GOP senators say there is less enthusiasm for former President Trump among Republican-leaning voters compared to 2016, a drop in voter energy that was apparent when only 15 percent of Iowa’s registered Republicans showed up for Monday’s caucuses.
Lawmakers acknowledge the weather was a factor behind the low turnout in Iowa but point to other signs of diminished enthusiasm for Trump, something that could hurt down-ballot Republican candidates in swing states.
Senate Republicans hope that Trump’s problems will be balanced by lower enthusiasm among Democrats for President Biden, though they expect Trump being atop the ticket will drive Democratic voters to the polls in large numbers.
Another concern among GOP senators is that Biden will have a big fundraising advantage over Trump, who is pouring his resources into his legal defense in the face of four criminal trials and two civil cases.
The GOP is also the party of die-hard misogynists. It’s part of the whole reactionary “remember how it used to be when people (non-white, non-male, non-cis/het, etc) knew their place?” GOP safe space for little minds.
If Nikki Haley, by some miracle, actually topped the ticket it would split the GOP. Probably not down the middle, but by some lesser yet significant percent. These “never a woman” voters would not vote for a Dem, they’d just stay home.
But IMO it would take a literal miracle for Nikki Haley to have any real chance at the presidency. There are too many conservatives of both genders, Trumpers and non-Trumpers alike, who will just as heartily reject a woman for the top spot as they ever did a black man, and even now only barely tolerate the idea of a female governor.
So the RNC will let Haley run to use her resources and funds to clear out the field of lesser candidates, like they did Trump (never expecting he would win), but the party of troglodytes will never support her directly for the top job unless she just singlehandedly sweeps the field of all other candidates and leaves them no choice in it, which is not what’s happening.
Note especially the absolute lack of condemnation and utter silence from the rest of the GOP on the topic of Trump’s recent cheap shots in her direction. They are openly racist, openly vile, beneath the dignity of ANY other US president in the last century. Yet I haven’t heard of a single word of censure from any of them about it, and to me that silence speaks volumes: Haley’s allowed to run to coalesce undecided support and thus make way for the real winner to emerge, and then she needs to depart the field without making a fuss once she has delivered that service to her party.
My opinion, anyway.