Highlighting exactly how much the GOP really has proven itself to be the party of Trump, a new poll released by SurveyMonkey has two of President Donald Trump’s children among GOP voters’ top choices for president in 2024, when the elder Trump will be legally prohibited from running again if he wins in 2020.
Current Vice President Mike Pence came in first place with 40 percent of the support — and a significant leading margin among older voters — but Donald Trump Jr. was close behind, with 29 percent of the support and a lead among younger voters. Nabbing 15 percent of the respondents, current presidential adviser Ivanka Trump came in fourth place, right behind former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and right ahead of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who received 16 and 13 percent of the support, respectively. Other Republicans who had significant showings in the poll include current Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Florida’s Governor turned Senator Rick Scott, and Florida’s actual current Governor Ron DeSantis, who’s a prominent Trump ally.
Axios notes that while the poll is not at all conclusive about actual 2024 election results, the poll does demonstrate the power of Trump’s personality cult — although they didn’t use quite that terminology.
The publication explains:
‘An early poll like this is largely a measure of name ID. But it’s also a vivid illustration of just how strong Trump’s brand is with the GOP.’
Although he supposedly has a family business to run alongside his brother Eric, Donald Jr. has “emerged as one of the most prominent defenders of his dad, frequently going after the left on Twitter, where he has 4.2 million followers, and serving as a popular warm-up act for presidential rallies,” Axios notes. At a recent Texas rally for his dad where he appeared, the crowd even chanted “2024!” in response to Jr.’s remarks.
It’s unclear whether either of them would actually attempt to run in 2024. Perhaps if their father loses in 2020 like many polls suggest is slated to happen, they’d be too ashamed to launch some kind of national campaign again — although little has stopped the Trump ego before.
In a recent interview broadcast on CBS’ Face The Nation, Ivanka shunned the idea of her running for political office, claiming that the politics side is less interesting to her than the policy. Some of her policy agenda while in the White House has included workforce development initiatives and paid family leave, although — no matter her self-aggrandizement — many Democrats have advocated for that before she came along. Her time in the White House has been as much marked by strange appearances on the world stage where it’s unclear if she knows what she’s doing as constructive policy development.
Both she and Don Jr. have completely supported their father’s belligerent agenda, at least publicly. In that same CBS interview, Ivanka completely dismissed the impeachment proceedings against the president, claiming that they’d simply “energized” her father. With his endless stream of incendiary public statements, Trump Jr. has jumped right in the same boat and attempted to enact some kind of grand, melodramatic defense for his dad’s most outrageously dangerous behavior.
