A new Winthrop University poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leads a field of 2024 Republican presidential contenders with 41% support, followed by Ron DeSantis at 20% and Nikkey Haley at 18%.
Sen. Tim Scott, who announced an exploratory bid today, is way back at 7%.
FiveThirtyEight launched its national polling average for the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
It shows Donald Trump receiving 49.3% of the national vote and Gov. Ron DeSantis (who has not officially entered the race) receiving 26.2%. Mike Pence, another potential candidate, is at 5.8%, while Nikki Haley is at 4.3%.
“Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator who has built a national profile pushing a message of hope and unity in a divisive Republican Party, is taking his biggest step so far toward running for president in 2024,” the Charleston Post and Courier reports.
“According to two sources with knowledge of his plans, Scott plans to launch a presidential exploratory committee on April 12 — the same day he plans to be in Iowa, the leadoff state in the presidential nominating process.”
Fox News: “In the week ahead, Scott will head to Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that kick off the Republican presidential nominating calendar, and will hold a two-day donor summit in his home state.”
“The Iowa and New Hampshire stops will be immediately followed by a two-day donor summit in his home state of South Carolina, which votes third in the GOP presidential primary schedule.”
Benjy Sarlin: “Here’s a fun Wednesday morning thought for everyone: Donald Trump will probably run again in 2028 if he loses.”
Donald Trump released a dramatic campaign video on Friday, featuring footage of his widely watched arrest this week over hush money payments and again cast himself as a victim of investigators, Axios reports.
Anthony Scaramucci, who served as former President Donald Trump’s White House communications director for 10 days in 2017, claimed on CNN that his old boss may fake an illness to end his 2024 campaign.
Said Scaramucci: “I think the absence of his family members in this campaign is gonna knock him out of the race. He just doesn’t do well without them.”
The RNC announced Wednesday that Fox News will host the first GOP presidential primary debate in the 2024 cycle, Fox News reports.
“Republicans are openly distressed about the prospect of losing younger voters over their stances on abortion, firearms and democracy,” Politico reports.
“By week’s end, their challenges on those three fronts could grow worse.”
“Days after a mass shooting in Louisville, Ky., many declared and undeclared 2024 candidates will be brandishing their Second Amendment bona fides at the National Rifle Association’s annual leadership forum in Indianapolis. From there, a number of the candidates will travel south on I-65, where they will make their cases to Republican National Committee grandees for a gathering in Nashville — the site not only of another mass shooting, but also the state GOP-led ejection of two Black Democratic lawmakers last week.”
Washington Post: How Wisconsin liberals set record campus turnout in court election.
“I think we’ve got some work to do on the young people who think differently on abortion, perhaps, or guns, or climate change. The thing I’m really concerned about with is that the left becomes a turnout machine with young people.”— Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, on Fox News.
Associated Press: “That GOP loyalty to Trump was evident in interviews with more than a dozen Iowa pastors in the wake of Trump’s indictment. Each cited Trump’s role in helping overturn Roe vs. Wade as central to the long-term rethinking about him since his first campaign.”
“Several also pointed to Trump’s recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.”
Daily Beast: “Behind the scenes, the Club for Growth has been pressuring members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to not endorse Trump for president.”
Ron Brownstein: “Even amid all his legal challenges, Donald Trump has a secret weapon in his drive to win the Republican presidential nomination next year: polling strongly suggests he has transformed the GOP primary electorate in a way that will make him harder to beat.”
“Since Trump’s emergence as the GOP’s dominant figure in 2016, the college-educated voters generally most skeptical of him have declined as a share of all GOP primary voters, while the voters without a college degree generally most sympathetic to him have increased, an array of public and private polls indicate.”
“Those changes suggest Trump has set in motion what could prove a self-fulfilling prophecy: compared to when he first captured the nomination in 2016, he’s encouraged more participation in the Republican primaries by the blue-collar voters most inclined to support him and less by the white-collar voters likely to become the centerpiece of any coalition against him.”
“Donald Trump’s base is as devoted as ever, and the criminal charges against him aren’t dampening supporters’ enthusiasm about his 2024 presidential candidacy,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.
“If anything, South Florida backers are more fired up on his behalf than they were before he was indicted, pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in New York, and returned to Mar-a-Lago to rally support and lambaste the prosecutor and judge.”
Nikki Haley’s 2024 campaign is telling donors that former President Trump is “consumed by the grievances of the past and the promise of more drama in the future,” Axios reports
“The primary dynamics are changing against Trump. Haley has been polling in single digits, but a fundraising haul of $11 million in six weeks gives her campaign an opening against her rivals.”
“Donald Trump has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Facebook and Google ads in recent weeks, leveraging the chaos around his indictment to fundraise and collect data ahead of his 2024 run,” Axios reports.
“Trump used the exact same playbook ahead of the 2020 election.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) will launch a new “battleground fund” on Tuesday to boost Republicans in the perennially blue Empire State as the party looks to hang on to gains made in the last election, the New York Post reports.
Axios: “Biden’s not-yet-official bid for re-election will lean on hundreds of social media ‘influencers’ who will tout Biden’s record — and soon may have their own briefing room at the White House.”
Josh Kraushaar: “Trump’s legal predicament combined with the GOP’s exposure on abortion is giving the Democrats a small but important advantage heading into a pivotal election year.”
“Biden holds historically low approval ratings himself. Democrats are vulnerable on the economy, crime and immigration. But they have shown an ability to moderate when necessary.”
“Until Republican voters show they’re capable of doing the same, Democrats will hold the edge in 2024.”
“As Republicans in Congress mull whether to back a candidate in next year’s presidential race, the choice facing Florida’s delegation is particularly fraught. The battleground state is home to both Donald Trump and his most formidable potential rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis. But since news broke last month of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal prosecution of Trump, more of the Sunshine State’s federal lawmakers are abandoning their positions of neutrality,” Time reports.
“In recent weeks, both Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Byron Donalds have endorsed Trump, joining Rep. Matt Gaetz in supporting the former president over DeSantis, who has not yet declared his candidacy but has been laying the groundwork for a run.”
“Now, another member of Florida’s Republican House delegation, Rep. Cory Mills, is going all-in on Trump’s quest to take back the White House.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to make his first public appearance in South Carolina, a state where votes will be critical if he launches an expected 2024 presidential bid, the AP reports.
Donald Trump sought to discourage Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) from officially getting into the 2024 presidential race, claiming it would ultimately divide the GOP and hurt DeSantis’s career, The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “Ron DeSantis is a young man who is not doing well against me in the polls, to put it mildly. I believe that if he decides to run for President, which will only hurt and somewhat divide the Republican Party, he will lose the cherished and massive MAGA vote, and never be able to successfully run for office again.”
He added: “If he remains Governor, which is what Florida voters assumed, it would be a whole different story….JUST SAYIN’ – But who knows?”
Worth noting that Tim Scott launched his exploratory committee on the anniversary of the Confederates attacking Ft. Sumpter.
Eleanor Clift has some strong points about pardoning Nixon. I always thought that he should have faced the justice system. The President of the United States can’t be a criminally protected class. We can’t create a monarchal class. But I think she is wrong about Trump — he was always a grifter and a criminal and he always will be. He would have behaved in criminal and un-democratic ways no matter Nixon’s fate.