A Trump–DeSantis Ticket Can Win in 2024 – The American Spectator

The Democratic Party and President Joe Biden are wrecking the country. Their ongoing economic blunders, perverse cultural agenda, and corrupt foreign policy, if unchecked in the near future, will turn the United States into a dystopian nightmare comparable to Venezuela. This can be averted if former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis run together on the 2024 Republican presidential ballot. Neither can win in 2024 without the other, even if the Democratic alternative is an unpopular incumbent whose running mate is a running joke.

DeSantis can’t win without Trump because the latter is all but certain to capture the Republican nomination. Trump can’t win without DeSantis because his legal difficulties — no matter how illegitimate — will turn off many of the independent voters who will decide the outcome of the 2024 election. A unity ticket consisting of the two most prominent anti-Beltway politicians in the country, on the other hand, will garner well over 90 percent of the Republican vote, plus it would benefit heavily from Biden’s plummeting approval rating among voters who supported him in 2020. Politico reports:

Determining the extent to which Biden’s poor job rating endangers his likely reelection bid is not just an academic exercise. A deep dive into the numbers reveals Biden isn’t just struggling with independents and near-unanimous disapproval among Republicans. He’s also soft among Democrats and left-leaning demographic groups, a weakness that suggests a diminished enthusiasm for his candidacy.

What about the rivalry between Trump and DeSantis? It’s real, but the corporate media has exaggerated it because they know that a GOP unity ticket featuring these two candidates would be difficult to defeat. Both have ostensibly ruled out running on the same ticket. Yet, as Joe Battenfeld writes in the Boston Herald, “Trump would not be the first or last presidential nominee to change their mind about prospective running mates.” An instructive example is Ronald Reagan’s 1980 choice of George H.W. Bush to be his running mate after their contentious primary battle. That ticket went on to win in a landslide.

There are a couple of legal obstacles to a Trump–DeSantis ticket. The 12th Amendment theoretically precludes them from running on the same ballot because they reside in the same state. In 2000, the Democrats exhumed this issue, hoping to deprive the Bush–Cheney ticket of the 32 Electoral College votes it won in Texas. But Jones v. Bush fell flat in district court and lost on appeal. Another legal speed bump is Florida’s “resign-to-run law,” which requires DeSantis to resign as governor in order to run for federal office. According to a report in the Tampa Bay Times, however, this statute will be amended soon:

It wouldn’t be the first time the Legislature has changed the rules to benefit a candidate they liked. In 2007, the resign-to-run law was tweaked to remove the requirement for federal candidates, as then-Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican at the time, was being eyed as a running mate for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. Lawmakers in later years continued to tweak the law.

But the most significant obstacle to a Trump–DeSantis unity ticket isn’t legal. It is the egotism of Donald Trump. Because DeSantis enjoys considerable support in the Republican Party, Trump has reverted to his least presidential behavior — schoolyard name calling. He regularly refers to the Florida governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and has delighted the Democrats and the media by using a super PAC to launch attack ads against him. By far the most egregious of these has been the “Pudding Fingers” ad that combines moronic imagery with false claims about DeSantis’ positions on the Social Security program.

To call this self-defeating is an understatement. If Trump wins the GOP nomination, he will need a running mate with high name recognition, a successful track record, and the demeanor of a potential president. DeSantis has all of these attributes, and he was just reelected in a 19-point landslide to his second term as Florida’s governor. According to the RealClearPolitics average, his polling numbers remain second only to Trump’s. Indeed, he has more support than all of the also-rans combined. Meanwhile, as the Wall Street Journal points out, he has converted Florida from a swing state into a solid GOP redoubt:

Once the biggest battleground state in the U.S., Florida has morphed in recent years into the nerve center and idea laboratory for the Republican Party, home to growing legions of conservative activists, thought leaders and donors. It has become a model under Gov. Ron DeSantis of a new right that embraces muscular use of state power to pursue a conservative agenda and reshape institutions.

Trump has tried to downplay that accomplishment as if it were somehow achieved by Charlie Crist, Jeb Bush, or Rick Scott. It is obviously the result of DeSantis’ refusal to allow his state to be controlled by the destructive policies advocated by the Biden administration, power hungry bureaucrats, teachers unions, and other elements of the totalitarian Left. As he put it in his January Inaugural Address: “We reject this woke ideology. We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy! We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional. We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die!”

So, here’s the thing: The Biden administration’s track record has been abominable, and it is likely to get worse before the presidential primary season arrives. The voters will be ready for a change, and they remember how well the country fared under Trump prior to the pandemic. Still, he will be 78 years old in 2024. Consequently, he will need to demonstrate that his campaign is about the future. This can be accomplished by choosing a young, smart, tough running mate who will take the fight to the enemy. Trump–DeSantis is the ticket, but someone has to get Trump to realize this and convince DeSantis to say yes.

READ MORE from David Catron:

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