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The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, but which is nevertheless not very Trumpy, ran an editorial Tuesday telling Ron DeSantis to pack it up and go back to Florida. The board wrote that if DeSantis actually believes what he is saying—that Trump can't win in November—then it is his duty as a loyal Republican to drop out now and let Nikki Haley win New Hampshire and have a shot at capturing the nomination.
As expected, the editorial board is strongly against Joe Biden and wants the Republican nominee to be able to beat him. It doesn't think Trump is up to that, so it is DeSantis' duty to get out of the way and help Haley, who might be able to pull it off since she can appeal to women and moderates. The board also noted that Trump's weakness in New Hampshire reflects his weakness with everyone outside his base, and his base isn't big enough to win a national election in which Democrats and independents together greatly outnumber Republicans. In addition, the board pointed to polls showing that Haley would beat Biden by a bigger margin than Trump. And of course, if Trump is a convicted felon by November, the gap will get only bigger.
Is DeSantis going to drop out before Tuesday? Yesterday would have been prime dropping-out time and he didn't do it. Hope springs eternal. Maybe DeSantis had been deluding himself into believing that his brand of anti-wokeness was somehow going to work well with moderate suburban voters in southern New Hampshire or traditional Yankees in northern New Hampshire. Both of these are different breeds from the Iowa corn farmers and hog farmers. Apparently someone clued him in that it wasn't going to work, so he took his marbles and flew off to South Carolina for a last stand. (V)