Dem
51
GOP
49
Ron Desantis keeps dropping in polls of the Republican primaries. A new Morning Consult poll has Republican primary voters supporting Donald Trump over DeSantis 58% to 21%. Our staff mathematician said: "Wow, a 37% gap is a really big number." So what is DeSantis doing to right the ship? More of the same. Fight the Walt Disney Corporation, despite the company having some of the most aggressive and smartest lawyers in the country (see above item). Keep pointing out the Florida is where woke goes to die. You know, same old stuff. Einstein, among others, pointed out that doing the same old thing over and over and expecting a different result is the very definition of idiocy (Or insanity. Or maybe DeSanity.). Maybe DeSantis thinks that Trump will soon be convicted of something and that will change everything (but see next item). In any event, DeSantis keeps hammering away at how anti-woke he is.
That is probably not a smart move because the voters don't even know what "woke" means. We have pointed that out numerous times already, but new and compelling evidence keeps coming in. The dictionary says it is the past tense of "wake." The political use began in the Black community in the 2010s and meant something like "keenly aware of racial prejudice and discrimination," but now in leftist circles means more like "supports far-out leftist causes on a broad front." But the reality is that most people still don't get it. Now another focus group of Trump-to-Biden voters, this time in swing-state Pennsylvania, was asked about what "woke" means. Executive summary: They don't know.
The most recent focus group consisted of seven Republicans, four Democrats, and three independents. It was conducted on April 11. Most of the participants were "meh" over "woke" and didn't like going after big corporations for political reasons. But worse yet, they didn't even know what "woke" means. Scott (49), said: "It's a scare tactic." Jason (45) said: "I think it means 'awake'." Megan (34) said: "It's a derogatory term for progressive liberal policy." Megan is the closest, but the term was originally not at all derogatory. It was a compliment to people who "got it."
This time, the pollster asked the members of the group whether they agreed or disagreed with these five statements:
Nearly all 14 agreed with 2 and 3, but the other three were duds. Only three of the 14 participants said that a candidate holding all of these positions would be an attractive candidate. One said: "It's very much pandering to a very specific demographic." Another said: "I really feel like the politician should focus on things that actually matter to their constituents." One of the Republicans said: "I just think some of the views are just a little too far to the right for my taste." Yet another participant: "In the economy we're in now? I probably would lean towards the more economic stuff because that's kind of more my concern. I mean, I'm not going to be too worried about girls' sports if I don't have a job and if I can't afford to put gas in my car."
The bottom line here is that DeSantis can keep hammering on how anti-woke he is and how woke goes to Florida to die (along with a lot of New Yorkers) and how he slew the great Disney dragon, and more along those lines, but it is not working and won't work because many voters don't have a clue what he is talking about and those that have a clue are not interested in the topic. Just continuing to do this is not going to make up that 37-point deficit. It appears that he is not only a one-trick pony, but nobody even likes the one trick. (V)