Let’s begin with an account, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, of several dejected Republicans who met in a tavern northwest of Milwaukee, just hours after Donald Trump was indicted, to commiserate over last Tuesday’s loss of a hard-fought race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.
As the clock approached midnight, a heated debate broke out between two men active in the local GOP, said Randy Marquardt, the party chairman in Washington County. One argued for loyalty to Mr. Trump, he said, while the other insisted it is time for the party to pick someone else as their 2024 presidential nominee.
“It got ugly and people eventually went their separate ways to head home,” said Mr. Marquardt. “The other guy argued that Trump came with too much baggage, but there are still quite a few people who are all in with Trump.”
Mr. Marquardt, who twice voted for the former president, says he thinks it is time to move on.
Let’s first close the loop on the Wisconsin Supreme Court loss, which flipped the court to a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years.
Democrat-backed Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative Daniel Kelly, giving Democrat-backed judges the majority in critical issues like abortion, disputed elections, and such. As we suggested in late March, the Wisconsin spring election might very well have been the most important election of 2023.
Kelly didn’t ask for Trump’s endorsement — and Trump didn’t endorse him as a result, posting on Truth Social:
Daniel Kelly of Wisconsin just lost his Supreme Court Election. He bragged that he won’t seek Trump’s Endorsement, so I didn’t give it—which guaranteed his loss. How foolish is a man that doesn’t seek an Endorsement that would have won him the Election?
In other words, Trump made Kelly’s loss — and the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority — about Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump’s arrest and indictment on 34 felony charges related to purported hush payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels has further fanned the flames in some Republican quarters across the country over whether it’s finally time to move beyond the former president.
The headline of the afore-linked article in the Wall Street Journal — a far cry from the left-wing New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC — reads: For Some Trump Voters, Legal Drama Is Latest Reason to Move On. The WSJ noted in its subhead:
Independents, Key to Reclaiming White House, Show Signs They Want a Different Republican Nominee in 2024 Contest
While Trump loyalists are as charged up over the former president’s indictment and arrest as they’ve ever been — which is a foregone conclusion with every so-called “witch hunt” Trump faces — a recent Marist Poll found more than six in ten Americans (61 percent) don’t want Trump to be president, again, while just 38 percent of those polled said they want Trump to win in 2024.
Among the naysayers, 64 percent of independent voters don’t want Trump back in the White House.
Here’s more, via the WSJ:
Mr. Trump has suggested the indictment has boosted his political standing. “My Poll Numbers have never been better, almost $10 Million was raised for the Campaign,” he wrote Wednesday on his social-media platform.
While the indictment may embolden Mr. Trump’s core supporters, it is unlikely to help him reach more of the centrist voters he would need to reclaim the White House. A poll released by CNN last week showed 62% of independents approve of the indictment, while Democrats were nearly universal in their approval of it and Republicans largely disapproved of it.
Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
Amid multiple allegations of wrongdoing against former President Trump, what’s striking is that, although Republicans still largely back him, white evangelical Christians are not as strongly behind him. There is a consensus among Republicans that, although everything may not have been above board, Trump has done nothing illegal.
The observation by Mr. Miringoff is unsurprising. But here’s the thing:
Bias, based on predisposed political position, isn’t the sole property of the Republican Party. Joe Biden is up to his lying eyeballs in the Biden Family Business scandal, as the walls continue to close in around him. And, if either of Trump’s sons had engaged in a tenth of the nefarious activities regularly enjoyed by Biden’s crackhead son, Hunter, the leftist lapdog media would’ve exploded in fits of hyperbolic histrionics, daily. The list goes on.
Look, hypocrisy is hypocrisy — and in my mind, the fact that neither side sees its own is the only amusing part about it.
Anyway, as it relates to 2024, presidential elections have often been decided by independents, swing voters, fence-leaners, and cross-over voters — not solely by the reliable voters of either party.
It “might” be a good idea for the wise among us to remember that reality in 2024.
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