DeSantis Chickens Out

Maybe we should have saved this for "This Week in Schadenfreude," but since just about every newspaper and TV Website in the world was running this as the top story yesterday evening, we had to go with it today. Sorry, (Z).

For example:

• The New York Times: It's Haley vs. Trump in Homestretch to New Hampshire
• The Washington Post: Ron DeSantis ends presidential campaign, endorses Trump
• The Hill: DeSantis drops out of GOP primary, endorses Trump for 2024
• Siouxland Proud: Ron DeSantis drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Donald Trump
• Politico: 'We don't have a clear path to victory': DeSantis exits presidential race
• ABC: Ron DeSantis ends presidential campaign before New Hampshire primary
• CBS: Ron DeSantis drops out of 2024 Republican presidential race ahead of the New Hampshire primary
• NBC: Ron DeSantis suspends his presidential bid and endorses Trump
• CNN: DeSantis ends 2024 presidential campaign and endorses Trump
• Fox News: Florida Gov Ron DeSantis drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Trump
  
• The Miami Herald: DeSantis Backs Down: Florida's governor ends his presidential campaign
• The Guardian: Ron DeSantis drops out of Republican presidential race
• Le Monde: Présidentielle américaine : Ron DeSantis se retire de la course à l’investiture républicaine et annonce qu’il soutiendra Donald Trump
• Die Welt: Ron DeSantis zieht Kandidatur für Präsidentschaft zurück
• De Volkskrant: Ron DeSantis staakt verkiezingscampagne en roept volgers op om Trump te steunen
• El Pais: Ron DeSantis se rinde frente a Trump y se retira de las primarias republicanas
• The Sydney Morning Herald: Republican Ron DeSantis ends presidential campaign
  

As far as we can tell, the only outlet that didn't have the story was the East Cupcake Junior High School Morning Herald. Apparently, there is an emerging scandal there involving forged hall passes, which is obviously big, big news.

Maybe it should have been obvious this was coming, but 18 hours before the bombshell went off, the Tampa Bay Times led with a story headlined Dead man walking? DeSantis continues presidential bid in New Hampshire. Did we ever mention that in politics, 18 hours is a long time?

And the winner of the Best headline goes to ... The Huffington Post.

Where to begin? Let's start with the beer test. It is well known that the candidate everyone wants to have a beer with tends to win. George H.W. Bush? Nah, Bill Clinton was a rascal, but an endearing rascal. Al Gore? Nah, he'd lecture you about global warming. Mitt Romney? Nah, he'd give you binders full of reasons why he would be a great president. Barack Obama? Sure, he would tell you a joke. Hillary? Too uptight for many people. But when it comes to uptight, HRC is an amateur compared to DeSantis. He hates people, campaigning, and especially retail politics, and it shows. Instantly. We're not even sure he wanted to run, but his wife, Lady Macbeth, sure wanted him to.

There are politicians who appear rigid in public but are said to be warm and friendly in person. Hillary Clinton is reported to be like that. Marc Stipanovich, a Florida lobbyist and strategist, said: "I'd rather have teeth pulled without anesthetic than be on a boat with Ron DeSantis." Reporter Nicholas Nehamas wrote of DeSantis: "Even supporters acknowledge that he is not a natural orator, and on the stump he sometimes calls himself an 'energetic executive' in a neutral monotone."

In addition to being likeable only when compared to Vivek Ramaswamy, DeSantis has terrible political instincts. Say what you may about Donald Trump, but he has incredible political instincts. He knew there were people out there who wanted something very different from the 17 or 18 other folks in the 2016 Republican primary and he was right.

Further, DeSantis' timing was off. After the near-drubbing the Republicans took in Nov. 2022, mostly because Trump endorsed folks with serious "candidate quality" problems, DeSantis should have jumped in back in January as the white knight, while Trump was reeling. He waited until May. Horrible decision. At first, people were curious about the new kid in town, but that didn't last long. Look what happened:

In late January 2023, DeSantis was 2-3 points behind Trump. That was the moment to jump in. The media frenzy would have been spectacular, especially if DeSantis' message was: "We need a winner, not a big fat washed-up loser like Trump." Instead, when he finally got in, he did that weird online launch, and then ran to the right of Trump. All he talked about was how he slew the wokebeast in Florida. Nobody had a clue what he was talking about or why. And when he explained how he put Disney in its place, people were thinking how their kids or grandkids read every new issue of Donald Duck 10 times and love it. And many of them had fond memories of wonderful visits to Disneyland or Disney World with their kids. And DeSantis hates, hates, hates the company that their kids love, love, love so much? What's wrong with him? The Governor guessed very, very wrong what it was that the MAGA crowd loves about their Dear Leader, and he also overestimated the extent to which they were looking for a new horse. Chris Christie put it this way: "If you present yourself as New Coke, and Coke's still on the shelves, they are going to buy Coke, not New Coke."

DeSantis had more money than Uncle Scrooge, even though he had to funnel it through a super PAC that his cronies controlled. They wasted most of it due to infighting among various factions. If he couldn't even run a campaign that had north of $80 million on day 1, how could he run a very large and complex country? Surely he did some polling to find out what people thought of him. Most candidates would have taken that feedback and noticed that something was radically wrong and it was time for a serious reboot. Not DeSantis. He doubled down on everything he was doing wrong. Even if he didn't believe the polls he surely conducted, he must have noticed that his billionaire donors, like Ken Griffin and Robert Bigelow, soured on him early on. That might have been a clue something was amiss. If someone had asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) what the problem was, he would surely have said, in his inimitable way, "Candidate quality."

In the end, it surely was money, or the lack thereof, that brought an end to DeSantis '24. When he cut bait in New Hampshire with a week to go, that was plausibly a tactical maneuver. But cutting bait in New Hampshire, and THEN pushing eject on the whole campaign less than a week later? Clearly, he just did not have the resources to keep going, even for a few more weeks in hopes of a miracle.

On the way out the door, DeSantis endorsed Trump and said that the vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm... OK, he didn't say that literally, but said he didn't want the job. Not that he has a chance in a billion of being offered it. Trump would probably take Hillary Clinton on the ticket before he would take DeSantis. Now Ron will go back to Florida as an immensely weakened lame duck and have to deal with a state legislature that will do what it wants, not what he wants. Maybe he will dream of 2028. Good luck with that. The Republican Party has plenty of politicians people actually like, starting with Govs. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Chris Sununu (R-NH), and Glenn Youngkin (R-VA). If DeSantis thinks he's going to get any traction after this miserable performance, he will be in for a rude awakening. The other candidates will point out over and over that he dropped out before the first primary because he was polling at 6% there, and not much better in Nevada and South Carolina. Good bye, Ron. We hardly knew ya. And we won't miss you at all. Give our love to Casey. (V)

Showdown in New Hampshire Tomorrow

Tomorrow could seal the Republican nomination, or start a new phase, as New Hampshire holds the first primary. Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are duking it out, given the exit of Ron DeSantis (see above).

Trump's strategy is unusual, to say the least. First, he is picking fights with judges in an attempt to garner publicity and work his supporters into a frenzy. He has done this in two courtrooms. One is where Judge Arthur Engoron is presiding over a bench trial of Trump's business empire that could cost him $370 million or more, and the other is where Judge Lewis Kaplan is presiding over a trial in which a jury could award E. Jean Carroll whatever it wants to. This strategy might work with his hard-core supporters, but probably is counterproductive with marginal supporters. On the other hand, his strategy has always been a base-only strategy. In primaries, that is usually enough. The downside is that Trump might end up owing half a billion dollars by Groundhog Day. He has never been risk-averse and is clearly not starting now. Still, annoying the judge (and in one case, the jury) is not a good legal strategy, but Trump is betting the farm on becoming president and somehow then being able to undo the damage losing the two cases will cause.

Trump's behavior in the courtrooms would have sunk any other politician and probably landed any non-politician in jail for a couple of nights. But his supporters lap it up. They see him as authentic. By dissing judges and the legal system, they see him as someone who hates political correctness, just as they do. They also see it as a legitimate reaction of someone who is being unfairly targeted. For example, Trump whined about Kaplan not suspending the defamation trial so he could attend the funeral of his mother-in-law. In reality, he is not required to be in the courtroom, so nothing in the courtroom prevented him from going to the funeral. Trump's superpower is his ability to rewrite reality in his supporters' minds. The entrance polls at the Iowa caucuses last week showed that a majority of participants think he legitimately won the 2020 election. Most said that they would vote for him in 2024 even if he is a convicted felon.

The other part of his strategy is now directly going after Nikki Haley, who he calls by her maiden name of Nimarata Randhawa. Nikki is her actual middle name and "Haley" is her husband's last name, which she has been using since they got married. The racism here is more dog bullhorn than dog whistle, especially since he generally and quite deliberately mispronounces her first name. Trump also said that she was ineligible to be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when baby Nimarata was born. Actually, per the Fourteenth Amendment, that doesn't matter since she was born in Bamberg, SC, and her parents' citizenship is irrelevant. The attack on Haley is a follow-up to his regular attacks on Barack HUSSEIN Obama, with emphasis on HUSSEIN.

Haley knows that Republicans like tough candidates and she tries to be tough. How well she stands up to Trump's direct attacks now will probably determine how well she does in New Hampshire tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Haley is not just sitting back and waiting for the inevitable. She spent her 52nd birthday on Saturday barnstorming the state. She told the crowds they could give her a present on Tuesday (tomorrow) "at a polling place near you." Her attacks on Trump have gotten nastier and more direct, but still nowhere near what Chris Christie said in his short campaign. She talks about his age and his love of dictators. She is even talking about his mental fitness, or lack thereof. However, she is not talking about his indictments or the fact that a jury found him guilty of sexual assault and awarded the victim $5 million with more expected this week. Unlike Trump, who favors massive rallies, Haley is still doing retail politics, meeting people in stores and pubs. That's always appreciated in New Hampshire, but with time running out, maybe she should stop kissing babies and start addressing large crowds.

Haley got not one, but TWO boosts yesterday. First was that Ron DeSantis skulked off to Tallahassee with his tail between his legs to face the wrath of Mrs. DeSantis and the Florida state legislature. Second, the biggest and most influential newspaper in New Hampshire, The Union Leader, endorsed Haley. The editorial read: "If you can select a Republican ballot on Tuesday, we urge you to select Nikki Haley as your next president. New Hampshire is ready for a change. America is ready for a change. The world is ready for a change. We want a better option than we have had for the past eight years, and Nikki Haley is that option." Good thing the editors didn't pick DeSantis and then have him drop out 4 hours later.

The Union Leader is not a big fan of Trump. In 2016, the paper's editor, Joe McQuaid, wrote that Donald Trump is "a crude blowhard with no clear political philosophy and no deeper understanding of the important and serious role of President of the United States than one of the goons he lets rough up protesters in his crowds." Yesterday he got that streak of not endorsing Trump to two. If Trump loses this year and runs in 2028, the streak will probably stretch to three.

Will these twin events help Haley? Well, it is now or never for the anti-Trump camp. And remember, in New Hampshire, independents can vote in either party's primary. New Hampshire has a long history of rebuking Iowa and picking the actual winner. Come back Wednesday for more. (V)

Katie Porter Is Rooting for Trump

Why would a progressive female California Senate candidate like Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) root for Donald Trump to crush the only woman who has made it this far in a Republican presidential primary? Once you understand the weirdness that California's top-two all-party primary has created, it makes sense. Currently, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is leading in the polls and has twice as much money as all the other candidates combined. Also, the biggest newspaper in California, The Los Angeles Times, has endorsed Schiff. He is likely to come in first in the March 5 primary.

Porter and Republican Steve Garvey are battling it out for second place. Whoever comes in second gets to advance to the general election in November. Whoever comes in third goes home without even a booby prize. So if Porter comes in second, she gets to fight another day against Schiff. Schiff would definitely be the favorite in the general election against Porter because most Republicans would probably see him as the lesser of two evils. Still, being on the general election ballot is much better than not being on the ballot.

Now here is where the weirdness comes in. Suppose Trump absolutely crushes Nikki Haley tomorrow in New Hampshire. Then the Republican primary will essentially be over. Trump will easily win Nevada and South Carolina. By March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, the media will be proclaiming that Trump is the Republican nominee. For a California Republican, what's the point of voting on Super Tuesday? Theoretically, a Republican voter could be thinking: "I can go vote for Garvey so he makes it to the November ballot, only to be crushed by Schiff in November. Why bother?" So if Trump ends the Republican presidential contest tomorrow, that will depress Republican turnout in California on March 5, which will help Porter grab second place.

Now consider the reverse case: Haley wins New Hampshire. All of a sudden, there is, at least for a while, something like a real horse race. All the headlines would read: "Can Haley Beat Trump?" Then the California primary, with 169 convention delegates at stake, is very important and California Republicans, whether they are Trumpy or Trumpless, are likely to turn out to vote in the presidential primary. While at the polling station, they are then likely to mark their ballots for Garvey for the Senate. If Republican turnout is high on account of the exciting presidential primary, then Garvey will get more votes and that could be just enough to beat Porter for second place. If she were smart, she would fly to New Hampshire and campaign for Trump today. On the other hand, California progressives might not like that so much, so she'd have to do it in a sneaky way, under the radar. Maybe going door to door disguised as Melania. (V)

It's Almost Veep Time

If Trump seals the deal in New Hampshire tomorrow, then the media will begin to focus on who might be veepable. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, got a head start by publishing his list, even before the voting starts in New Hampshire. He has sorted the possible candidates into three categories: establishment politicians, true believers, and everyone else. He notes that in the modern era, the only function of the running mate is to help the presidential candidate win. Whether the #2 would make a good president is secondary or worse, except if the person is so obviously unqualified that it hurts, rather than helps, the ticket (see: Palin, Sarah). Here is Lowry's take.

Establishment candidates

• Nikki Haley: The runner-up is always high on the list. Also, Haley could appeal to women, moderates, suburban voters, and maybe even some voters of color who don't especially like Kamala Harris. Haley is a former governor and U.N. ambassador who has run an excellent campaign and who has the résumé to be president. She brings a lot to the table. No one would compare her to Sarah Palin.
  
  But Trump doesn't like her, and that is often all that matters. She has said he lost in 2020 and she is attacking him now. She has said Trump is too old and chaotic to be president. The MAGAites (MAGAonians?) would be outraged by his picking a woman of color, daughter of immigrants, and a member of the GOP establishment. For these reasons, Trump said on Friday that he's probably not choosing Nikki Haley for vice president. He said: "She's not presidential timber. I know her very well. She's not tough enough. She's not smart enough. And she wasn't respected enough. She cannot do this job. She's not going to be able to deal with President Xi. She's not going to be able to deal with Putin." Apparently, there's only room for one person like that on the GOP ticket. After unloading all that, if he does end up picking her, Biden will have a field day saying Trump is losing it after picking someone he thinks so little of.
  
  
• Mike Pompeo: As a former congressman, CIA director, and secretary of state, Pompeo is clearly qualified, especially in foreign policy. On domestic policy, he is plenty conservative. He didn't run against Trump, hasn't attacked him, and left his administration with his head held high. He wasn't involved in any scandals. He could help bring in his home state of Kansas, but Trump probably doesn't need a lot of help there. He'd be a lot like Dick Cheney: a conservative who could be suddenly dropped into the presidency and start functioning in the first 5 minutes. His value to the campaign would be for Trump to be able to say: "I didn't do politics here. I picked someone who is clearly capable of being president right after I ate my last Big Mac."
  
  
• Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC): For the Republicans to pick a Black candidate would be historic. Scott's a nice guy and all, but the reality is that a lot of Republicans don't like Black people. Also, he was a lousy candidate and showing up one time with a "girlfriend" (and a white one at that) isn't going to quell the rumors that all the senators from South Carolina are, um, Friends of Dorothy. We're not sure why Lowry even put him on the list. He brings nothing to the ticket. He tried to butter up Trump on Friday by endorsing him this weekend. Sorry, Tim, it's not gonna work. You're toast. Maybe Lowry was afraid that if he didn't have at least one Black candidate on his list, people would call him nasty names. But Scott simply does not belong on this list.
  

True believers

• Kari Lake: Boy, would Trump love her. She is as Trumpy as can be and has some star power. She has drunk gallons, no, make that barrels, of the Kool-Aid. She almost won the gubernatorial race in Arizona in 2022 and might be able to bring in that key swing state. That is a huge upside. No other potential candidate could help bring in a big swing state.
  
  On the other hand, she's not remotely capable of being President of the United States; she's even worse than Palin, who did at least have a couple of years' experience as a governor. Lake's only job in the past 20 years was someone who read the news off the teleprompter on a local TV station. She could also say something really stupid once she was under the Big Microscope and this could scare off the moderates, especially if Trump has any kind of medical incident this year.
  
  
• Tucker Carlson: He would create a media storm like none since Palin. The base would go into a frenzy. Some of them would demand a Carlson/Trump ticket rather than Trump/Carlson. He would be a fantastic campaigner, turning out massive crowds. He'd also be good at fundraising. He's also smart enough that when reporters asked him what newspaper he reads, he could say The Wall Street Journal and everybody would "ooh" and "aah."
  
  But he also has downsides. Like, could he be capable of being president if need be? On that score, he is as bad as Lake. Also, he could easily upstage Trump, and Trump hates that with a passion. And what does he bring to the ticket? The base would go wild, but each one of them gets only one vote, even if they worship both candidates on the ticket. Carlson might help improve turnout a little bit, but people who love him were probably going to vote for Trump no matter what.
  
  
• Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH): He is more of a populist than Trump himself, even if he is a multimillionaire from his book royalties. He would be very popular in MAGAworld and he is smart enough not to upstage Trump. A lot of Democrats and Republican moderates would be worried about him becoming president but the base would be ecstatic about a younger Trump. Ohio has become a red state, so he doesn't bring in a state Trump can't win on his own. Still, the possibility of a true believer on the ticket who has the smarts not to overshadow Trump, might make him a serious candidate for the VP pick.
  

Others

• Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD): The South Dakota governor and former congresswoman is desperate to get out of South Dakota and move somewhere warmer. She is acting very Trumpy and really wants the nod. She's even rumored to be sleeping with a Trump whisperer, Corey Lewandowski, to get some help in getting the veep position. Who knows what else she might do? She's like Palin, but served a much longer time as governor. Additionally, she served 4 years in the South Dakota House and 8 years in the U.S. House. Also important for Trump, she's quite attractive.
  
  On the downside, Noem doesn't bring in a new state. She's very rural and very MAGA and very anti-choice and that may not bring in suburban women. Also, putting her on the ticket would cause every reporter in D.C. to start digging for dirt on the Lewandowski story. Suppose some motelkeeper out in the boonies said he saw them rent a room together and signs an affidavit saying that and passes three lie detector tests. Then what?
  
  
• Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR): She's been the governor of a small red state for a year and is the daughter of a former governor of the same state. Trump endorsed her. Before running for governor, she was Trump's press secretary, where she proved she would lie her face off for him. From Trump's point of view, that is a huge plus. She is also a cancer survivor and she is good at telling that story. Still, that doesn't make her a plausible president.
  
  
• Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA): She has a lot going for her. She was a county treasurer for four terms, then a state senator, followed by lieutenant governor, and then governor. She is clearly presidential material. She is easygoing and Midwestern nice. People like her and she is a good campaigner. She could pull in the grandmother vote, since she is one at 64. She wouldn't make any foolish errors on the trail. She is conservative enough to please the base without being obnoxiously conservative.
  
  She has only one real downside, but it is a biggie. She supported DeSantis during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. Trump would have a lot of trouble overlooking that.
  
  
• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY): This is a bit of a wild card. Stefanik wants the slot as much as Noem and has transformed herself from a moderate from upstate New York into a fire-breathing Trumper. She worked as a staffer for George W. Bush and has since been elected to the House five times. She has a bachelor's degree from Harvard, so she is probably smart enough and maybe (barely) experienced enough to be president. She's 39 and also attractive and with Trump, that counts for a lot. If she were single, that would be even better. Then he could break another norm and divorce his wife and marry his vice president while in office. The ultimate power couple.
  
  House members have been picked for the #2 slot before, most recently Paul Ryan and Geraldine Ferraro. It's rare, but not unheard of. Stefanik's main downside is that although she did well embarrassing a couple of university presidents who were called to testify before Congress, she hasn't really been vetted carefully on the national stage. She is trying to please Trump so much that she might say something by accident that didn't play well with the media. Like, for example, calling the 1/6 convicts "hostages." The base ate that up, but pretty much everyone else was horrified.
  

Who did Lowry miss, if anyone? Over at PaddyPower, Vivek Ramaswamy is tied with Stefanik for second place (after Noem). We think that is nuts. Ramaswamy is an obnoxious jerk who would drive away all the moderates and suburban women. Tied in fourth place is Ben Carson. Ben who? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is also taking some money. Trump is crazy, but he is not that crazy. We think that if Trump wants to pick a solid candidate who wouldn't upstage or embarrass him, Pompeo would be a good choice. If he wants to swing for the fences, then maybe Lake, but that would mean giving up a shot at a winnable Senate seat in Arizona. And with Trump, young and pretty might be irresistible, in which case Stefanik could be the one.

Trump's #2 is important for reasons other than helping or hurting Trump this year. Whoever he picks will likely become a serious candidate for president in 2028, win or lose this time (although keep in mind how well that worked out for Mike Pence). Sometimes the veep candidate understands this all too well and spends a lot of time auditioning for next time, something Trump doesn't like, but has little control over once he makes his choice.

The timing of the pick is important. Trump can and will hint a lot for a few weeks, but that is just to get media attention. Once he has acquired the 1,215 delegates needed to nail down the nomination, he can stop being coy and announce his pick whenever he wants to. An early announcement allows his sidekick to start campaigning and fundraising. That is always useful. On the other hand, with the suspense gone, there won't be news stories every day about "Who will Trump pick?" Of course, it is up to Trump alone to decide when to go public with his choice, assuming he has already made one, which is not certain. He may want to watch the potential veeps a bit more before making the call. (V)

The Impossible Dream

They did it again. Congress kicked the can down the road. The government funding crisis has been put off until March. But none of the underlying problems have been solved. In late February, we start all over again with exactly the same situation as now. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who served as acting speaker after Kevin McCarthy was canned, thinks this endless kicking is pointless. McHenry said: "There is no point in pushing the votes down the road because the votes are going to be the same. To draw out the calendar doesn't actually help produce political wins, and it's not actually shown to create policy wins. I'm here for policy wins." McHenry wants Johnson to get the best deal he can and then move on.

On another front, the fate of the $106 billion supplemental bill to fund Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and beef up border security is still hanging by a chad. The Senate is going to pass some kind of bill this week, probably with 60-70 votes. Then what? Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) doesn't have a working majority to get the bill (or any bill) passed with only Republican votes. But if he works with the Democrats, Marjorie Taylor Greene will introduce a motion to vacate the chair—unless someone else beats her to the punch.

Now some Democrats are openly talking about an unthinkable deal: If Johnson puts the Senate bill up for a vote, they will save his hide when MTG introduces the MTV. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said: "Our job is not to save Johnson, but I think it would be a mighty pity, if he did the right thing ... for us not to support him. Up to this point, he's been a fairly honest broker." What he means is that although Johnson is more conservative than Kevin McCarthy, he is not a sleazy creep who breaks his promises all the time. In politics, an honest opponent with whom you disagree on policy gets more respect than a bad-faith weasel who says what you want to hear and then double-crosses you.

The deal seems reasonable on paper, but in practice is probably not politically feasible. For one thing, Donald Trump is wildly against any bill unless his buddy, Vladimir Putin, signs off on it. Putin does not want the U.S. to send more weapons and better weapons to Ukraine. Nor is he a big fan of Israel. If Johnson were to bring the Senate bill up, it might pass but Trump would be absolutely livid and furious with him. How long could he last if all 220 Republicans decided to fire him, even if all 213 Democrats supported him? And even if he survived because a couple of Republicans went rogue and voted with the Democrats, what would his life be like if Trump became president?

The mere fact that Democrats are now openly talking about this deal shows how desperate they are. Not only would passing a bill be good policy, but it would also defuse one of Trump's main arguments in the general election: Biden didn't do anything about the border crisis. For that reason alone, Trump will never support any bill relating to the border, even if it gives Republicans everything they want. Trump cannot tolerate a Biden victory on this sensitive matter. It would take the wind out of his sails.

Johnson's position is made worse by the fact that some Republicans really want to help Ukraine and Israel and Republicans who represent districts along the border really want the CBP beefed up because their districts can't handle the flow. Some of them are already running TV ads trying to counter pressure from the right-wing and make it clear they are trying to solve the problem, even if some of their colleagues are not. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district is on the border, said: "I am looking for solutions now, not a year from now." Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) was even more blunt: "How many hundreds of thousands of illegals would you allow in the country just because it might help your chances in the election?" But these two and others are powerless if the speaker refuses to bring a bill to the floor. Supporting a motion to discharge the bill from committee would be suicidal. So what happens next? We sure don't know and Johnson apparently doesn't either. (V)

Key Willis Ally Wants Her to Fire Her Boyfriend

Last week, Fulton County DA Fani Willis went to church and confessed (in public) that mistakes were made. Love is not only blind, but also stupid. When you are running what could be the second-most important criminal investigation of the century (after Jack Smith's investigation of the coup attempt), you don't hire your inexperienced boyfriend as lead investigator. You don't hire him at all. For anything.

Either she didn't expect to get caught or didn't expect it would be big news, but both happened. Now one of her key allies, Norm Eisen, who served as a special counsel in the first impeachment of Donald Trump, has called for her to fire the boyfriend, Nathan Wade. Eisen said that the problem isn't legal. Nothing in Georgia law says that what she did is a conflict of interest. She didn't break any laws hiring Wade, but it looks really bad. As we have mentioned before, if she had been having an affair with someone universally recognized as one of the top prosecutors in the country, she might have had a case, but she has people on her own staff far better than Wade.

Eisen says that if Willis does nothing, the criticism will only continue and the only way to stop the bleeding is to unilaterally get rid of Wade (or talk him into resigning for the good of the case). Eisen doesn't think she has to get off the case herself or resign because she was elected to her position and is doing her job. He thinks that getting rid of Wade will quell much of the furor.

Eisen also said that the facts are not really clear yet. Did she actually accept a couple of airline tickets from him? What were they worth? Maybe $500? Is that a reason for her to hire him and pay him almost $700,000 for leading an investigation? It does seem clear from her lack of denial that there is something going on. She could have said: "I did not have sexual relations with that man." Even presidents do it from time to time.

Now that the dam has been breached, probably other people who are on her side will come forward and second Eisen's motion. In the end, she will probably be forced to get rid of him or take herself out of the case. The latter would be manna from heaven for Trump since then the trial would be delayed until after the election. Eisen is right. The only way out is to dump Wade and the faster the better. She might have to then look for a new boyfriend, preferably someone who is not a lawyer. (V)

Candidate Quality Matters

As we note above, Mitch McConnell famously said that "candidate quality matters" in 2022, when some of Donald Trump's picks went down in flames in otherwise winnable races. Will we get repeat performances in 2024 in races where the Republicans nominate someone for the Senate who has a "quality" problem? It could happen. Among the states which have real potential for a "quality" problem are these:

• Arizona: If Kari Lake fails to get Donald Trump to pick her as his running mate, she will stay in the Arizona Senate race and almost certainly get the GOP nomination. If Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) decides to run for reelection, something she hasn't announced yet, it could be a strange race with a popular Democratic representative (Ruben Gallego), Sinema, and Lake. Lake would probably be a weak candidate in that situation. Not many Democrats are likely to support Sinema, since, together with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), she blocked almost all of Joe Biden's big plans. On the other hand, Lake is crazy enough that moderate Republicans who can't stand her will have Sinema to vote for without having to vote for a Democrat. A more moderate Republican wouldn't bleed votes to Sinema. So Lake might have the infamous "candidate quality" problem that a more mainstream Republican wouldn't have. If Sinema doesn't run, moderate Republicans may skip that line on the ballot if they can't stomach the liberal Gallego.
  
  The filing deadline in Arizona is April 8, but as an independent candidate, Sinema would have to collect a large number of signatures to get on the ballot. She can't start to collect them on April 1. It could take weeks, especially since Democrats hate her and Lake-loving Republicans may not want her on the ballot. In other words, the window is closing. If she wants to run, she can't wait much longer about making a decision.
  
  
• Michigan: The retirement of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has created an open seat in Michigan. Democrats have their candidate already in the form of Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). She is a powerful fundraiser and has the full backing of the Democratic Party. She first has to win a primary against actor Hill Harper, but that shouldn't be so hard.
  
  The Republican side is a real mess now. Former representatives Mike Rogers and Peter Meijer are already in, along with former Detroit Chief of Police James Craig, wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler and half a dozen others. Former representative Justin Amash is mulling a bid. It will be a real food fight, with all of them except maybe Meijer (and Amash, if he runs) trying to out-Trump all the others. All of them except Meijer are going to try to get Trump's endorsement. This competition will move almost all of them to the far-right and thus produce a candidate with a "candidate quality" problem. Meijer is the scion of a family that owns a large number of supermarkets in the Midwest, so he can self-fund, but he might not be able to get the votes.
  
  
• Montana: Republicans have their candidate in the form of wealthy aerial firefighter Tim Sheehy. The problem is that there is another guy who looks like he wants to run despite the fact that the NRSC absolutely does not want him, namely Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT). But there is no way NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-MT) can stop him if he files to run in the primary. The fire-breathing Rosendale ran against Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in 2018 and lost and Daines is scared witless that he would lose again if he is the nominee. What Donald Trump does here is crucial. If he decides to be pragmatic and backs Sheehy because he could flip the seat, that could seal the Democrats' fate. But if he backs the Trumpiest candidate in the race, Rosendale, then the Republicans could end up with that dreaded candidate quality problem. With West Virginia now a lost cause, Democrats have to win every seat they are defending and Montana is near the top of the list of tough races. If Rosendale carries out his threat and jumps in, the NRSC would have to spend millions of dollars on internal warfare to avoid getting a candidate with a proven record of losing statewide races against an incumbent with a proven record of winning statewide races.
  
  
• Ohio: Ohio is another tough race the Democrats must win. And here, too, Trump could create a candidate quality problem. He has endorsed wealthy car dealer Bernie Moreno. State Sen. Matt Dolan is also running. His father loves baseball, so he bought the Cleveland Indians and renamed them the Cleveland Guardians. Dolan's campaign will also not be wanting for money. The NRSC is officially neutral, but Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is probably the strongest candidate. With two right-wing multimillionaires in the race, one of them with Trump's endorsement, there is a chance the Republicans will pick a candidate with a "candidate quality" problem, rather than the more electable and better-known LaRose. The NRSC could come to LaRose's rescue, but that would anger Trump, something Daines is scared to do.
  

There are a couple of other races that could end up with candidate quality problems as well, particularly Wisconsin and Nevada, but the incumbent Democrats are probably strong enough to fend off weak candidates. In Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) doesn't have a challenger yet, but wealthy businessman Eric Hovde might change that. Republicans seem to love having wealthy businessmen run for the Senate (because that saves the NRSC money), but as a group, their track record is modest. The other Wisconsin senator, Ron Johnson (R-WI), is one of the few exceptions.

In Nevada, the NRSC wants veteran Sam Brown, but Trump is mulling supporting either Jeffrey Gunter or Jim Marchant, both are (probably) unelectable Trumpists. (V)

Louisiana Legislature Approves House Map with a Second Black-Majority District

On Friday, the Republican-controlled Louisiana state legislature did the unthinkable: It complied with a federal court order to create a new congressional map with a second majority-Black district in it. Just about everywhere else in the South, when the courts have ordered new maps with more Black-majority seats, the legislatures have defied the courts and drawn new maps that are barely better than the ones ruled in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Louisiana has six House seats. Thirty percent of the population is Black, so the math suggests there ought to be two Black-majority districts. But since the Republicans control the process, they don't want that because it will mean they will lose a seat. Considering how tight the House is now, every seat matters. Also surprising is that Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) is expected to sign the bill. This is the second seat the Democrats are likely to pick up on account of new maps. The other is in Alabama.

Mike Johnson personally intervened in the matter and urged the state Republicans to keep on fighting and not draw a new map in which the GOP will probably lose a seat. They refused to play ball because they were afraid if they didn't obey the court order, federal Judge Shelly Dick would hire a special master to draw the map and that might be even worse than the one they drew. The new map protects the seat of two important Republicans: Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. A map Dick ordered drawn might not have protected them. (V)

---

If you wish to contact us, please use one of these addresses. For the first two, please include your initials and city.

• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.

To download a poster about the site to hang up in school, at work, etc., please click here.

---

Email a link to a friend or share some other way.

---The Votemaster and Zenger