Jay Weber Show transcript 6/19/23 7:10am
So... The Wisconsin GOP held its annual convention in La Crosse this weekend and not unexpectedly, Donald Trump won the straw poll-easily.
These conventions always take informal straw polls of the attendees....as to which candidates they support in the upcoming races-
And in this instance-the attendees strongly supported Donald Trump for the presidential nom, and Tom Tiffany for the US Senate- which is interesting.
I like Tom Tiffany. He’s a very levelheaded, proven conservative from up in that northwest region of the state. And the convention-was- held in
La-Crosse- which is just outside his district’s southern edge-and so maybe that’s why he did so much better than the other options-
But let’s talk about Trump’s resounding popularity, and how other than Ron DeSantis, no one else in this primary was in any way exciting to these attendees.
Vivek Ramaswamy got eleven- so he came in third- way, way back in third.
Tim Scott got nine.
Nikki Haley-just eight votes.
Interestingly-a man who isn’t even in the race-Glenn Youngkin got four votes-and came in sixth- ahead of mike pence...who only got three.
Oof.
To me, that’s proof that, as great a conservative candidate as Mike Pence is- and despite the fact that he’s got more experience than any of these other candidates-by far- when it comes to the skills that apply to running the country-
Mike pence just won’t get a break. He just won’t get a second look by ‘this group’ of grassroots voters. Today’s most ardent GOP devotees simply aren’t going to give a second look to a guy who Donald Trump so thoroughly trashed-and still does to this day-because pence stood up for ‘country and constitution’ instead of trump’s desperate ‘transition of power’ play.
It's too bad-but it’s not at all unexpected.
And by the way- pence is surprising me by rolling out some substantive and genuinely impressive attacks on president trump...and we’ll talk about those in a different segment-
but I want to open the phone lines for a few minutes on this question: who -of those candidates
This straw poll was from staunch convention -goers and doesn’t necessarily reflect the wider voting base-and so-do you think they reflect what’s going on in Wisconsin?
But-if you had any doubts that the sort of Wisconsin grassroots republicans who run the parties at the county level and would show up a the state’s convention still love Trump and are still standing behind him-
That straw poll should answer your question. And it’s just a small sampling of people- sure-and it’s the type that would go out of their way to attend the party’s convention on a beautiful sunny day in June. When the average GOP voter is more interested in beer and barbeque-
And so, don’t confuse this group with the larger electorate. This overwhelming support for trump that they’ve shown isn’t necessarily an ‘accurate snapshot’ of where Wisconsin’s republican voters are-but I’ll shock listeners who know I’d rather see a DeSantis nomination- by saying: my gut tells me that this is pretty ‘dead on’.
I think this little snapshot is probably-very close-to the sentiments of most Wisconsin republicans right now...with more than half- 55-60 percent of voters still being behind trump...
And with a third or so backing DeSantis. And with the other sliver still searching. Yeah, if the primary voting were held today, Donald Trump would win Wisconsin.
The news coverage of this convention made a big deal out of the fact that-when a video of Donald Trump was played for the convention-goers, and he mentioned that he really won Wisconsin in 2020- the crowd loudly applauded and cheered.
Oh! How awful! These people still believe the ‘big lie’ that Trump really won that election!
Folks- I don’t know if trump had the electoral votes to win in 2020 or not. There were clearly some questionable things going on in the battleground states that judges -then-refused to investigate- before pretending as if it was a fairly held election-
I don’t know if the election was stolen-to this date-
But I can tell you what I do believe-and will believe to my dying ay: there is no way in hell that Joe Biden, who couldn’t even draw a crowd of 500 people at the average campaign stop-even before he went and hid in his basement-
There is no way that that man was so crazy-popular that he got 81-million votes.
Folks- remember-Donald Trump lost even though he got-more votes-than he did in 2016.Donald trump got 73-million votes in 2020 -which represented the highest water-mark- ever-for an incumbent president-
No- Barrack Obama didn’t even get 73-million votes in either of his elections. He came up shy of 70-million votes both times-
Trump got 73-million votes in 2020-and we are supposed to believe that Biden got 8 million more?
Joe Biden? Who no one seemed to back? Got 11-million more votes than the super-popular democrat messiah did-just four years earlier?
Bull plop, joe did. There was some massive cheating and vote padding going on-in order to deliver Biden that sort of win. So, in that sense, I will never believe 2020 was an honest election.
I don’t know where the cheating occurred or how those votes ‘fell’ to either help or hurt trump on the electoral map-but there’s no way Joe Biden got 81-million ‘honest’ votes and outdid every other president in the modern era in terms of popular support.
Bull plop.
Anyway- the attendees to the convention -by and large- are still ‘all in’ on the need for more voter integrity efforts and over half of them were ‘all in’ on trump, when asked.
And I’ll be interesting to see how the ‘indictment theatre’ ages, and plays out over the coming months, but over the last two weeks- Donald Trump has surged in the polls again, and has knocked his nearest challenger, Ron DeSantis, back down into the ‘teens’ in terms of overall support-
And so- this ‘Trump 2024’ effort could become a runaway train if enough of the American people- republicans and independents- simply refuse to look at a different candidate, or different scenario in 2024.
Trump could really start ‘rolling’ to this nomination .and the democrats could overplay their hand- again- and depending on the series of events between now and next November-they could be helping usher Trump into a second term.
I’m still of the opinion that 2/3 of swing voters don’t want to vote for trump-but Biden sure is giving them no reason to vote for him.
I’ve been saying-you won’t hear me say-categorically-that Trump cannot win the general election.
I know numerous skeptics are saying it. I’m not one of them. I would much prefer to have a younger, more coherent, more conservative candidate than trump on the ticket-one who can serve 8 years and maybe even launch a new run of conservatism in the wake of America’s disappointment with Biden’s disastrous push toward socialism-
I believe the country’s voters will be ripe for that- and Trump is too divisive to launch it. Isn’t visionary enough to launch it. And can only serve four years-and can’t launch it-
But- is it a definite that he can’t beat a god-awful Joe Biden?
No. Hardly.
photo credit: @WisGOP Twitter page