The really, really, really wild wildcards in the 2022 and 2024 elections

benfell

See updates through December 31, 2022, at end of post.

It seems Donald Trump’s entourage is perceiving a need for him to lawyer up[1] as the legal ramifications[2] of the search of Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago[3] become more apparent, but

One lawyer told a story from early in Trump’s presidency of his legal team urging him against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he’d tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway. Several people said Trump was nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear if they would ever get paid.[4]


It hardly seems surprising that Trump’s past behavior with lawyers[5] has come back to haunt him with lawyers—at least one has lost licenses to practice law for acting on Trump’s behalf[6] and complaints against others may be pending[7]—but of course, all this becomes moot if, as I have predicted,[8] Trump wins the presidency in 2024.

And if there’s one message we can draw from Liz Cheney’s drubbing in the Wyoming primary,[9] and the performance of Trump-supporting candidates in recent primaries,[10] as well as Republican support for Trump even in the face of suggestions of violations of the Espionage Act,[11] it’s that his support appears undimmed, which is to say that while some Republican politicians may have been shamed by what we now know of the Mar-a-Lago search,[12] for Trump’s base, it’s still my theory of the morality of polarization, “in which what ‘we’ do is good and right, simply by virtue of the fact that ‘we’ are doing it; and what ‘they’ do is evil and wrong, simply by virtue of the fact that ‘they’ are doing it.”[13]

A crucial aspect of the morality of polarization, of course, is that the moral implications of an action itself are irrelevant: For Trump’s supporters, it matters little that Trump may be accused of violating the Espionage Act or have committed obstruction of justice.[14] “We” stored some records at Mar-a-Lago and by virtue of the fact that “we” did it, it is good and right. “They” searched for and retrieved those records and by virtue of the fact that ”they” did it, they are evil and wrong. Conservative epistemology now appears not merely to value almost anything other than actual evidence,[15] but to have embraced the morality of polarization[16] as a way of knowing.[17]

There is, of course, a tell in Trump’s difficulty finding the kind of lawyers he needs for allegations that may arise from the Mar-a-Lago search.[18] The support Trump sees from his base and in Republican—for which, read white Christian nationalist—primaries is far from universal. It remains to be seen how all this plays in November and it may well be that between Trump’s apparent criminality in seeking to retain and return to the presidency and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the outcome of November’s election may be far different from what was widely forecast even a very few weeks ago. What we can see are two potentially hugely significant wildcards on the electoral table.

But what we also see, both in the January 6 coup attempt[19] itself and even in the reaction to the Mar-a-Lago search[20] is a willingness of some—we do not know how many— of Trump’s supporters to resort to violence to try to get their way;[21] this has likely been a factor[22] in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s dithering, first, over whether to search Mar-a-Lago and, second, whether to charge Trump.[23] This is another wildcard and, at this moment, I cannot say which wildcard(s) will prevail.

Update, August 30, 2022:

“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” [Joe] Biden said, referring to [Donald] Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.”[24]

But what have the Democrats actually done about it? Nothing. Even when it would keep them in the electoral game.[25]

It will take actual action, not mere performance, to make my 2024 forecast[26] wrong,[27] but what we keep seeing is that the Democrats do not actually stand in opposition to white Christian nationalism or to the longstanding Republican project to establish a competitive authoritarian regime. They enable white Christian nationalism and they enable the competitive authoritarian regime.

Such action, rather, comes from the Republicans themselves, overreaching in their support for Donald Trump, overreaching in their opposition to abortion rights.[28] It’s all the Democrats ever ask for: That you vote against the Republicans. And the infuriating part is that it just might be working.[29]

Update, November 9, 2022: It seems there is, after all, an upper limit to the crazy in Pennsylvania. Both Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman have prevailed, against Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz, respectively.[30]

Update, November 10, 2022:

“Candidate quality matters,” Erick Erickson, a longtime GOP commentator, said of what he described as a disappointing showing for [Donald] Trump. “They weren’t good candidates. They had more allegiance to him than anything else. The GOP might still win both [chambers] but this is not the night they expected.”[31]

A disappointing night for most Republicans turned into a very good night for one Floridian. Gov. Ron DeSantis not only won a second term in Tuesday’s midterm elections but also did so by a sizable margin — even winning Miami-Dade County, marking the first time a Republican has taken that largely urban electorate in two decades.

The results cemented many expectations that DeSantis would run for president in 2024 — a situation that’s already sparking tension with another Floridian Republican, former president Donald Trump. And to some Democrats, the double-digit wins seen by not only DeSantis but Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday have firmly ended the chapter where the state could be seen as a swing state.[32]

The former president [Donald Trump] inserted himself into multiple contests, endorsing candidates at the primaries stage when parties choose their standard-bearers. The Trump seal of approval proved decisive in several, but just look at how those Trump favourites fared. True, the memoirist and venture capitalist JD Vance won in now solidly red Ohio, but in swing states Trumpers performed badly. An election denier who had been present at the 6 January Capitol Hill riot was trounced in the race to be Pennsylvania governor, while TV doctor Mehmet Oz, another Trump pick, was defeated in the Senate race by Democrat John Fetterman – even though the latter faced persistent questions about his ability to serve following a severe stroke in the summer.

Perhaps most revealing of the Trump effect was Georgia. Two Republican officials who became nationally known when they resisted Trump pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential count in their state were comfortably re-elected. But Herschel Walker, handpicked by Trump to run for the senate in Georgia, was in a photo finish for that all-important seat, one set to be decided by a run-off next month. Meanwhile, a Trumper in New Hampshire was soundly beaten, while another, Kari Lake, seemed to be trailing in what should have been a winnable contest in Arizona.

As Wednesday morning came, a pattern seemed to be emerging. Even Fox News reporters were quoting Republican sources telling them: “If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now. We have a Trump problem.” . . .

Cold, hard logic suggests Republicans should step away from Trump, a man who has now presided over three consecutive defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 (four if you include the two Georgia senate runoffs in January 2021). But it won’t be simple. For one thing, Trump’s defenders can argue that they do better when his name is on the ballot than when it is not – and it is true that Republicans did gain congressional seats in 2016 and 2020. But in some ways that underlines the problem. Because in a year when Trump himself is not a candidate, like 2022, his absence weakens hardcore Trump devotees’ desire to turn out, while his looming presence on the scene repels the floating voters who decide elections. Put another way, the Republicans’ problem is not simply Trump the man. It is that they have become Trump’s party.[33]

It appears that the new “conventional wisdom” is that the threat in 2024 comes in the form less of Donald Trump, and more of Ron DeSantis. Both are white Christian nationalists; DeSantis’ résumé[34] suggests be may be more competent and therefore an even more dangerous—in a number of ways—president than Trump.

[Ron DeSantis] claims to not be a fan of rules and big government. The Florida governor first came to real national attention when he pushed a controversial laissez-faire approach to covid-19. That approach put DeSantis at odds with World Health Organization guidance, even if it wasn’t quite as combative as [Donald] Trump’s move to pull the United States out of that body. (Most accounts of Florida’s time during the pandemic suggest DeSantis’s policies were neither the success he portrayed them as nor the disaster his critics feared).

Unlike Trump — who still has his reputation as a dealmaker at heart — DeSantis may be more rigid and less open to persuasion. Profiles have repeatedly suggested that he has little of the personal charm or interest in social functions that many politicians have. Any world leaders who would seek a bromance with this man may end up with a cold shoulder.

DeSantis is happy to use brash rhetoric and even cruel stunts to make his point. He has flown Venezeulean migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in a bid to own liberals and battled with Disney over gay rights — breaking with Republican orthodoxy to complain about corporate power. He has said France would fold if Russia invaded and sided with Elon Musk over Ukrainian leaders after the U.S. billionaire suggested Kyiv needed to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

And while DeSantis appears to have accepted the reality of climate change’s likely impact on Florida, he has favored throwing money at climate adaptation rather than working to actually mitigate the problem.

As one critic recently put it, his plan has been “Hand out big contracts for patching up the impacts on pricey waterfront property while ignoring essentially everything, and everyone, else.” If the United States goes all in with that approach, it could impact everywhere in the world.[35]

Color me skeptical. First, DeSantis will need to win over Trump’s loyalists when, it seems, those loyalists won’t reliably turn out even for Trump’s endorsees.[36] Second, DeSantis, with “little of the personal charm or interest in social functions,” that Trump has[37] may lack the charisma to actually win nationally.

Fig. 2. Photograph by author, November 8, 2022.

Make no mistake. There is a hardcore segment of the U.S. electorate that was and remains infuriated by COVID-19 restrictions (figure 2) even as these have long since been lifted, that continues to interpret “freedom” as, among other things, the freedom to spread disease.[38] In Pennsylvania, they voted to curtail the governor’s emergency powers so they wouldn’t have to wear masks.[39] And there is certainly an overlapping segment of the population that relishes cruelty of the sort DeSantis displayed with unauthorized migrants;[40] they put bumper stickers on their cars and signs on their lawns that say “Fuck Your Feelings” and “Make a Liberal Cry.” Nearly all of these people support Trump. They would likely support DeSantis. But even in Pennsylvania, they didn’t get Doug Mastriano elected,[41] and I am not clear that this is a sufficient plurality nationally to put DeSantis in the White House.

Update #2, November 10, 2022: Oh yes, there just might be an upper limit to the crazy in Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania Democrats believe they have taken control of the state House for the first time in more than a decade, an outcome that was considered a long shot by even the most optimistic Democrats but that has not yet been confirmed by independent analysts.

Republicans on Wednesday said the declaration of victory was premature. They’re pinning their hopes on a handful of close races in the Philadelphia suburbs where the candidates are separated by hundreds — or in some cases just dozens — of votes.[42]

You can pretty much figure that abortion rights played a role here too. If, indeed, the Democrats have taken control of the chamber,[43] that proposed constitutional amendment to declare that there is no right to an abortion in Pennsylvania[44] would be dead in its tracks.[45]

Update, December 1, 2022:

As far as these [Republican Party] insiders are concerned, [Donald] Trump has now overseen three cycles of soul-crushing G.O.P. defeats. There was the 2018 “blue wave,” which saw the Republicans lose the House; the 2020 race, which saw Republicans lose both the White House and the Senate (not to mention the disaster of the Georgia runoffs); and the most recent midterms, in which Republicans dramatically underperformed the fundamentals of a slowing economy and unpopular president, leaving Kevin McCarthy’s potential Speakership suddenly in doubt. Indeed, even some of Trump’s most loyal supporters are scrutinizing his results card, including two presidential races in which he failed to win the popular vote, and wondering if he’s less an asset than a liability. “It’s proven that he’s a great motivator for a segment of the base,” the conservative activist noted. “But in the end, there’s another segment, which is suburban voters and independents. Not only does he turn them off, but he almost galvanizes them to come out and vote against him.”[46]

This shouldn’t be a surprise after the midterms, but a lot of Republicans seem to be seeing Donald Trump and his “stolen election” nonsense as a loser and Tina Nguyen is far from the first to say it.[47] Barely mentioned here is that there were—and remain—two wildcards, namely abortion rights and Trump’s legal woes, the latter especially over revelations following the Mar-a-Lago search,[48] in which, by the way, an appeals court has now overturned Aileen Cannon’s order appointing a special master to review the documents seized and ordered her to dismiss the case.[49]

It was following that search that Trump’s support in southwestern Pennsylvania became dramatically less visible.[50] And given those election results,[51] it’s now awfully hard to see Pennsylvania as an outlier.

But Trump really doesn’t seem to be bouncing back this time.

It’s been about two weeks since Donald Trump announced that he was running for president, and about half that time has been consumed by an utterly preventable, and predictable, scandal: Trump dining with Kanye West, now an avowed anti-Semite, and Nick Fuentes, a notorious white supremacist, at Mar-a-Lago. The Trumpworld spin room, of course, has repeatedly emphasized that Fuentes—the far-right pundit-leader of the so-called Groyper Army, who has frequently called for the expulsion of Jews and minorities from “white America”—was merely an unexpected interloper in Trump’s pre-Thanksgiving meal with West. But G.O.P. insiders that I spoke to were apoplectic that Trump spent these early innings of his campaign breaking bread with West in the first place. “Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we having dinner with Kanye?” a party strategist fumed. “What’s the perceived advantage there if you’re running for president?”

The Trump ’24 campaign, after all, was hardly off to a rollicking start even before Ye and his entourage rolled into Mar-a-Lago. First there was Trump’s deflating campaign announcement—a long-winded diatribe that prompted multiple audience members to attempt a mid-speech Irish exit—only a few days after a dismal midterm outcome. Trump had already been blamed by many in the G.O.P. for putting his thumb on the scale for a half-dozen oddball or extremist gubernatorial and midterm candidates, including Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker, among others, who likely cost Republicans the Senate. In the days and weeks afterward, Trump spent the bulk of his time holed up in Mar-a-Lago, shit-posting about stolen elections and imagined enemies, his own mounting legal headaches, and the gall of would-be primary challengers.[52]

Pennsylvanians especially might notice that Trump seems to be traveling down a similar road as losing gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, campaigning only for his base, and then only at the social conservative and paleoconservative ends of that spectrum.[53]

Nguyen repeats a warning that lots of folks (yours truly most definitely included) have underestimated Trump before,[54] but I think what she and I are both sensing is that this time really is different, that there is a skepticism about Trump we’ve not seen before, and that he really is through. Cross your fingers.

Update, December 31, 2022: It appears that the story of the 2022 midterm election and the “red wave” that wasn’t is that traditional midterm expectations of a wipeout for the party in power combined with Republican polling that reinforced that narrative. It all failed to account for the wildcards I and, as it turns out, a few others pointed to.[55]

  1. [1]Isaac Arnsdorf et al., “Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but he keeps hearing ‘No,’” Washington Post, August 16, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “I cannot yet tell you my 2024 forecast was wrong,” Not Housebroken, August 16, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/13/i-cannot-yet-tell-you-my-2024-forecast-was-wrong/↩
  3. [3]Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo, “Trump says FBI conducting search of Mar-a-Lago estate,” Associated Press, August 8, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6; Scott R. Anderson et al., “What We Do and Don’t Know About the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search,” Lawfare, August 9, 2022, https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-fbis-mar-lago-search↩
  4. [4]Isaac Arnsdorf et al., “Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but he keeps hearing ‘No,’” Washington Post, August 16, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/↩
  5. [5]Eric Lutz, “Trump Is Reportedly Stiffing Rudy Giuliani on Legal Fees,” Vanity Fair, January 14, 2021, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/trump-is-reportedly-stiffing-rudy-giuliani-on-legal-fees; Max J. Rosenthal, “The Trump Files: Trump’s Long History of Getting Sued by His Own Lawyers,” Mother Jones, August 18, 2020, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/trump-files-time-trumps-lawyers-sued-trump/↩
  6. [6]Jaclyn Diaz, “An Appeals Court Has Suspended Rudy Giuliani’s Ability To Practice Law In D.C.,” National Public Radio, July 8, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014047881/an-appeals-court-has-suspended-rudy-giulianis-ability-to-practice-law-in-d-c; Erica Orden, Veronica Stracqualursi, and Katelyn Polantz, “Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in New York state,” CNN, June 24, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/24/politics/rudy-giuliani-suspended-law/index.html↩
  7. [7]Heidi Przybyla, “Despite rebukes, Trump’s legal brigade is thriving,” Politico, July 5, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/trump-maga-lawyers-00043917↩
  8. [8]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, July 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/; David Benfell, “I cannot yet tell you my 2024 forecast was wrong,” Not Housebroken, August 16, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/13/i-cannot-yet-tell-you-my-2024-forecast-was-wrong/↩
  9. [9]Natalie Andrews, “Liz Cheney Concedes to Trump-Backed Challenger in Wyoming Primary,” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/liz-cheney-faces-uphill-fight-in-primary-against-trump-backed-opponent-11660642201↩
  10. [10]Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/↩
  11. [11]David Frum, “Stuck With Trump,” Atlantic, August 9, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/trump-fbi-mar-a-lago-search-republicans-loyalty/671084/; Clyde Hughes, “Rep. Greene files articles of impeachment against Attorney General Garland,” United Press International, August 13, 2022, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/08/13/-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-articles-impeachment-Merrick-Garland-Attorney-General/4231660394406/; Julia Ioffe, “Defund… the F.B.I.?” Puck News, August 9, 2022, https://puck.news/defund-the-f-b-i/; Tina Nguyen, “‘The DeSantasy Is Over,’” Puck News, August 10, 2022, https://puck.news/the-desantasy-is-over/; Steve Peoples, “GOP rallies around Trump following FBI search of his estate,” Associated Press, August 10, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/gop-rallies-around-donald-trump-a0f20a219b1090fd02f529acf744f246↩
  12. [12]Matt Ford, “Trump’s Republican Defenders Inexplicably Forgot To Expect the Worst,” New Republic, August 16, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167422/gop-response-mar-a-lago-search↩
  13. [13]David Benfell, “The morality of polarization,” Not Housebroken, January 4, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/09/21/the-morality-of-polarization/↩
  14. [14]Betsy Woodruff Swan, Kyle Cheney, and Nicholas Wu, “FBI search warrant shows Trump under investigation for potential obstruction of justice, Espionage Act violations,” Politico, August 12, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/12/search-warrant-shows-trump-under-investigation-for-potential-obstruction-of-justice-espionage-act-violations-00051507↩
  15. [15]David Benfell, “A theory of conservative epistemology,” Not Housebroken, August 6, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/06/a-theory-of-conservative-epistemology/↩
  16. [16]David Benfell, “The morality of polarization,” Not Housebroken, January 4, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/09/21/the-morality-of-polarization/↩
  17. [17]David Benfell, “In Alice’s Wonderland, or, rather, its Gilead equivalent, a bluff is not a bluff,” Not Housebroken, August 14, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/12/in-alices-wonderland-or-rather-its-gilead-equivalent-a-bluff-is-not-a-bluff/↩
  18. [18]Isaac Arnsdorf et al., “Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but he keeps hearing ‘No,’” Washington Post, August 16, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/↩
  19. [19]Ted Barrett, Manu Raju, and Peter Nickeas, “US Capitol secured, woman dead after rioters stormed the halls of Congress to block Biden’s win,” CNN, January 6, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/us-capitol-lockdown/index.html↩
  20. [20]Andrew Solender, “Political threats spiral,” Axios, August 11, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/08/12/political-threats-spiral↩
  21. [21]David Benfell, “The danger that remains,” Not Housebroken, May 23, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/01/07/the-danger-that-remains/; David Benfell, “The danger that still remains,” Not Housebroken, January 22, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/24/the-danger-that-still-remains/; David Klepper, “Trump’s angry words spur warnings of real violence,” Associated Press, August 16, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/ghislaine-maxwell-social-media-donald-trump-mar-a-lago-31741bb13f708ee68b523592623341eb; Andrew Solender, “Political threats spiral,” Axios, August 11, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/08/12/political-threats-spiral↩
  22. [22]Ken Dilanian, “Does the Justice Department want to charge Trump? Here’s what could happen,” NBC News, June 11, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-department-want-charge-trump-happen-rcna33042↩
  23. [23]Sadie Gurman and Aruna Viswanatha, “Merrick Garland Weighed Search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for Weeks,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/merrick-garland-weighed-search-of-trumps-mar-a-lago-for-weeks-11660601292↩
  24. [24]Ishaan Tharoor, “The debate over American fascism gets louder,” Washington Post, August 30, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/08/30/fascism-biden-trump-american-history/↩
  25. [25]Mike DeBonis, “Senate Republicans block debate on a third major voting rights bill,” Washington Post, November 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-voting-john-lewis/2021/11/03/de00974e-3cc5-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html; Mike DeBonis, “Senate Republicans block voting rights bill, dealing blow to Democrats’ effort to overhaul election laws,” Washington Post, January 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-brace-for-likely-defeat-of-voting-rights-push-due-to-gop-filibuster/2022/01/19/2f9a734c-792d-11ec-bf97-6eac6f77fba2_story.html; Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim, “Sinema and Manchin confirm opposition to eliminating filibuster, likely dooming Democrats’ voting rights push,” Washington Post, January 13, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-set-to-visit-senate-democrats-in-a-final-improbable-pitch-for-voting-rights-action/2022/01/13/fde533b6-7475-11ec-8b0a-bcfab800c430_story.html; Matt Ford, “The Democrats’ Voting Rights Bill Is Dead,” New Republic, July 13, 2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/162974/democrats-voting-rights-bill-dead; Sam Levine, “Voting rights advocates frustrated by ‘same-old, same-old’ meeting with White House,” Guardian, December 3, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/03/voting-rights-advocates-frustrated-meeting-white-house; Greg Sargent, “Joe Manchin finally makes it plain: He is in favor of minority rule,” Washington Post, January 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/19/joe-manchin-filibuster-voting-rights-minority-rule/↩
  26. [26]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, August 17, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/↩
  27. [27]David Benfell, “I cannot yet tell you my 2024 forecast was wrong,” Not Housebroken, August 16, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/13/i-cannot-yet-tell-you-my-2024-forecast-was-wrong/↩
  28. [28]David Benfell, “The really, really, really wild wildcards in the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Not Housebroken, August 17, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/17/the-really-really-really-wild-wildcards-in-the-2022-and-2024-elections/↩
  29. [29]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, August 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
  30. [30]Kris Maher, “Democrat Josh Shapiro Wins Pennsylvania Governor Race Over Doug Mastriano,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/election-midterms-2022/card/democrat-josh-shapiro-wins-pennsylvania-governor-race-over-doug-mastriano-rdDSLqwHlckU7Q5yZYF2; Aaron Zitner, “John Fetterman Wins Key Senate Race in Pennsylvania, Defeating Mehmet Oz,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/election-midterms-2022/card/oW3cFfkuo97s4Fa2Q9Sl↩
  31. [31]Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey, “One likely 2024 GOP contender triumphed on election night. It wasn’t Donald Trump,” Washington Post, November 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/desantis-trump-2024-presidential-election/↩
  32. [32]Adam Taylor, “Is the world ready for President DeSantis and a Floridian foreign policy?” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/11/10/desanntis-foreign-policy-florida/↩
  33. [33]Jonathan Freedland, “The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald Trump,” Guardian, November 9, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/09/the-winner-of-the-midterms-is-not-yet-clear-but-the-loser-is-donald-trump↩
  34. [34]Adam Taylor, “Is the world ready for President DeSantis and a Floridian foreign policy?” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/11/10/desanntis-foreign-policy-florida/↩
  35. [35]Adam Taylor, “Is the world ready for President DeSantis and a Floridian foreign policy?” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/11/10/desanntis-foreign-policy-florida/↩
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