Why GOP Candidates Won't Consolidate to Take on Trump
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri and I'm the senior political correspondent at Puck. Welcome back to my show, Somebody's Gotta Win.

Poll after poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly don't want to see a Biden or Trump rematch. And Republicans are the one party that can actually choose their nominee. That's because younger Democrats like Gavin Newsom, for whatever reason, they don't want to take on the sitting president and the party establishment. It's probably a risky move. But regardless of the fact that he is unpopular, no one wants to take him on. So it's really just up to the Republican Party to shake it up and offer us somebody other than Trump.

Or maybe they just can't. There's a theory in Republican never Trump circles, which is pretty much all of Washington, that the only way to get rid of him is to mount a credible challenger, one person to take on Donald Trump in the early primary states.

And the rest of the candidates just have to consolidate around this one viable challenger and fast, right? It was supposed to be Ron DeSantis. Doesn't look like he's the guy. If anything, the debate showed Vivek Ramaswamy is rising up in the polls. Nikki Haley is rising up in the polls. And Ron DeSantis is sort of flatlining. They're all even right now.

I've always thought this was a bit of a pipe dream that a person who thinks that they could run for president, especially those ones that believe they were chosen by God to be president, would suddenly say, you know what? For the good of the country, I'm not going to run for president and I'm going to consolidate around somebody else who can take on Donald Trump. Just doesn't happen. Didn't happen in 2016. What really happens is that candidates drop out because they run out of money. Their campaigns run out of money.

They can't afford their staff. They can't buy ads. They don't have the fuel for the jet to go to the fundraiser, to the town hall. That's why. But Republicans seem to have figured out a thing or two about how to last for a very long time, how to last that they don't have to drop out.

What we're seeing right now is that they are tapping into the power of these outside entities called super PACs. They can accept unlimited funds. There is no limit. And they can be from individual rich people like Larry Ellison, who may be giving Tim Scott $25 million. And they can stay in the race because they have all this money locked up in a super PAC.

But Republicans have learned a thing or two since 2016. They've realized they can rely on the super PACs to pay for a lot more of these things, like their staffers or to set up events. They don't need to have a big campaign. They just need to have an outside entity that can't really coordinate with the campaign to do all the other stuff. And that'll keep them in the game for a long time so they don't have to drop out.

Take, for example, Rhonda Santus' campaign. It's cash starved, but his super PAC has $130 million, according to its latest report. Nikki Haley's super PAC reported $19 million. Tim Scott's $18 million. And he's supposed to get even more money from Larry Ellison. So this is a growing phenomenon since 2016. To me, it reflects that unless...

There's a real reckoning on the debate stage where they don't make it to the debate. These candidates are going to be in the race for a long time. So I don't see them all rallying behind some David who's going to take on Goliath as in Trump. I'm starting to think this is not going to be a reality. To talk about all of this, I have Matt Mowers. He's a D.C. insider who has literally worn almost every hat in town from a

a Chris Christie staffer in 2016, a Trump campaign aide in 2016, to a two-time congressional candidate in New Hampshire. We talk about this new phenomenon, and we also talk about Trump's team and how they may be trolling Ron DeSantis by highlighting Nikki Haley's bump in the polls. We also talk about major storylines to follow after Labor Day.

Matt, thanks for coming on. First, I want to say rest in peace to the Francis Suarez campaign. This was an interesting one, actually an anomaly, because while you may have never heard of him, he is the mayor of Miami. He took a long shot bid for president and he actually adhered to his own pledge to drop out of the race if he didn't make the debate stage. And, you know, a lot of times people

put up these pledges to try to get others to drop out of the race. They don't think they'll ever have to adhere to their own campaign pledge, but he did. It is a confounding moment in American politics. And yeah, I think it's an interesting one. It's also a weird anomaly because he had almost $5 million in the bank between his campaign

campaign in Super PAC. So he could have stayed in the race, but instead not making the debate states was a reason to drop out. Matt, what do you think about the quick death of the Francis Suarez campaign?

Yeah, I give him credit. I mean, most, most folks would say that and then they wouldn't make the debate stage and say, well, you know, but the people haven't spoken. It was yet. And yeah, it's too early. I've only been the race for, you know, 75 days. And although I did see someone note that he was in for 75 days and, and I guess Scott Walker was only, uh,

formally in the race eight years ago for 70 days so you know francis suarez does uh exceed the walker campaign from eight years ago um wow five days you know yeah you know i give him credit for it because you know he's sitting around with you know what seemingly was at least north of a million bucks in his hard campaign account he'd raised you know several million into his super pack um

You know, so he could have continued, right? He could have kept, you know, traipsing around New Hampshire and Iowa and, you know, doing the meet and greets and, you know, going to the backyard barbecues the way he has been and, you know, getting on, you know, TV more often. But instead he said, you know what, you know, I

I'm not going to make the debate stage. I've got better things to do with my life than, you know, just, you know, be a candidate walking around the woods. I know. I always thought he was kind of random anyway, but I did think the moment of like the silence after the debates and the silence ahead of the debates when he didn't make it to the trail makes you think he maybe was trying to find a way to sneak out of this one. I mean, I'll tell you, it's, but it's hard, right? I mean, if you're not, yeah, if you're not going to get on the debate stage,

It is hard because unlike in past years, and you and I have talked about this a little bit before in interviews, but it used to be you got out of the race if you ran out of money.

right? You didn't quit running for president because you were losing. You quit because you didn't have any more cash to spend. And you didn't want to ring up the debt. Look at what Tim Pawlenty got out. Look at when Scott Walker got out. They got out before Iowa and New Hampshire, not because they weren't polling well, but they just literally didn't have the cash. So it's really, this year is different than many other years. I mean, you look back at 2012 when Newt Gingrich had

had no motivation to get out because Sheldon Adelson had given him, you know, give or take $20 million. And so he's like, you know, well, why get out of the race? You know, let's keep running. It doesn't matter if I'm coming in, you know, third place consistently. You know, the debate... Just as long as those jet fumes are running, then you're in the game, right? Yeah. I mean, it doesn't take a ton of cash to run a media-oriented campaign. It takes a candidate saying something interesting.

And it takes a small team to help them get their message out and cut the clips and put it on Twitter and whatever else or X or whatever Elon's going to call it next week. And, you know, you got to have enough cash to buy your plane ticket. That's about it.

Unless, you know, you insist on private. Can you be flown around by a super PAC funded by a billionaire millionaire on a jet? Yeah, so you can't do it exclusively. It's interesting. Like, you'll see the Santa's campaign is probably getting the most creative the way they're doing this. There was a story out a couple weeks ago that they actually are renting a plane full time and splitting its use with a super PAC. But the campaign still has to pay for their share.

And the whole idea is that if they at least, you know, rent it fully, they get a discount on it, but it's all copacetic. Oh, but then like the super pack handles all the expensive maintenance of the plane, right? The super pack can do a lot of it. They can't do all of it. You still have to split it though. So there's ways to do it, but air travel and, you know,

full disclosure, I'm not a lawyer. I just play one on podcasts. You know, they, you know, but based on everything I've been told by the actual lawyers, there's ways to split the cost, but you can't have a super PAC, you know, say, oh, it's a super PAC event. Therefore, we're going to fly you on our plane to Des Moines, Iowa every week to go to our super PAC event. You actually do have to cover the cost. So, you know, if you're going to fly private as a candidate, it costs a lot of money. And you

And you kind of have to if you're going to go to all these events, fundraisers and events and, you know, town halls and this and try to go like be in three different states in one day. But now, as we've seen, candidates are getting more adept at using the super PAC over their campaign where there are limits on what people can donate.

Yeah, so you are seeing... I mean, if you go back, the first year that there was a lot of super PACs was 2012, right? And almost every candidate had one. Mitt Romney had one. Newt Gingrich had one. Obviously, the Obama campaign had theirs as well, but they didn't have a competitive primary. And by and large, super PACs at that time were doing what you expect super PACs to do. They're taking big checks, and they write big checks out to cover advertising costs. The challenge, though, is that...

that candidates get preferred rates for TV advertising. So if you're a candidate, you have to be given the lowest ad rate

A super PAC gets what's called an issue or a committee ad rate, which means that they actually have to go on the market. So you may have times where the candidate is getting an ad rate, which is a quarter or even less of what a super PAC is spending. So $25,000 for a campaign is maybe the equivalent of $100,000 at a super PAC.

Now they can take down the new Trumps, which is the difference. Exactly. And so what you've started to see happen over the years, and you saw this begin to happen in 2016, where candidates started kind of offshooting and

and outsourcing a lot of the traditional campaign activities to the Super PACs. So, you know, John Kasich and Carly Fiorina were probably the most notable examples of this in 2016. Carly Fiorina very rarely went to a Fiorina for President event. She was the featured guest at these Carly PAC events. And what you see now is more and more Super PACs getting creative in the way they're doing it. You're seeing the DeSantis campaign

you know, really get creative. I mean, at this point now, more often than not, if you see Ron DeSantis at an event, it's not a DeSantis for president event, but it's a Never Back Down event.

He's riding around on a never-backed-down super-packed bus. They got really creative. And I think it'll be interesting to see what the FEC ultimately decides on this. There's been some questions around it. Right. But they'll get charged later on, and it's kind of something they pay off in the end. Like, Jeb Bush owed about a million dollars in FEC fines for this kind of stuff, right? Exactly. Yeah. And the FEC's...

you know, basically deadlocked and very slow in how they go about this stuff. So like, if there's an outcome, it won't be until the next president's inaugurated, probably. But I think the bigger picture, I think for all of this is that like, these guys don't have to drop out. And so that means there's never going to be consolidation of a number two to take on Trump, right?

Right. Unless unless they don't get traction from debates. Right. So let's say Asa Hutchinson stays stuck at one percent and the next level criteria to be on the debate stage in California at the end of September is three percent. Then, I mean, look, I don't I won't speak for Asa Hutchinson, but I imagine he's going to have to have a long, hard conversation with himself, his family and supporters. Like how soon do you think? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, do you do what Francis Suarez did? And, you know, that's why you got to give Suarez credit for being among the first to do it. It's not easy. You know, no one gets it. Did Larry Elder drop out or is he just not going to fade into the background? Is that how it works? I mean, do you really have to drop out?

Some would wonder if Larry Elder got in, right? Yeah, exactly.

Larry Elder or Vivek Ramaswamy, most people probably would have thought Larry Elder. But it does show that, you know, being a quality candidate matters, having an organization matters, and all those pieces as well. So prediction on next three candidates to drop out and how soon?

Asa Hutchinson, he hasn't even qualified for the next debate. I don't think he has, right? No, he hasn't yet. I look, I, if Asa Hutchinson doesn't qualify for the next debate, I think, I think his, his days in this race are, are limited. Um, you know, uh, Doug Burgum says he has qualified. I will see how the national polling shakes out. Um,

You know, it's going to be easier for Burgum to get the numbers he needs in the early states, Iowa and New Hampshire, where he's spending a ton of money in mailboxes on TV. He's a rich guy. Yeah. He can spend as much money. Yeah, and he's got a well-funded super PAC. Yeah, his super PAC is up on TV with heavy ad buy, both Iowa and New Hampshire right now. He's a rich guy that can keep going, basically, if he wants to. Yep. And so I would look for the people who aren't going to be on the debate stage next time.

You know, so if Hutchinson's not on it, yeah, you're down to seven real candidates. Elder, you know, maybe Larry Elder eventually decides to get out. You know, who knows what Perry Johnson decides to do, right? You know, all the time. Oh, I forgot about him. Yeah. It was on the debate stage. See, that's the problem. Okay, so really what you're saying, debate stages are the real calling moments for these others than Trump's, other than Trump candidates, right?

Asa Hutchinson, et cetera. I mean, the next debate is September 26th. So it's coming up. There's

There's about a month. I'm sure you'll see a lot more action until then. Yeah. And the RNC hasn't put out the criteria for the debate after that. But they're hinting that it's going to be a bit more of a jump. So, you know, the debate in California at the Reagan Library end of September, the qualifications are 60,000 donors. I'm sorry, 50,000 donors and are 30%.

is 3% either nationally or a combination of national polling and early state polling. The debate a month later is probably going to be at least 5%. And I'm hearing it might go up to even 70,000 donors, not just like a 10,000 donor jump. Yeah, they need to raise the bar to make this into a real game. If they really want to defeat Trump, which, I mean, the RNC would never openly say that, but if there really is a push to consolidate, they have to raise the bar in the debates.

Yeah, I mean, look, I honestly think there's a lot of folks who say that the people running the debates don't want to defeat Trump, right? Right, it's Dave Bossie. It's his former campaign manager or deputy campaign manager. And I think Dave and Ronna have been playing it down the middle. I mean, they're not doing, I don't believe they're doing anything to favor Trump, but they, you know, it's not like these are people who are trying to rig the process for Ron DeSantis. There's no love lost there. No, definitely not. Definitely not. Okay, Matt.

You were on the Chris Christie campaign. You were the New Hampshire state director for his 2016 race. It's a big deal because a lot of people in our circle say, you know, Chris Christie ran a really good campaign in New Hampshire. He had a great ground operation, and that's why he still polls really well in New Hampshire this time around.

I guess, eight years later. Where does he go from New Hampshire, though? Is this the ceiling for Chris Christie? Because I don't really see him much in Iowa. I don't really see him playing in South Carolina. What's the strategy? So he was down in South Carolina maybe a few weeks ago.

Um, there's an argument to be made about South Carolina. You don't register by party in South Carolina. So independents can participate Democrats, you know, people who lean Democrat can participate. So South Carolina would be the next natural step. Not to mention the fact that, you know, I was just on the phone with, uh,

my dad earlier, who used to be a New Jersey resident, who now lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Right. You know, and, and there's a lot of people like that, that neck of the woods. So yeah, like my parents moved to North Carolina from New Jersey. Yeah. There was actually a Byron, there was a Byron New York article, uh, after Christie's visit down there that said all of the Christie went to South Carolina, but the town hall was all about New Jersey. Everyone who got upset while I used to live in, you know, Wayne, New Jersey, uh,

Yeah, exactly. You know, in your own neck of the woods. So, you know...

There's an argument to be made there. It's an open primary that way. You know, Michigan is close. That's an open primary. You're going to be looking. I mean, it's going to look a lot. Let's say play this out. Right. Let's say Christie's able to do what he needs to do in New Hampshire, where independents can participate in the process, where you're seeing some Democrats change party registration to participate in this process. Let's say he does that. Is that really happening at a serious clip like in New Hampshire right now? How do you make that happen? Yeah.

of a ground game for that? Yeah. So if you're a Democrat, you have up until, I think it's probably going to be sometime in November to become an independent. And look, I mean, just based upon, you know, anecdotes of what you see people telling reporters about town halls and things like that, there's some of that happening. I mean, remember in New Hampshire, Joe Biden's not going to even be on the ballot. So unless you're, you want to like write in Joe Biden or you're

or you feel passionately about Marianne Williamson or RFK Jr., and you're a Democrat, like, what's your motivation to participate in the Democrat primary? They do love RFK up there. They do. You know, so you probably, you know, if you want to play in a game, you go into the Republican primary. I think you're going to see more of that than you anticipate. I really do. That was the hope that Liz Cheney had in Wyoming. Democrats for Cheney. Didn't really work out, though. Yeah, but, you know, that was also a one-on-one race. Remember, she got, what, 27% of the vote give or take?

If Chris Christie gets 27 percent of the vote, he's at least in second place in New Hampshire. Yeah, that's the thing that's fascinating. So, you know, in a multi-candid field, traditionally, your goal is to increase your favorable ratings with all Republican primary voters. Right. Like you want to be one of the best liked people at the end of the day because you're one of the best liked people. Chances are pretty good you're going to become their choice to go vote for.

that's not necessarily going to be the case this go around. You know, so like, let's take Vivek, for example, Vivek, I would argue you had, you know, a pretty good debate. You know, I don't think it was, you know, a clean debate for him. He wasn't all positive. He took his share of hits, but, you know, arguably it was a pretty good debate.

Did he actually gain vote share? Yeah, but did he gain vote share or did he just become the number one second choice for Trump voters? Right. Does that take from Trump, though? Because I saw Trump went down in the polls by six points for not participating in the debate. Or do you think, yeah, or do you think that he's the share he's taking from his DeSantis?

I think Trump will level out over time, whether it's enough to beat him or not. That's the existential question everyone's trying to answer before January, if you're on another campaign. But at the same token, at the moment, it's not like voters are jumping largely from Trump to Vivek. He's kind of rising as a second choice. And I've seen polling in both Iowa and New Hampshire that suggests that Vivek and even like Tim Scott

uh have and to the degree de santis although that's dropping a bit have are largely the second choice for trump voters but they've got to find a way to go from the second choice to the first choice whereas guys like christy and and you know really only christian i guess you could argue asa to the extent that you know there's a campaign there are are saying you know

Let those guys all duke it out to become the number two choice for Trump voters. I want to go for the, you know, 25 percent of Republicans who don't want Trump and then hope that there's enough independents who participate in the process that I can somehow get in the 30s to maybe win New Hampshire. OK, but I still don't see the path after that in South Carolina.

Yeah. You know, again, South Carolina, it's open primary. You look to Michigan and then essentially what you're doing is you're looking at the Super Tuesday states that are open primaries. You know, it's kind of you'd have to go back to the 2000 election of McCain versus Bush to really see, you know, kind of that breakdown. Right. McCain goes in, you know, comes in like fourth place.

fifth place in Iowa. Like he got beat by Alan Keynes, you know, in Iowa, you know, like it was brutal and then goes on to win New Hampshire with almost 50% of the vote. Right. I don't know. It's still, it still feels like a long shot, but I mean, you, you might surprise me. Well, I, you know, I mean, look, I think everyone acknowledges that beating Trump's going to be a long shot, but if you're trying to build a theory of the case and you're one of these other candidates, that's, that's the, that's a theory, right? That's the strategy that you go after.

Okay. So when Christie first ran for president, you had Bridgegate popping up here and there. You were obviously on the campaign. Trump now has 91 indictments to deal with it. What's it like to campaign and deal with legal issues at the same time? And how do you think it will weigh down on Trump?

Yeah, I mean, look, everyone focuses on what the political implication is for Trump and how it's going to impact his political standing. But the real focus sometimes has to just be on the operational side. I mean, at the end of the day, and, you know, you kind of saw this through Bridgegate, you know, that happened right after Trump.

Christie had gone reelected governor. He had just become chairman of the Republican Governors Association. So he's campaigning around the country, raising money for gubernatorial candidates. And it was still simmering out there. And the trial hadn't happened yet when he was running for president. But the biggest challenge is the drain on bandwidth, the drain on resources. Like, what do you mean by bandwidth? Well, so look, Donald Trump at some point

And based upon what has come out, the trials are going to start literally the day before Super Tuesday. Instead of going out there and campaigning, he's going to be sitting through, you know, briefings with his lawyers and, you know, campaign team members, maybe sitting through depositions. You know, they're going to have to be sitting down. He never seemed to care before, though, about that kind of stuff. Like he just I mean, he basically was plagued his entire presidency by legal issues. Right.

Yeah, but this is different, right? I mean, first of all, when you're president, you have an immense amount of resources around you, right? You've got, you know, taxpayer-funded attorneys. You've got entire legal counsel, you know, your chief counsel's office. You've got everything you need around you to allow you to kind of walk and shoot gum. You know, the presidency is designed to allow you to do that. You know, a campaign's a little different, though, and not to mention the fact that you just saw, you know,

You know, the tens of millions of dollars that, you know, his political committees have had to spend on legal fees. I mean, that's tens of millions of dollars that's not going to. Yeah, but, you know, at some point, you know, I'm not saying it's going to dry up and I'm not saying this necessarily changes the outcome. But, you know, I guarantee you that if you're running the Trump campaign, you'd rather have that $50 million sitting in to do voter turnout programs and for advertising and for rallies than you would on paying, you know, some white shoe law firm.

But he can also make $7 million in one day when he turns himself in. Crazy. Well, look, he is the biggest energizer on both sides. And it turns off the money for other... Yeah, I mean, if he's making $7 million in a day, that money's not going to DeSantis. That money's not going to Tim Scott. It's not going to Chris Christie. And I think there's only a small universe of donors out there that are really willing, like small-dollar donors that are that enthusiastic. Yeah.

I thought I was telling, I thought I was telling the Biden campaign put out an email the day after the, uh, he, you know, he was arraigned as well that vaguely referenced the arraignment. You know, they said they wouldn't campaign off of, you know, Trump being indicted and everything, but then they vaguely mentioned it enough just to juice some donations on one day. Uh, because I mean, you saw this in 2020, you're going to see a play on 24. If Trump's the nominee, he's

He's going to energize his base. And the best shot Biden has is to use Trump to energize his base. You know, so without too giddy or that he's involved in the political process in some way. Yeah. I mean, there's no better motivator for the Democratic Party than Donald Trump.

Very true. Back to Christie in 2016, like just in terms of bandwidth, dealing with legal issues, legal issues, was there ever concern about like him saying the wrong thing on the campaign trail? Do you think Trump has any of these same concerns? Is that possibly why he's not on the debate stage? Yeah. So it was different, right? Because Christie was never implicated in Bridgegate, right? People who work for Christie were his deputy chief of staff, right?

folks who are over at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Christie never himself was. So there's never a risk that Christie, you know, could say the wrong thing. For Trump, I mean, he's the one who's the target. He's been indicted now four times. And so, you know, I would venture to guess, you know, yes, they're not, you know, his campaign is not wrong when they go out there and say, you know, that he's up by so many points, why we want to get on the debate stage with all these people. But look, at the end of the day, this is really

in a lot of ways, a legal strategy wrapped in a political talking point. You know, this is, you know, his lawyers, the last thing they want is for him to be up there on debate stage

ad-libbing, while, by the way, standing on stage was a couple of former prosecutors whose goal is to try to get him to say something that's contrary to what he's maybe said, either under oath somewhere or publicly elsewhere. And then that could be used in the trial. I mean, no lawyer wants their client on a public stage like that. I mean,

I mean, they clearly have challenges enough, you know, given the rallies he has to have and the social media and what the tack they've taken to energize their base. I mean, the last thing I want to do is stand on the debate stage. And, you know, you mentioned how his numbers have dropped since the debate. You know, Donald Trump had only not participated in two other debates before this. One was right before the Iowa caucuses in 2016, and his numbers dropped and he went on to lose the Iowa caucuses.

And the other one was when they were fighting with the debate commission in the fall of 2020 for the general election debate. And you saw Trump's numbers go down, too. So the question is, if Trump's numbers drop, at some point, does the political strategy and the legal strategy come to a head? And does he have to just say, you know what, I got to get on that debate stage to preserve my political standing?

Right. And maybe throw some punches at Nikki Haley. Speaking of which, there is a new internal memo from the Trump super PAC, a Tony Fabrizio memo saying that actually Nikki Haley saw a bit of a bump in Iowa, a clear bounce after the election.

And I just wonder how long before they attack her. She didn't seem so afraid to go after Trump. I mean, of all of the people on the stage, she was really willing to say, you know, he's unelectable. We can't have four. We can't run

run against Biden with Trump. And I don't know, I've been thinking of nicknames, but we'll get to that soon enough. But for now, what do you think? How soon before he goes after Nikki Haley or even Vivek? Or is this just something that, oh, if you acknowledge them, you're actually building their profile? I mean, there's a risk. There's a risk to attacking them.

Well, you know, Donald Trump has never worried about elevating others' profiles in the name of a good attack, right? That's never stopped him before. He's just sitting on it. No, I mean, look, the Trump campaign from day one, I've been talking, you know, I still have good friends who work over there and I've talked to them, a lot of them even last fall before the campaign was starting. They view Ron DeSantis as the only one who had a chance to beat them.

And so their whole goal was how do you just beat Ron DeSantis? And so you've seen them, you know, whoever the flavor of the week is at this point, you know, from they're promoting them in the hopes that it kind of clouds Ron DeSantis. They would love nothing more than this to be Trump versus the field.

And DeSantis is part of the field like that is a strategic win in Trump campaign's mind. So, you know, that's why when the Vake has a poll that shows him doing well, they tout it. When Nikki has a little bit of a moment, they tout it. I mean, hell, they hate. It's really just a way to dig at Ron DeSantis, essentially. That's right. I mean, like even Trump despises Chris Christie. Right. There is no love loss there. And even when Christie's in second place in New Hampshire polls, they tout it because it shows him beating Ron DeSantis.

Like that is what that's all about. So, you know, now, if one of these folks gets momentum, yeah, if one of these folks gets momentum and sustained momentum and you start seeing them creep into the 20s or, you know, certainly the 30s in Iowa or New Hampshire, that's different. You know, Trump's going to turn on them in a heartbeat. In the meantime, though, they're going to promote anyone it takes to just try to diminish DeSantis.

Love it. So no Vivek the Snake or Tricky Nicky or anything like that. Or would it care to switch to have Vivek Ramaswarami? None of that's coming up. There's a chance. What have you dreamt up? What have you dreamt up, Matt? I got to hear. You know, I'm friends with all of them. So I don't dream up negative nicknames about friends. I'm not saying they're my names. I'm saying they're Trump's names. I'm just channeling him. You're just trying to channel Trump.

Yeah. After after covering him for what has it been now? Six years. Yeah, I think I've got an idea of what his brain looks like. And it's mush. I guess I guess it's lost a little bit of his fastball. You know, if this were the Trump of eight years ago and he was and he could turn himself in to get arraigned, he would have done it during the presidential debate and force Fox News to cut away.

I think they kind of... I don't know if he could do that. I mean, I talked to them about that, actually, and it seemed like they were more interested in getting... They were more interested in the day after and ruining all the earned media for the next day, which kind of makes sense. You blow all the morning shows...

And then he also had his ex interview with Tucker Carlson. They double backed it. You know, they double booked it. It was like, Tucker, then turn yourself in, which I thought. I mean, it's incredible. But talk about trying to take a legal strategy then and turn it into a political strategy. Right. You know, it's the same thing happened. I mean, remember after the last federal indictment, he got the letter on a Sunday.

And he waited until Tuesday to announce that he was the target because that was the day that Ron DeSantis was going to have his interview with Jake Tapper on CNN. And so instead of talking about Ron DeSantis that day, everything was about Trump. Yeah, they had to actually like turn away from the interview to to follow the Trump news. Yeah.

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Let's talk about campaign storylines that will emerge after Labor Day. I think you're going to see a lot of spending after Labor Day. The campaigns are really kicking into gear and you're going to see a lot of negative ads. You're going to see a lot of the campaigns willing to spend money and it'll be interesting to see who they go after. What do you think, Matt? How do you see the spending playing out after Labor Day?

Yeah. I mean, you're already beginning to see a ramp up of outside spending in particular. Nicky's super PAC is up on the airwaves in Iowa, New Hampshire. Doug Burgum's super PAC even is up in Iowa, New Hampshire. Never Back Down has been up for months. Christie's super PAC is up in New Hampshire right now. Tim Scott's spending more money than ever.

basically all of them combined. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see where does Trump's campaign and MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump, go after Labor Day. You know, MAGA Inc. primarily had been targeting DeSantis, especially the first six months of this year. You know, they were attacking DeSantis actually from the left,

You know, you may remember they were attacked when they weren't hitting him on pudding fingers. They were attacking him for a national sales tax and privatizing Social Security stuff. You'd normally see the Democratic National Committee attack a Republican on. It'll be interesting to see what they do. But then they started attacking Biden, though. I saw in South Carolina and they have national ads now going up against Biden, which makes sense, actually. Well,

Well, they feel comfortable about their position. So they attacked DeSantis when he was riding high. And what was interesting about the attack on DeSantis from the left, people were confused by that, but it was strategic. The biggest argument DeSantis had going into the spring was that he was more electable than Trump, maybe.

And if you looked at polling, polling showed that he would beat Biden by a larger number in key swing states. And so Trump's campaign, instead of hitting him from the right, instead of just trying to weaken him with conservatives, instead weakened him with general election voters to the point where Trump polls about as well in most states as Ron DeSantis, if not better.

And so the electability argument was kind of swept out from Ron DeSantis in the spring. You know, and now you do see Trump, you know, he feels comfortable about his positioning. He's trying to focus this as a general election of Trump versus Biden. You do hear that from primary voters. They say, you know, he's been tested. You know, we've already got a known commodity and a proven commodity in Trump. He's already incumbent.

you know, 60% of the Republican party says he's already beaten Biden. Um, you know, so they, they think, why not beat him again? You know, um, it's interesting when we, because, you know, I think the types of people that, that everyone DC talks to, which is basically each other, uh, reporters and operatives, they say, well, it's Trump, the most electable when you do polling out there among Republican primary voters, many of them say electability matters, but I think Trump is the most electable. Um,

And that's because they think he won in 2020. And they also think Biden is super weak. I just had Kristen Soltis Anderson on about that. And they don't think Trump has any electability issues, which is really interesting. But I also think that's a reflection on how weak they think Joe Biden is. Yeah. I mean, look, I think Democrats and the Biden administration, you know, the Biden White House and political operation, you know, based on the Democrats I've talked to. And, you know, I'm one of those Republicans who actually talks to Democrats and probably

Probably so. They'll talk to you? I didn't know that. They do. Yeah. You know, no harm in having a little bipartisanship. But, you know, a lot of them want to run against Trump. Right. They think he's the weakest candidate. Yeah.

Yeah, but I keep warning them. I mean, be careful what you wish for. He could he could be Biden. I mean, it's still it may be more of an uphill battle for him than others, but he could absolutely be Biden given where Biden's numbers are at. I mean, here's the truth. I mean, polling shows them neck and neck. Yeah. Forty four percent, I think the New York Times, CNN poll. So I think there is a bit of a there is a bit of a.

I don't know what it is. There's like a crisis going on in the Democratic Party where they don't see the own the electability issues that Biden has. They're kind of in a state of denial that being his age is actually a huge electability issue. It might even be as big as Trump's legal issues.

No one has had a lower approval rating as president of the United States at this point in the election cycle since Jimmy Carter. I mean, so regardless of the outcome in November. Even Trump hasn't had a lower approval rating? No, Trump was higher. Trump was several points higher. Trump was, so Biden right now is tracking right around 40%. Trump was, you know, don't quote me, but I think right around 43, 44 in most polls and the enthusiasm gap. So the number of people said they strongly supported Trump

was significantly higher than the number who say they strongly support Biden. And so regardless of the outcome in 24,

if it's Trump versus Biden, it'll be historical because you'll either have the first guy to ever get elected after being indicted. And I mean, who knows, potentially convicted, right? We don't know what the outcome will be. And everyone's running from behind bars until proven guilty and the rest of it. But, um, right. You know, or it's Biden because no president has come back from that big of a deficit to go on to get reelected. Um, so I think Democrats are making a gamble by betting on Trump. I mean, actually,

You know, Democrats are making a gamble by betting on Biden. You know, Trump may be the only one Biden could beat. I actually think that Biden might be, Trump may be the weakest, but I think that they're all really terrified of anyone else in the field running against Biden as well. Because again, the age issue, you put him up against Nikki Haley, who could possibly win over some suburban swing voting women. I mean, that's pretty terrifying. Anyone who seems pseudo-moderate would be pretty terrifying next to Biden, I'm sure. But I don't think she could ever win a primary.

That's my take, but maybe she will. I don't know. Listen, anything can happen. Anything can happen. Somebody's got to win. Right. Right. Exactly. Good usage of the of the title of the show. Yeah. So, OK. Any other storylines that you see popping up?

So, you know, you might have different candidates emerge in these early states. I mean, early state voters are paying closer attention to this election than voters nationally are. You know, voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, to a degree Nevada as well, are definitely much more attuned to the nuances of this race than a voter in New York, for example. And so, you know, you are going to start seeing differences. There's cultural, big cultural differences, ideological differences between those states. That's why you're going to see, you know, likely differences.

someone who rises in Iowa look different than someone who rises in New Hampshire. And a lot of these are going to turn potentially on local issues, you know, come the fall.

that's when even more voters get engaged and they're not motivated necessarily by, you know, just immigration or the same macro issues that the entire country are, but really on different local issues, agriculture issues, maybe in Iowa, tax and subsidy issues in New Hampshire, certainly the drug crisis, which has impacted New Hampshire. You know, you're going to see candidates who focus on issues like that gain traction. You know, I mean, I don't know, Terry, you and I were texting about highlighters this morning and how they get, you know,

you know, discusses vapes, who knows, like those types of issues too. I think you're right to think about winnowing the field. You know, look at what Chris Sununu has said, you know, governor of New Hampshire. He's been very public. He'll probably make an endorsement soon, right? To try to winnow the field.

I think sometime in the fall will be about when he does it. Maybe he waits longer. I don't think it's imminent. He'll wait to, you know, get through the second debate. It's still, you know, early innings right now in this game. That actually makes me think that this game also might not be one of them. It also makes me think that endorsements might not really matter this election. And that might be another storyline that comes up. It's like, look at Trump. He's like,

Fighting with Kim Reynolds, he's beating up Chris Inunu, who's the governor of New Hampshire. He doesn't give a shit about any of the governors of the early primary states, the ones that the rest of the candidates are really trying to kiss up to. So I don't know. I think there'll be a question of how much endorsements really matter.

Well, it depends if they make endorsements, how quickly the field consolidates. You know, if Chris Sununu decides to endorse a candidate, for example, do their numbers shoot up with independents where that person's undisputably the second, you know, coming in second and maybe has the potential of eclipsing Trump?

And, you know, do they have that chance? That's that'll be the real tell about whether endorsements matter. It's a little soon to tell right now. I mean, Trump's got his support. Right. And the question is, is that support going to be a third of the vote or is it going to be, you know, 45 percent of the vote in states like Iowa and New Hampshire? If it's a third of the vote, you know, you've got a lot of vote share left that might follow what a Kim Reynolds or a Chris Sununu say, you know, especially given their broad based appeal to the rest of the party. Yeah. What else are you looking out for?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I'd be looking at is, you know, as we get closer, you're going to see the electorate get more engaged. And it's not just going to be the diehard of Republicans who are participating in polling. You're going to start seeing independents participate in polling. And you're going to, you know, I think the smart political observers are going to be looking to see how those numbers and that type of participation changes the makeup of these electorates, you know, just as an example.

You know, when the last let's take the Democratic primary, for example, in New Hampshire in 2012, when Obama was the incumbent president, he got forty nine thousand votes.

In 2020, when there was a, you know, the inverse of that, right? So not a competitive Republican primary. Trump was, you know, the incumbent president. They had a competitive primary on the Democratic side alone. There was over 120,000 independents who participated in the Democratic primary that year. So three times as many independents as voters participate at all in 2012. You know, that's a storyline that not enough people are really tracking right now.

So you think this is the surge of the independence? That's what you see? The surge of independence? Yeah, certainly in these open primary states, you know, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan is where I'd be looking. And so it's worth actually playing to them rather than to the base?

It's not a bad strategy is what you're trying to say. Yeah, if you make the argument that Trump's got the base locked up, you know, the only way to have a chance against him, right, if you're a candidate trying to beat him, not just trying to increase your numbers with Republicans, but trying to beat him, you got to change the makeup of the electorate. And the easiest way to do that is encourage more independents to participate.

Hmm. Aren't independents just terrified of Republicans and the extremists in the party, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and those people who seem to be the loudest voices? It's kind of hard. It's hard to play to them after years of extremists being the loudest voices in the room.

Yeah, that's why, you know, it's going to take a candidate that's actually tailoring a message to them in order to get them participate. If they do, they've got a chance, you know, to galvanize that that type of voter. You know, is it enough to beat Trump? You know, that's that remains to be seen.

Cool. Thanks so much for coming on the show. As always, we'd love to have you back and giving us the inside scoop on what Republicans are really talking about and some Democrats too, now that I know that you sneaky talk to them in D.C. It does sometimes feel like the city is very segregated between Democrats and Republicans and really only kind of reporters flow between the two. But, you know, there are some...

you know, operatives that have friends on both sides. And I'm always surprised. Well, Valcor is a bipartisan firm. We're proudly bipartisan. Thanks so much, Matt. It's always great to get your insight. Please join us again on Tuesday for another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. Please rate and like wherever you get your podcasts.