seen him warts and all. For a politician he’s pretty much an open book now and was in 2016. Nothing much on that front has changed.
      .
      So if he could win in 2016 he can win in 2024. There’s a greater need now for someone of his proven ability on the world stage and domestically than ever before. Ironically given Trump’s impressive track record he’s less of a risk in many ways than the untried Ron De Santis at this level.
      .
      If Donald Trump prepares to contest the primaries but finds himself blocked he may stand as an independent. And he could well win. His vote drawing power is far less dependent on the party establishment than most I can recall. He may do even better without it.
      .
      He’s just the sort of rare politician to make history by doing that.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    Balanced Observation, since 2020 there has been a dominant media ‘get Trump’ relentlessly digging away at his persona and credibility and from being in America (the South) right now, I can tell you that there is a lot of stickiness in this MSM attack – from the Jan 6 to the faked impeachment to the FBI raid – that in the minds of many has created an impression of doubt. It will make a win for Trump even harder than 2016. De Santis is younger too and I think America will be looking for a Kennedy sort of charisma – and De Santis has that in spades, plus a lovely wife and little children. Those things are electoral winners.
    We shall have to see how De Santis moves now on issues beyond Florida. He projects strength and conservative values in ways that have a broad appeal. He can tone down the abortion concerns to safe, early (less than 9 weeks), legal and rare (as in Australia) if he treads carefully, and this will help to bring on board the 73% of single women voters, a growing demographic, who have concerns there. Trump is doing himself a disservice to diss De Santis too much now when the future of America may come down to Trump believably backing up De Santis as the candidate. Note that De Santis is not dissing Trump.
    This has to be sorted. I noted that De Santis in his acceptance speech introduced his wife as the greatest First Lady (pause) of Florida State. De Santis intends to run. I haven’t seen too much evidence, none in fact, that he is not his own man and that he would be captive to RINO swampiness.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    My husband points out that the MSM would be just as brutal in trying to destroy De Santis, although I think their job would be harder there. However, it would be made a lot easier if The Donald has some dirt he could release; if he did so, it would smack of the sort of own-Party vindictiveness unbecoming to a Presidential aspirant, or a President.
    I get the sense that Americans have had enough and want to move on; the only issue here is the one I spoke of above, of the ‘healing’ of the Nation being a signal for a Democrat set of policies. One way to tackle this, in my view, would be to immediately start the process of dismantling the Climate Change Emergency narrative that has been running world-wide, at least by heading everywhere in the West including the US to the ideal of strong industrialisation and energy independence with energy that is always base load. Covid over-reach should give the introduction to scientific uncertainties and the failures of modelling and a time will tell approach would pull in many voters who are now captive to the ’emergency’ and ‘species (mainly insect) extinction’ memes, narratives etc. A ‘clean’ environment should be the aim, with CO2 raduction, as an odorless colorless and probably insignificant to climatic issues gas, put into a far less compelling perspective.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    “If Donald Trump prepares to contest the primaries but finds himself blocked he may stand as an independent. And he could well win. His vote drawing power is far less dependent on the party establishment than most I can recall. He may do even better without it.”

    Splitting the vote in the American system has already been shown to have disastrous outcomes.

    Very unwise, I think. It would just continue the Trump maelstrom.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    The more I see of America, from years of dropping in here occasionally, the more convinced I am that looking at American politics through the lens of anything but American culture is a fool’s game. America is a very different place to the rest of the world. It’s history is extraordinary, and its flag and America’s Christian history means everything to a greatmany Americans. The great black and white divide is still a running sore, where the real healing needs to take place. It was well underway with the Johnson years and the recognition of Civil Rights, but has been set back hugely by the extremely polarising socialism of Critical Race Theory, which luckily many African-Americans see for what it is, a victim mentality antithetical to American enterprise and individual achievement. Both Trump and now De Santis have attracted black and immigrant support and can continue to do this even more.
    Some random thoughts:
    I am currently reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ which I purchased in Natchez, once the biggest slave market in the South, to get a handle on some of this. It is Victorian sentimentality and bears a racist approach to genetic mixtures regarding personalities (a proxy for cultural influences) although not necessarily intelligence (she allows all to be equal in this regard), but it captures the soul of American freedom for both black and white, and it is unfairly demonised today, for it was a book of its time. You cannot understand American history without taking its messages on board, with ‘kindness’ being a central theme in Christian American life and one socialists play on today. Hence Sanctuary Cities.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Elizabeth Beare

    Thanks so much for your valuable up-to-date comments but I do tend to agree more with your husband. I’ll respond overall here and separately reply to the issues you raised on DeSantis in particular, Trump going it alone, and the influence you indirectly raised about US culture.
    .
    You’ve really stimulated my thinking as you you’ll see.
    .
    Even with the biased media, I think Americans are going to remember just how much better it was economically under nearly all Donald Trump’s presidency – than it is now under the Democrats. They’ll also remember how much better it was under Trump before covid than it was under the covid free Obama administration.
    .
    They’ll also remember how much better international affairs were with Donald Trump there to stand up against the tyrants of the world in contrast with what the current administration is capable of doing, or the former Obama administration did.
    .
    Of course the relatively weaker performance of the Democrat administrations will be a benefit to any Republican candidate for president, including Ron DeSantis but more so for the man who actually delivered the better performance as president, Donald Trump.
    .
    It’s too easy to overestimate the influence of the mainstream media. It didn’t stop Trump in 2016 and it’s my view the media has been very close to overplaying its hand in more recent times. People could be really put off by the bias when Trump gets much more focus in the heat of a presidential election to expose it.
    .
    Arguably Americans are likely to vote on actual performance in office, not on what the media tells them this time around. There’s now more evidence of the poorer Democrat performance.
    .
    And it’s certainly true Trump has negative baggage but I think his positive baggage outweighs it.
    .
    Donald Trump is the proven performer in office of president. Ron DeSantis has done well as governor of Florida but it’s a long way up from there to perform as president.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Elizabeth Beare

    Ron DeSantis.
    .
    Ron DeSantis has been making up ground on Donald Trump in opinion polls among registered GOP voters for the Republican nomination. No doubt due in part to his role as governor during the recent tornado. It’s helped his profile particularly in Florida where he’s governor. But he’s still way behind Trump – 26% to 48% in the recent Morning Consult poll that Forbes quotes.
    .
    The media would prefer him to get the Republican nomination over Donald Trump which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Probably because of their bias against Trump but also because they think Trump has more chance of winning the presidency. If they thought DeSantis had more chance of beating the Democrats they wouldn’t be reporting him so favourably.
    .
    So given that you’re going to see more and more favourable stories in the mainstream media for DeSantis. But that’s highly likely to stop if he got the Republican nomination and started running against the media’s darlings, the Democrats. It will last only while he’s in competition with Trump. So don’t be fooled by the favourable press now.
    .
    Trump is more popular among women and lower income groups than DeSantis. Groups which tend to vote Democrat. That arguably increases Trump’s potential to attract more Democrat voters.
    .
    Following on what Peter O’Brien said … on the plus side for DeSantis fewer Democrat voters may come out and vote to oppose him than Trump. However given the fact that women voters prefer Trump the abortion issue may hurt DeSantis more – even though as I understand it they’re both anti abortion.
    .
    People point at Trump’s baggage and its effect on bringing out more Democrat voters but there’s another side to that too, positive baggage.
    .
    Donald Trump also has a large number of very highly committed supporters at the presidential level of politics who vote. That sort of positive baggage he brings could partly be lost if he were denied the nomination. A number of them who were attracted by Trump from the Democrats might revert back. Even more might decide not to vote if the person they’re very highly committed to is denied the nomination.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Elizabeth Beare
    .
    Elizabeth thanks for your up-to-date insights from American on the feeling there now.
    .
    However I think the cultural issues actually work in Donald Trump’s favour.
    .
    I get your point about the difference in cultures. I have close personal contact with America too. I love the place and the warm welcome I get everywhere there. Though I haven’t been back since covid I have daily remote contact there with someone who’s very sympathetic to Donald Trump and will vote for him if he stands. A highly educated very senior medical professional who isn’t part of his organisation or anything like that but she has actually met him and found him completely charming and gracious.
    .
    While I’m constantly surprised at how much Australia has in common with American culture there are huge differences in some aspects too. My view is Donald Trump would certainly not get elected in Australia for example. But American culture makes it possible for someone like he is to be electorally successful. Wouldn’t happen here – he’d be cut off at his socks by our tall poppy syndrome.
    .
    Americans also seem to value their personal freedom far more than we do and are way more sceptical of government in all its guises. (The latter scepticism is inbuilt for example into their electoral system of checks and balances and the limit on presidential terms). This scepticsm hasn’t probably helped Donald Trump as much it could so far, but it could with the increased scrutiny his running for President will bring on government actions to discredit him. And the media’s actions. They’re both getting close to overplaying their hands I think.
    .
    I believe the high value Americans place on their personal freedom together with their scepticism of government ( compared with Australians for eg) made it much harder to manage covid which I believe was probably an important factor in Donald Trump’s defeat. Any incumbent, Democrat or Republican would have found it difficult and would have paid a price. Whereas in other countries the reverse has often been the case. I put it down to culture. However Covid is no longer an issue. I think apart from the rhetoric a Democrat president would have handled covid similar to Trump. Nothing much has changed with Biden.
    .
    Running for President as distinct from being on the sidelines will make it easier for Donald Trump to put his case. Under the new ownership he may even get back on Twitter, a crucial channel he used to win in 2016. That would help him tap more directly – without the biased filters – into American culture like he did successfully in 2016.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Elizabeth Beare
    .
    If Donald Trump ran as an independent.
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    While I said he’d gain more votes off his own bat as an independent than any others would in America, and he could well win, he probably wouldn’t win. But of course nearly everyone said he was certain to fail in 2016. So he could well surprise again.
    .
    He’d certainly bring more Democrat voters out to vote, a negative for a Trump nomination Peter O’Brien rightly pointed out earlier, also a negative if Trump ran alone. But on the other hand he might harness a number of traditional Democrat voters who would never vote Republican under any circumstances. I say that because he attracted more black voters to the Republicans in 2016 than any other candidates for a very long time. Possibly ever.
    .
    But if he ran as an independent it would GUARANTEE the defeat of the Republicans.
    .
    That’s something they’d need to consider before they decide to ditch Donald Trump as a candidate. A candidate who rightly feels he deserves another nomination considering his success in office. And considering one of the main reasons many of those Republicans who oppose him are giving to oppose him : the biased role of the main stream media.
    .
    I’m not saying they’ll all want to endorse him because it’s ” fair”. That’s not how politics works. I’m saying he may decide to run as an independent if he feels aggrieved. He’d have every right to feel that way. And Trump the fighter might just do it. So Republicans beware. I agree with Peter O’Brien’s view on ” fair” but that’s not the issue here. It’s how Donald Trump feels. And what he does.

  • Elizabeth Beare says:

    That’s a good point about Trump having a hold over the Republicans with a splitting the vote threat of going independent. He is very ego driven (not necessarily a bad thing btw) and just might, as you say, do it as a form of revenge (or for his own sense of validation). He would be better advised to become a senior advisor if De Santis or anyone else gets the nomination.

    Just now looking at what seems to be the ‘steal’ happening again at the last moment in the lingering States where superannuated public servants hired as counters look for ways to intevene, lose ballots, knock off Republicans (just watching them on TV is painful) it may be that this will be the last straw for many who want change, and it could indeed drive them back into barracking for Trump for this does look like another case of winning the ballots but losing the count.

    Crystal balls come easy but the future is always surprising, and hard.

  • BalancedObservation says:

    Elizabeth Beare
    .
    Thanks for your latest comment. You really are stimulating my thinking. As you’ll see again.
    .
    Donald Trump running second fiddle to Ron DeSantis or anyone is simply not on. He’s just not a number two sort of guy. And that’s a gross understatement. He’s equipped personality-wise as a real leader. And he proved that in office.
    .
    Ron DeSantis is being favoured because it’s increasingly thought the midterm elections look bad for a Trump presidential run. I don’t agree that these results look as bad for a Trump presidential run as most seem to be saying.
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    These mid terms were much more like a presidential race than most. Only the major focus was probably not on Joe Biden and his performance but probably as much on Donald Trump and his considerable baggage. However not on Trump’s good performance in office.
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    Shrewdly the Democrats did all they could to make it like that. With a lot of help from the media. To help achieve that they even took out advertisements which supported and helped focus on Trump endorsees during the Republican endorsement process ( which incidentally possibly highlighted a major flaw in the US electoral system).
    .
    And admittedly of course Donald Trump caused the focus to be more on him. He was an irresistible presence just like he wanted to be. Ironically just like the Democrats wanted him to be.
    .
    I’ll go further on the theme. The Republicans would probably have polled better in these mid terms if there were no Donald Trump on the scene. If it were like your normal midterm election which tends to go against the incumbent President’s party. That’s particularly the case given Joe Biden’s poor performance in office.
    .
    As a result many, not exclusively on the left, are concluding that this reflected favourably on the Biden administration. If this were a normal mid term poll that probably would have been the case. But this was more like a Presidential contest given the Trump factor.
    .
    Most like me are also concluding that the Republicans would probably have done better in these midterms without the Trump factor. However while I think that’s probably the case I’m far from certain, given for example the abortion factor.
    .
    But unlike me many like you on both the left and the right are now concluding that Ron DeSantis is a better bet for President than Donald Trump.
    .
    Why don’t I think that’s the case?
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    When all the midterm votes are counted the Republicans are likely to poll better than they did in the 2016 presidential contest. And if you accept these midterms became more like a presidential race that would probably be a winning margin in a presidential race.
    .
    Also in a presidential race Donald Trump would run the campaign and decide on the strategy. He’d ensure there was a big focus on his proven good performance in office. And contrast that with Joe Biden’s. We can see from what Farnswort very usefully contributed here that hasn’t been the case in these midterms.
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    I think we can now probably conclude abortion was a significant issue in these primaries. Arguably that would go against Ron DeSantis more than Donald Trump because Trump is more popular among women.
    .
    We didn’t see it in Governor DeSantis’ impressive election in Florida because it was possibly a smaller issue in that state. For example Florida has the highest population over 65 in the US. And abortion as an issue would have been offset by the DeSantis performance during the recent tornado. The positive side of these factors probably wouldn’t be translatable to the national level.
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    Donald Trump appeals more not only to women than Ron DeSantis but to lower income earners as well. Both those groups are more represented in Democrat voters and therefore give Trump a better potential to make gains there.
    .
    Ditching Trump who performed well in office would be a clear confirmation of Trump’s baggage by the Republicans and tend to justify criticisms of Trump. It would be like an admission from the Republicans that they were prepared to tolerate that sort of baggage before but have been caught out. The Democrats would be shrewd enough to exploit such a de facto admission, and raise the prospect of it recurring given such a de facto admission by the Republicans.
    .
    And do you really think Donald Trump’s army of highly committed supporters are all simply going to roll over and vote for Ron DeSantis. Many are likely to rightly feel as aggrieved as Trump. Many will either go back to voting Democrat or stop voting. The Republicans can’t afford that sort of leakage in a presidential race.
    .
    But the biggest plus for Trump against DeSantis is that he’s proven himself at the presidential level. Ron DeSantis hasn’t. It’s a big step up for a state governor.
    .
    The free world was a safer place when Trump was President. The economy was better under nearly all Trump’s presidency than it is now under Joe Biden. The economy was also much better under Trump precovid than it was under a covid-free Obama administration. The free world was also safer under Trump than either Biden or Obama.
    .
    These are big proven achievements at the national level that Ron DeSantis cannot rival.

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