Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… SHIFTING WINDS.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections, an interesting narrative began to take root.
Although Democrats had exceeded expectations, losing the House by a smaller-than-expected margin without losing control of the Senate, the big winner, most agreed, was Governor Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis and Republicans won big in Florida, while many candidates picked or backed by former President Donald Trump, did not.
The DeSantis hype was so big it managed to both delay and rush a Trump announcement for a White House bid.
Nearly a month after Election Day, things didn’t get any better for Trump when the last (and perhaps weakest) of his candidates, Herschel Walker, was defeated in the Georgia Senate runoff.
That defeat also came just hours after the Trump Organization was found guilty of financial crimes, including tax fraud.
So much losing.
A recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll showed that Utah Republicans prefer at least two hypothetical candidates over Trump: Governor DeSantis and Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney. The former has a ten point lead and Cheney – primarily known for her commitment to making sure Trump never sees the White House again – leads her nemesis by two points.
Now, the majority of Utah Republicans have voted for their party and reluctantly supported Trump as the better of two bad choices. But the winds are shifting beyond the Beehive State.
Following Trump’s comments calling for, “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Republican officials responded by speaking out against Trump – and that came on the heels of Trump having dinner with white nationalists, that brought strong rebuke from Senator Mitt Romney.
Two years is an eternity in politics and making assumptions about the electorate in 2024 based off of a couple of weeks in 2022 is dangerous.
But it sure feels like the GOP senses an opening to get away from Trump and is ready to run right through it.
That’s it for this week – and for this year. Happy holidays to you. We’ll see you in the new year.
Use some of that holiday downtime to visit the site and sign up for our weekly email update. You can find more On Message videos, in-depth Utah political stories and analysis, plus podcasts and more at utahpoliticalundergound.com.
