Trump-DeSantis primary could get destructive for Republican Party


Former President Donald Trump may have been reinstated on Twitter, but that doesn’t mean his bid for president will encounter the same fate. Trump has officially launched his candidacy for president but polls from Nov. 11-13 suggest Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds an 11 percentage point lead in Iowa and 15 points in New Hampshire. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman argues a Trump-DeSantis contest could get ugly and destructive for the Republican Party.

Well, Donald Trump is once again running for president in 2020. Donald Trump’s announcement had a very different energy, and by different I mean a notable lack of energy when he made that announcement on the evening of Nov. 15. And everything is so different about this run, that I don’t believe we can really say with any level of certainty at this point how it’s going to go.

So let me set it up for you.

Donald Trump, of course, was the eventual Republican nominee in 2016. That campaign started in 2015. Early on, Trump didn’t have the Republican establishment behind him. Trump didn’t have Fox News behind him. And the way that Donald Trump won was in an extraordinarily crowded field with – I believe it was 18 or maybe even 19 total candidates – Trump stuck around just long enough for one of the ones and twos – the candidates with one, two and three percent support to drop out. And Trump would pick up a point or two from people who didn’t really like anyone else. This just by sort of attrition led to Trump being in a position to be one of the top three, and then eventually he was able to secure that nomination.

We all know Trump never could have won a Democratic presidential nomination because, let’s be honest, the standards to be the Democratic nominee are dramatically higher than the standards to be the Republican nominee. Republicans will vote for anyone who says some of the right things: “I’m religious now,” as Trump claimed – it was a lie. “I’m against abortion now” – Trump was pro-choice his entire life…it was probably another lie, just meant to be the Republican nominee. They fell for it, they made him the nominee. Over time, Trump failed and failed and failed again and again and again.