Pragmatically Distributed

Another point in favor of Gregg Abbott being Trump’s running mate (aside from the fundraising advantages Abbott brings which will efficiently minimize how much Trump needs to pay out of his own pocket for campaign and legal expenses) is that Abbott’s legal battles over securing the border of Texas would keep the focus of the general election campaign squarely on immigration issues.

The more Texas and its immigration lawsuits are in the news the harder it will be for Biden (or his one of his potential replacements…) to evade the immigration issue.

And speaking of potential replacements for Biden, the Trump campaign would be wise to be contingency planning for the possibility that Biden will be somehow removed by the Democrats as the nominee due to the continued poor polling of Biden in the swing states.

If the Democrats pull the plug on the Biden usurpation before their convention then the most likely candidate would be Gavin Newsom.

This is despite the fact Newsom performed extremely poorly in his debate with Ron DeSantis because Newsom’s record as Governor of California is completely indefensible considering the entire 40 million population of the state of California is now homeless.

However, Newsom’s astonishing 100% homeless rate and other failings such as rampant “snatch and grab” crimewaves are no obstacle to the Democrat nomination since the Democrats care only care about how much money and power their candidates hand to the bureaucracies.

In that respect, Newsom has the inside advantage to the nomination should Biden be withdrawn because Newsom has funneled hundreds of billions of California tax dollars to the state’s extremely powerful government workers.

The amount of money California’s bureaucracy has dwarfs that of almost any state, and thus gives Newsom the bureaucratic influence to seize the nomination in the event of it opening up; and in the absence of a more credible alternative on the Democrat frontbenches to Newsom.

Therefore, the Trump campaign should be strategizing how to deal with a potential Newsom candidacy being sprung at the last minute.

Fortunately, the most likely replacement for Biden is also the most unelectable candidate, perhaps worse in some ways than Biden.

Homelessness alone could sink Newsom in the general election.

But he would need to be defined with attack ads quickly, when he is still an unknown quantity to the broader electorate (which may not be aware 100% of California is homeless) and before the media can polish his image.

Therefore fundraising in advance becomes essential because the Trump campaign may need to unload on attack ads earlier than they were planning against Biden who is much more of a known quantity with the voters.

That makes it more vital that Trump’s VP be either Abbott or Youngkin in order to haul in a good reserve that can be saved either to attack Newsom early or, if Biden remains, be unleashed on Biden as planned closer to the election if Biden is still the nominee.

They should also avoid attacking Newsom too early unless his nomination becomes official because if they damage him too much, too quickly, Democrats might look for another candidate they think is more electable.

If it looks like Newsom is about to seize the Democrat nomination it would be better for the campaign to hold off on condemning him until he has the nomination locked up officially.

After reviewing other VP options for Trump his best ones in terms of who can gain him extra votes while making large GOP donors happiest remain Glenn Youngkin and Greg Abbott.

Who can help Trump the most in terms of fundraising is an especially important criteria for VP candidates because of the potential that Trump’s legal bills could allow Biden to eke out a victory.

Biden’s plan to overcome Trump’s early poll lead will probably be to simply saturate the airwaves with attack ads to drive up Trump’s negatives to a higher level than Biden’s, rather than the Biden campaign attempting to make Biden look good in his own right.

This could be countered by Trump further raising Biden’s negatives with attack ads of his own, but this requires strong fundraising by the Trump campaign in order to afford it.

If the Trump campaign cannot afford to counter-attack heavily enough on the airwaves because of legal expenses then there is a high risk the Democrats would erode Trump’s current lead enough by Fall for Biden to be narrowly reelected, especially if some of the major 3rd party candidates drop out of the race due to Democrat pressuring/bribing them to leave in order to help Biden (which is a likely Democrat strategy).

Fundraising will be even more important in the event the Democrats replace Biden before the election with another candidate like Gavin Newsom because a new Democrat presidential candidate would require extra attack ads to negatively define a more unknown candidate to the public before they can positively define themselves.

Youngkin and Abbott are the VP options who can most help Trump in this regard while also bringing in more votes to Trump’s total than any other VP options could.

Here, in no particular order, is an assessment of other Trump candidates.

Katie Britt – Might give a small boost to Trump with younger voters, possibly with women voters. Whatever votes she gains would be negligible compared to what Youngkin or Abbott can offer Trump.

Marco Rubio – Decent fundraising potential, though not at Youngkin and Abbott’s level. In terms of votes he could help with women voters somewhat.

J.D. Vance – He is disliked by both voters and donors. His winning a Senate seat in Ohio was unimpressive because it was narrow compared to other Ohio Republicans running statewide who won by bigger margins than he did. He also did not run a very good campaign. Mostly he won just because Ohio is so Republican that even a less than mediocre Republican can win statewide there.

But that won’t be nearly good enough nationwide in the swing states. Voters find him too angry and grating, sort of like Ramaswamy. His personality would lose Trump more women voters than he would with another running mate.

Large donors dislike Vance.

He appeals to Trump’s base, but, like Ramaswamy, this doesn’t gain Trump anything he doesn’t already have because Trump already has the Trump base secured.

Like Ramaswamy, Vance hurts Trump, net-net, with independents, women voters, and in fundraising potential.

Like Ramaswamy, Vance may also be insincere in his some of his beliefs: For example, Vance has called Trump “Hitler” in past interviews.

In addition to Iran and its Houthi proxies causing hundreds of billions in economic damage by forcing global cargo container and oil tanker traffic to avoid navigating the Red Sea, the Iranian coalition has also caused significant ecological damage by recently sinking a cargo ship containing large amounts of fertilizer and launching another Houthi missile attack that killed crew members of a US flagged vessel.

These attacks (which may end up killing US Navy personnel in Iranian backed missile, or air drone, or naval boat-drone strikes) have been supported by Iranian warships operating in the Red Sea that have been providing targeting information to the Houthis.

The normal American response should have been to consider the Iranian forces to be co-combatants with the Houthis and resulted in the US sinking these Iranian ships.

However, since Jake Sullivan is apparently an Islamic State operative attacking Iranian warships has been taken off the table as an option.

Therefore, the Israeli Navy should (with or without US permission) sink any Iranian ships operating in the Red Sea theatre and threaten to unilaterally sink any other Iranian vessels that approach the area.

The Israelis should also throw as many bureaucratic and logistical delays as possible in the way of Biden establishing a pier to Gaza.

What Biden is trying to do is setup a foothold in Gaza that can later be expanded to “internationalize” the Gaza occupation with US and UN “peacekeepers” whose real mission (aside from being killed by the Palestinians they will be trying to protect) will be to create a safety buffer zone separating Gazans and the IDF.

This buffer international buffer zone will prevent Israel from further defending itself from terrorists in Gaza.

Instead of allowing Biden to risk American lives by protecting genocidal Palestinian terrorists from Israel, Netanyahu should instead say only the IDF will be allowed to build port infrastructure along the coast of Gaza and that building a pier could take 2-3 years to complete (or 20, or 30 years…) due to security risks in the area.

Israel’s position should be that Israel alone will run any existing coast infrastructure in Gaza and that any aid coming by sea to the Palestinians will have to be delivered directly to the IDF which alone will be responsible for inspecting and delivering the aid packages to Gaza.

If Biden doesn’t accept security delays as an excuse for delaying the oath he gave to defend genocidal Islamic terrorism, then Netanyahu should tell Biden to go fuck himself.

This will prevent the Islamic State controlled Biden Administration from getting any base of operations in Gaza that can be expanded to protect Hamas with a US-UN buffer zone.

Trump’s choice for Vice President will have more impact than normal for a presidential election because Trump would be limited to only one term.

This means that voters will weigh the strengths and weaknesses of his running more strongly than usual because they will be thinking of how they would perform in 2028.

Therefore, it is very important for Trump’s choice to bring more reward than risk to his campaign in order to maximize his chances of winning.

The two candidates who help Trump the most are, in order, Governors Glenn Youngkin and Greg Abbott.

Youngkin brings the most positives because he brings appeal to suburban voters (where the GOP has recently been weak) and independents along with fundraising power. He is also Conservative on the issues which means the GOP base vote will have no problem turning out in November.

The second best option is Greg Abbott. Abbott also brings strong fundraising power via his political connections. He would be an energizer for Conservative turnout but he has less appeal to suburbanites and independents than Youngkin.

Both Youngkin and Abbot would be assets in terms of checking the “plausible option for 2028” box because they both look like they would be plausible candidates in 2028 for President.

The other candidates for VP all have more negatives than positives and, except for Noem and Haley, have no executive experience which is more important than normal due to 2028.

In no particular order –

Ramaswamy – He is toxic to women voters, especially in the suburbs. Worse, he has no positives that the Trump campaign doesn’t already have because his primary strategy was to be a clone of Trump. This might help with the Trump base, but Trump already has the Trump base by virtue of being Trump!

Why should Trump choose a running mate who tanks him with suburban and women voters and gains him no extra base votes which Trump already has in the bag anyway?

Kristi Noem – Not impressive enough for people to think of her as a plausible 2028 candidate. Her record on social issues is weak, which might depress base voter turnout. It is unlikely she will win enough moderate women voters to compensate since recent elections have shown that women do not automatically vote for a woman candidate because so many women are now in office that almost no one thinks it is exceptional.

Also, she is probably having an affair with Corey Lewandowski which would negatively impact Evangelical turnout and add an unnecessary distraction to the general election campaign.

Ultimately, she has no offsetting benefits to compensate for the risks she brings.

Tim Scott – He was a useless nonentity in the debates and there is no reason at all to believe he would do better if he were Trump’s running mate. He is so weak in debates that he may actually end up losing the VP debate to Kamala Harris, making him the only running mate option that is capable of losing to the drugged-out, babbling Harris.

He is also such a nonentity that he would not gain a single black vote for Trump.

The base probably won’t mind him being on the ticket, but they won’t be enthusiastic either, and Trump already has the base without needing help on that front from anyone else.

What is best is someone who will help him beyond the base.

Elise Stefanik – She is a weaker version of Kristi Noem but without executive experience. She also brings no extra women votes because the novelty of women running for office has worn off.

Nikki Haley – Not that she is being considered but even if she hadn’t burned bridges with Trump she would depress Conservative turnout as Republicans have an increasingly negative opinion of her. She also wins no Democratic votes to compensate for the decrease in GOP base turnout.

Trump has a major strategic opportunity to win Michigan with Hamiltonian class warfare by splitting the Democrat’s wealthy, quasi-government worker, upper class that profits nationwide from government subsidized green energy scams from the state-level working class in Michigan (and potentially the middle and higher classes in Michigan who remember the false promises of free trade with China) over the issue of electric vehicles.

Trump can use this wedge issue to win Michigan by promising to end all of the tax breaks and subsidies for electric vehicles, and by significantly raising tariffs on electric vehicle batteries and other EV parts from China, in order to prevent China from wiping out US auto industry jobs because of illegal domestic Chinese subsidies to their own electric vehicle industry and because electric vehicles require fewer workers to make than hydrocarbon powered cars.

The Progressive’s green energy corporate welfare “upper class” would object that green energy will not benefit China, which will in turn simply work to Trump’s advantage by reminding Michigan autoworkers of previous promises in the 1990s that trade with China’s highly distorted manufacturing sector would not lead to manufacturing job losses.

Removal of the tax breaks and subsidies and increasing tariffs on Chinese EV batteries and parts would cause the electric vehicle industry in the US to shrink back to a smaller market share that reflects the fact electric cars cannot survive on their own without Progressive market distortions due the fact the technology is still immature with major performance flaws, their used batteries are a significant environmental pollutant, produce more carbon in their manufacture than they save over the normal life of the battery, and that electric vehicles are poor financial investments for consumers due the fact they have weak trade in value because the cost of replacing a used EV’s battery would be close to the cost of purchasing an entirely new car.

This is unlike a traditional IC car which can usually cut at least a third of the cost of a newer model during trade ins.

In fact, the position of the entire Republican Party should be to financially destroy the entire green energy sector and guarantee global fossil fuel industry world domination by ending all government subsidies for wind and solar power projects and ending, via tariffs, all green energy trade with China because government green energy market distortions are just a way to give trillions of dollars of the fossil fuel energy sector over to line the pockets and, of course, enhance the political power of Progressive corporate welfare “green” billionaires and Progressive green corporations.

Given the fact that the Progressives are gaining trillions of dollars for what is a de facto government run energy sector, the GOP should do everything in its power to crush green energy even if its technology works (which it doesn’t).

In particular the Republicans should destroy the wind and solar energy industries by significantly raising the engineering performance standards on wind and solar plants to a point they cannot meet with current technology, by cutting off their government subsidies, and finally ending their access to Chinese parts with greatly increased tariffs.

The only zero carbon energy source that is proven to work is nuclear which is also, of course, the only zero carbon energy source that Progressives don’t support funding.

Everything about the green energy market (aside from nuclear) is junk science and junk economics.

In the first place, the green industry is probably falsifying how much human greenhouse emissions affect the environment because 94% of all atmospheric carbon is naturally produced from the earth; because the projected increase in global temperatures a few degrees Celsius (if actually caused by the 6% of global emissions generated by man) is too small to significantly affect life on earth; and because the technology is simply not workable given technology constraints and the fact emission decreases in the West are being more than wiped out by increases in China and India.

Technology that is “not ready yet” is a concept that Progressives do not understand at all, but which plagues other scientific fields.

For example, paleontologists would like a time machine so they could study living dinosaurs. The problem with their wish is that the technology for time travel doesn’t exist yet.

Likewise, the technology to make green energy work reliably doesn’t exist yet.

Wind is too unpredictable and erratic to add without destabilizing electric grids, unless fossil fuels and nuclear still provide the bulk of energy.

Solar energy doesn’t work during the day in colder parts of the country and even in warmer parts of the country it is useless when the sun sets and energy demand starts to peak in the evening.

Neither wind or solar have the gigantic battery farms that would be needed to store electricity to increase their availability, and the lithium soil pollution from mining that much lithium for batteries would be enormous and probably be more carbon producing than simply producing more low-carbon natural gas.

And both solar and wind have other negative effects on the environment.

Wind mills are killing endangered species of birds in North America and Europe.

Meanwhile, solar panels produce significant toxic waste when the panels eventually stop working and need to be disposed of.

The GOP could destroy the wind and solar industries by raising environmental and engineering performance standards that neither industry could meet, such as by requiring any new solar and wind projects to produce 100% available energy to electric grids all the time, require battery storage to not use lithium, and requiring wind to not kill any birds and solar panels to not include any toxic materials so they are safer to dispose of.

With legal witchhunts against Trump increasing legal expenses that threaten to reduce how much money he has available for the general election campaign it would be financially prudent for him to look for ways to improve his fundraising levels among corporations and large donors, but without jeopardizing his base support.

That means Trump’s signature immigration and trade protection policies should remain non-negotiable with donors because they are high priorities for the GOP base (90% of voter decisions are based on their top 5 policy priorities).

But lower base voter priorities (like Ukraine and the VP slot) could be up for negotiation with corporations and big donors because they are not as high priorities for Trump’s base as they are for elites. A shift in those areas could also help him with independent voters, with negligible effect on his base (notwithstanding a noisy, well financed by Moscow, but electorally irrelevant, class of “American” pro-Russia pundits).

A shift to a more pro-Ukraine stance would help Trump increase campaign donations from the military, large defense companies that have an obvious financial stake in a Ukrainian victory and Republican mega donors who favor Ukraine.

It would also help Trump with independent voters because 74% of the overall electorate believes the Ukraine conflict affects American interests, and neutralizes likely Biden attacks against Trump as being pro-Kremlin, false allegations which harmed Trump among independents in 2020.

Trump could boost his fundraising, without appearing to flip flop, and by exposing how painfully slow Biden’s aid to Ukraine has been by endorsing weapons donations that cost America little to nothing, or, in the case of retired systems, actually save America money by giving Ukraine retired weapons that would be more expensive to dismantle at US storage sites.

Trump could grab headlines (and donor money) by promising to send all retired ATACMS, retired cluster artillery rounds, retired tanks and ground vehicles, and hundreds of retired F-16s, F-15s, and F-18s from US storage facilities to Ukraine.

This would save us money by not needing to pay technicians to decommission them, which is an expensive, lengthy process.

Trump could also turn the tables on Biden by promising to immediately approve the request of any ally who wants to send their American made weapons systems to Ukraine. So far Biden has been either slow walking the transfer of retired Danish and Dutch F-16s to Ukraine, or outright blocking the transfer of vital weapons such as the Biden Administration blocking Australia from selling 59 retired M1A1 tanks to Ukraine.

Obviously, it wouldn’t cost America anything if allies give Ukraine US made weapons taken out of their own warehouses.

Then there is the VP slot as a potential boost to Trump’s fundraising.

Assuming that Ron DeSantis burned too many bridges with Trump during the primary campaign to be his VP, then Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is best positioned to help Trump the most in terms of fundraising.

Youngkin is a well-connected businessman, is liked by establishment donors and corporations, but he is Conservative enough that base voters won’t mind him being on the ticket since there would be little policy difference between Youngkin and Trump.

The reasoning of donors to support a Trump-Youngkin ticket would be that if Trump wins he would serve only one term while Youngkin would be setup to run for two terms from 2028 onwards. Youngkin would also make donors feel they have a seat at the table to have their issues heard in a restored Trump Administration.

He can also help Trump with independent suburban voters more than other Republican VP candidates.

Youngkin also provides “impeachment insurance” because Democrats wouldn’t want to impeach a President Trump, who can only serve one more term, and replace him with a Republican who has independent voter appeal whom they would (wrongly) think would govern more competently and popularly than Trump.

The fact that Youngkin didn’t get what he wanted out of local Virginia House and Senate races shouldn’t be a knock against him because Republicans actually won every Democrat +8 legislative district in Virginia, and narrowly lost the state House and Senate due to Democrat gerrymandering.

But if that result were repeated nationwide, with Republicans winning ever Democrat +8 Congressional district then the GOP would win not only the White House but they would retake the US Senate and expand their majority in the House to a much more comfortable margin.

The 2024 campaign to cut the land bridge to Crimea continues despite the 2023 offensive bogging down.

The problems with last year’s Ukrainian offensive were mainly that Ukraine did not have enough airpower to drive a WWII armored offensive to push further into Zaporizhzhia.

With Biden still slow walking weapons donations to Ukraine, it may be time for them to adopt a slower, grinding, high casualty WWI offensive to drive at least to the Eastern and/or Western outskirts of Tokmak in order to effectively sever the land bridge.

A WWI style offensive from Robotyne to Tokmak, with a slow grabbing of territory, meter by meter, using constant artillery barrages and slow gains by light infantry (though with some mechanized support) over a period of months to a year might be appropriate because of the fact the narrowness of the Zaporizhzhia area restricts how much Russia’s supply chain can keep Crimea equipped.

This would be especially attractive if Russia keeps sending human wave assaults against Robotyne and, months later, their forces on the Robotyne front are weakened for a renewed push to Tokmak.

The key issue here is that the narrowness of this area means Russia has little to no room to surrender land without its land bridge supply chain getting choked off.

In WWI, when the Germans gained territory, the Anglo-French forces simply moved their supply chains by an equal amount further West. And when the Anglo-French gained ground the Germans moved their supply chains further East.

But in the case of Zaporizhzhia, Russia cannot move their supply chains after a loss of territory as easily as the British, French and Germans did in WWI because Russia cannot move the Sea of Azov further South in the event Ukraine pushes them further South.

A gain of just 25 to 35 kilometers to just the outskirts of Tokmak (without necessarily taking the city) is all Ukraine needs to cut off Crimea from large scale land supply through Zaporizhzhia because that modest territorial gain would place too much of the area between Tokmak and Melitopol under the control Ukrainian tube artillery, MLRS rocket fire, and drone attacks.

Reaching the Tokmak outskirts (taking the city itself is not necessary, just pushing the Russians supply routes closer to the Sea of Azov is sufficient) would make it impossible for sizable numbers of supply vehicles needed by Crimea to get through at the required scale.

Possibly small, insufficient, supply traffic might still evade Ukrainian drones, artillery, and missile threats, although it would still be very dangerous for even limited Russian convoys to try to get West of Melitopol to Crimea with that kind of Ukrainian weapons coverage so close to Melitopol.

Whatever supply vehicles (mostly owned by private Russian companies because the Russian military underinvests in tactical truck logistics) did get through would not be sizable enough to keep Crimea supplied.

Logistically, Russia has no room for error in Zaporizhzhia which means Ukraine should, where possible try to also open up fronts elsewhere along the Zaporizhzhia and Dnypro fronts for weaknesses in the lines that can be exploited and which divert Russian forces away from a WWI style attack to reach Tokmak.

Since Biden has slowed US support to Ukraine to almost nothing (despite the fact he can still give many key supplies like expired ATACMS without any further legislative approval) Trump actually has a chance to lock down the Rust Belt by appealing to ethnic white swing voters with a Ukraine policy that is more supportive than Biden.

Now that Trump has already locked down his own base he can pivot to being more pro-Ukraine than Biden (although that isn’t a high standard to meet considering how slowly Sullivan is dripping in aid) that won’t cost him votes because Ukraine, even among Ukraine skeptical voters, isn’t a top 10 priority issue and over 90% of voters make up their minds based on their top 5 policy priorities.

The reason Trump can now gain a decisive advantage over Biden by outflanking him on Ukraine is the large number of ethnic white voters in the Rust Belt swing states.

These ethnic white voters are frequently independents and working class Democrats who want stronger backing of Ukraine to prevent Putin from attacking their European ancestral homelands.

Polish Americans and those of Polish ancestry are estimated to be around 15 to 20 million, many of them scattered across the Rust Belt swing states.

Obviously Polish voters, by themselves, would be a voting bloc large enough to tip states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to Biden or Trump if they think one or the other is not anti-Russian enough.

Ethnic white voting demographics are so critical in the Rust Belt that I expect Biden (or, if Biden is replaced, an alternative Democrat) to focus on attacking Trump on Ukraine, calculating that this is their best bet to hold their electoral votes.

Aside from Polish Americans, other ethnic white voters that also would not want Putin to have enough forces survive Ukraine only for them to be sent to fight elsewhere in Europe include sizable populations in the following states –

Pennsylvania – Italian, Greek, Polish and other ethnic white backgrounds that are about as varied as New York state.

Wisconsin – Scandinavian and German Americans.

Michigan – Dutch and German Americans.

Arizona (the only state outside the Rust Belt where Ukraine will be a factor) – The electorate will be more pro-Ukraine than normal swing states because of its large population of elderly military veterans who are anti-Russian.

The only Rust Belt state that is so Republican that Ukraine might not make a difference is Ohio. But even there the experience of JD Vance is instructive. Vance won his Senate race 53% to 47% but this was narrower than other statewide Ohio elections. His campaign was closer than it should have been only due to his pro-Putin stance because, except for Ukraine, Vance did not differ significantly on any other issue that other Ohio Republicans did who won with bigger margins.

To prevent the appearance of a flip-flop Trump could start by supporting military supplies that would not cost America anything.

For example, he could approve any foreign nation with American made weapons to sell or donate them, if they want, to Ukraine (Biden and Sullivan have been delaying Europeans from transferring their F16s and recently blocked Australia from giving retired M1A1 tanks to Ukraine).
Obviously, foreign nations shipping already purchased US weapons from their storage areas costs the US budget nothing.

Trump could also say we can save money by transferring retired ATACMS and cluster munition rounds to Ukraine because it is more expensive to pay technicians to dismantle retired weapon systems than simply giving them to Ukraine to fire on the Russians.

Maybe Republicans serving on the House defense and intelligence committees aren’t demanding Sullivan and Blinken testify if they are Iranian agents and then, afterwards, demanding they resign (as the GOP should be demanding) because the House GOP is unaware of the significant inflationary risk of the Biden Administration refusing to use military action to secure cargo traffic in the Middle East.

If there is no military retaliation for the Iranian sponsored Houthi attacks against cargo vessels transiting the Red Sea then global inflation will skyrocket again because of its effect on world trade.

90% of global trade is transported by ship.

Of that 90% about 30% of all cargo container vessels transit the Suez canal. If the Houthi’s continue to force commercial shipping companies to suspend their traffic through the Red Sea (as Danish shipping giant Maersk recently suspended their ship’s transits through the Suez) because Biden is not guaranteeing the navigation of their ships and crews, and which causes their insurance premiums to become unaffordable, then these ships will have to sail around the Horn of Africa as the only alternative route.

Because the route across the Horn is longer, global shipping rates will in turn rise and become a powerful pro-inflationary force that may take years to correct just like the last surge of inflation did.

Additionally, a stoppage in traffic going through the Suez would have a negative effect on the economy of Egypt which profits from the over $1 trillion in trade that passes through the canal each year.

Haley failed in the debate because she is a crackpot.

Her failure was so total that it has important campaign implications in South Carolina where Haley will be at risk for the rest of the campaign of losing Conservative voter support from attacks (based on her weaknesses exposed in the fourth debate) in a state where moderate voters are few in number.

This new risk in South Carolina will, in turn, exert upstream influence on strategies in Iowa and New Hampshire.

All of this increases the threat DeSantis poses to Trump.

Let’s start with New Hampshire’s effect on South Carolina.

The New Hampshire scenario DeSantis may now want to run (assuming he wins Iowa) is to attack Haley from now until New Hampshire votes with the intention of lowering her support enough for Christie to finish ahead of her.

If DeSantis wins Iowa and Christie finishes ahead of Haley then this would be an ideal outcome for DeSantis because Haley would lose significant support before South Carolina.

In this situation Haley would be on the ropes heading into South Carolina where underperformance would probably doom her regardless of whether or not she suspends her campaign or decides to keep running on fumes for the remainder.

For his part, Christie will not get out of single digits, probably low single digits, in any other post-New Hampshire primary aside from some other small New England states like Vermont and Maine that vote later and which won’t be nearly enough to help Christie – that is if he hasn’t dropped out by then.

A Christie finish ahead of Haley in New Hampshire would especially do nothing at all for him in rightwing South Carolina, even if he places first in New Hampshire.

For DeSantis to at least beat expectations in New Hampshire his campaign in that state will probably try to tailor specific messages, specially targeted for New Hampshire voters only, that downplay his culture warrior credentials (which are not having as much impact as they are in Iowa and South Carolina) and emphasize economic and deficit issues, electability concerns about Trump connected to his legal problems, and maybe 2 or 3 other issues and/or Trump weaknesses that are a high priority for New Hampshire primary voters in focus group testing and internal polling.

This all puts even more importance than normal on the outcome in Iowa.

The situation at the moment in Iowa is probably one where, give or take a few points, Trump is in the mid-40s and DeSantis is in the mid-20s.

For Iowa standards that is more than enough for DeSantis to overcome Trump because of how quickly Iowa and New Hampshire can change their minds.

Howard Dean was well ahead in 2004 three weeks before the Iowa caucuses only to ultimately lose the state.

And Obama in 2008 was approximately where DeSantis is right now before he defeated Hillary.

DeSantis has the particular advantage of having the full campaign support of Governor Reynolds and the Evangelical ground-game of Bob Vander Plaats in a state where ground operations are more powerful factors than New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The objection to this analysis might be that Iowa isn’t historically as decisive for Republican candidates as it is for Democrats. For example, Santorum and Cruz both won Iowa in 2012 and 2016, respectively, but went on to lose the nomination.

The difference this time is that DeSantis is a more formidable opponent to Trump than Cruz was.

In 2016 Cruz was trying to build an anti-Trump coalition while competing for moderate votes with John Kasich and for Conservative votes with Marco Rubio.

This time DeSantis has no effective Conservative, non-Trump opponent like Rubio to compete with (unlike Ramaswamy, Rubio’s campaign was still viable before Iowa) and his main moderate competition, Haley, looks like a much weaker, glass jaw version of Kasich.

On the other hand, Trump has a bigger lead in the early primary states than he did in 2016.  Therefore, it will not be enough for DeSantis to knock down Haley but to also create enough voter defections from Trump in these primary states to get the numbers he needs.