I talked to more than a half-dozen senior GOP strategists about @realDonaldTrump’s current election standing and what he’s doing to down-ticket races. Some choice descriptions: “sucks,” “catastrophic,” “dire,” “ominous.” vice.com/en_us/article/…
GOP strategists say their state/district polling is just as brutal as what we're seeing in national public surveys. Trump's far behind in MI, WI, PA, trailing in AZ, FL and NC, and barely ahead in GA, TX, IA, OH. That's the whole map.
Republicans' best hope is that there's still 4 months until the election. But things could get worse, too...
“Are we at the bottom or has the bottom not even dropped out yet?” wondered one. “I don’t know what gets us out of this. People are probably just fucking sick of it.”
Some other choice quotes:
“It’s as dire polling-wise as it’s ever been for Republicans in the Trump era.”
"Trump has to get his shit together and his campaign has to get their shit together."
“If the election were held today, we’d be talking about a wipeout."
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I spent the last few months trying to get my head around Tommy Tuberville for @RollingStone. Talked to him multiple times, chatted with former players and a bunch of senators.
Claremont recently opened its first state-based office in its history in FL, and DeSantis rolled out the red carpet.
He's involved them in his hostile takeover of New College, his push to end DEI programs and a K-12 civics program.
They're involved in his nascent campaign too.
“On a whole range of issues where wokeness is a threat he has risen to the occasion—rhetorically, but he’s also trying to do something about it legislatively," Claremont Institute senior fellow Charles Kesler, who DeSantis appointed at New College, told me.
Trump and his allies have spent two-plus years plotting to turn states with slower vote counts into scenes of chaotic protest, last-minute lawsuits and outright rejections of the democratic process.
“I'm very concerned about the possibility of violence in the post-election period incited by losing candidates."
The two swing states where conditions are most ripe for chaos:
Arizona (mail-heavy state, vigilante voter intimidation, a slate of election-denying candidates)
Pennsylvania (slow mail ballot counting caused by intentional GOP intransigence, focus from Trump folks)
“After I pulled an all nighter watching The Fall of the Cabal, I was wrecked. Between the compelling evidence indicating that the migrant caravan in 2018 was totally staged, to the bone chilling saga of Pizzagate..."
"..., to the idea that JFK Jr. could still be alive (which I believe is completely false), my world was rocked."
Shuppe repeatedly used the QAnon hashtag WWG1WGA and referenced "the storm," and seemed particularly alarmed by pedophilia conspiracies (Pizzagate/Wayfair).