DeSantis struggles to reboot campaign, Trump to stand trial in May 2024
One year from now, there’s a strong chance Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination for the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
But Trump, who has lost the popular vote as many times as he has been indicted and impeached, will likely have to stand trial before the general election should he emerge victorious in the primaries.
The Republican primaries are set to wrap on March 12, 2024, two months before Trump will stand trial on felony charges related to the former president’s mishandling of classified documents.
It’s certainly unusual for a presidential candidate to be facing a jury rather than supporters on the campaign trail, but it’s unprecedented for a former president to be indicted following his tenure in the White House.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to delay the trial until after the 2024 election — a legal tactic that, should their client win back the presidency, would likely prevent Trump from being tried until as late as 2029.
The trial, which is set to last two weeks, is scheduled to begin on May 20, 2024.
The collapse of Ron DeSantis’ campaign
Who would’ve thought the Republican presidential candidate whose campaign retweeted a fan-made advertisement featuring a snippet of the serial killer Patrick Bateman from the 2000 film American Psycho would be undergoing a campaign reboot after a disastrous campaign rollout?
Well, to be fair, anyone paying attention has seen how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has struggled to launch a competitive campaign against Trump.
What wasn’t so obvious was how quickly DeSantis would pivot to denying January 6 was an insurrection and changing Florida’s educational curriculum to falsely claim that Black people who were enslaved in the United States "benefited from slavery" in some way.
DeSantis, who was the subject of a recent Showtime documentary about his time working at Guantanamo Bay that was curiously axed shortly after he announced his run for president, is struggling to stay afloat. He isn’t making any gains in the polls, and with campaign cutbacks, he has recently fired a dozen staffers.
A shrinking team six months out from the primaries is never a promising look, but DeSantis is banking on the first GOP presidential debate on Aug. 23 — which Trump has threatened to boycott — to bring new life to his campaign.
Biden campaign swimming in cash as Republicans fight to become nominee
As President Joe Biden continues his re-election campaign, he’s outraising all of his Republican counterparts, bringing in more than $72 million in the second quarter of 2023. More importantly, the campaign says it has $77 million in cash on hand. With no legitimate competition for the Democratic nomination, Biden and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will be able to ration funds through the primaries to spend big in the general election.
Biden raised more than twice as much as Trump, who raised over $35 million in the second quarter, and three-and-a-half times as much as DeSantis’ $20 million over the same period.
Sen. Tim Scott brought in a modest $6.1 million, while Nikki Haley raised $4.3 million.
And according to Biden’s campaign, the average contribution was $39, and 97 per cent of donations were less than $200. Overall, the campaign has reportedly garnered funds from nearly 400,000 donors.
The first Republican presidential nomination debate
When it comes to Republican long-shot candidates, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy recently secured his spot on the first GOP debate stage. He joins Trump, DeSantis, Haley, Scott, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Former Vice President Mike Pence has yet to qualify, nor has former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson or North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Along with the pledge requirement, candidates must have polled above one per cent in three RNC-approved national polls (or two national polls and two separate early primary state polls) dating back to July 1 in order to qualify. They also need to receive donations from a minimum of 40,000 individuals, with at least 200 coming from 20 different states.
If Burgum makes it to the debate stage, he will have an unconventional approach to thank — his campaign recently offered $20 gift cards to anyone who donated $1 in an effort to secure the donor threshold. It’s unclear whether the deliberate act of paying off supporters would violate campaign finance laws.
But Burgum might have been one-upped by Ramaswamy, who announced he would put 10 per cent of his campaign’s total money raised back in the pockets of donors.
Trump may be partially motivated to sit out the first primary debate, considering he technically would not qualify for it after all. The RNC implemented a rule earlier this year that forces Republican candidates to sign a pledge by Aug. 21 to support the eventual nominee. The chronic election denier is unlikely to support any other Republican nominee, let alone consider another loss on his record legitimate to begin with.
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