VIDEO and TRANSCRIPT: Presidential Primaries Expert Panel with South Carolina Political Scientists
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What: Political Science experts from Furman University will speak and answer questions from the media on the Presidential Primaries and South Carolina politics.
Who: Danielle Vinson, Ph.D. and Brent Nelsen, Ph.D.
When: February 14, 2024, 11:00AM – 12:00PM ET
Where: Newswise Live Zoom Room (address will be included in follow-up email)
Details:
Danielle Vinson, Ph.D., and Brent Nelsen, Ph.D., are arguably the most knowledgeable political scientists in the country about former Gov. Haley and the people of South Carolina. They also understand the national landscape and can answer questions, such as:
- What in Haley’s career suggested she would have gotten this far?
- Is her strategy sound? How does she answer Trump’s criticisms?
- How does she get around abortion?
- How long will she stay in the fight?
- Would she consider being Trump’s VP?
- Why doesn’t South Carolina’s political establishment support Haley?
Transcript:
Tom Canalichio: Hello, and welcome to this Newswise live event. Today we are speaking with political science experts. From Furman University we have with us Danielle Vinson. She’s a professor at Furman University with expertise in Politics and International Affairs. And we also have with us, Brent Nelson, who is the Jane Fishburn Hip professor in Politics and International Affairs and he’s also the interim director of the Tocqueville center, expertise in Politics and International Affairs for both of these professors. And I’d like to ask you to tell us what you think about the upcoming presidential primary in South Carolina. It starts early voting today, and the polls closed in about 10 days. What do you think former Governor Nikki Haley has in her wheelhouse to perform in this upcoming primary and what’s your aim by staying in the race at this point? Dr. Dr. Nelson, would you start us off?
Brent Nelsen: Thank you. Um, well, if the polls are too big to be believed, and I think they are to be believed, Donald Trump will score a resounding victory in South Carolina. And in fact, I think Nikki Haley’s momentum has perhaps peaked and crusted and maybe headed down the other direction. So it may be I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, but it could be a rather crushing defeat for her candidacy. I don’t think she is under any illusion that she has a clear path to the nomination. But I think she’s staying in the race. To make sure that at least someone is holding Donald Trump accountable for the things he says and to remind, I guess, Republicans that winning the White House is important and she believes anyway, that she is in a better place to win the White House against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. So I think those are the two reasons. I think she’s staying in, of course, I don’t know her mind, but that’s as best I can discern.
Danielle Vinson: I agree with Brent. I don’t see a clear path to victory for her. I think a few things that she may try this week. She’s going to continue to raise questions about Trump’s competence to be president. I think she’s gotten more pointed about that in the last week or so. And I also think she’s responding to some attacks that he’s made and some statements he’s made. He when he hit on NATO this past weekend, she having been a former UN ambassador, that’s something that she knows well, and I think that that’s something that is a strong contrast between the two of them. I don’t think it’s going to change a lot of mines in South Carolina, but it does keep those issues on the table. It keeps this from being strictly a battle between two peoples style and character and gets us more into a little bit of policy discussion and some of the policy differences among Republicans right now. And so I think Brad’s right that keeping her in the race to raise these issues, so that this doesn’t just as just as not become a coronation of Donald Trump. is probably important for Republican debate and also preparation for the general election. Those issues are gonna be brought up again in the general election. And so I think she’s giving us a little bit of a preview of what Democrats might be talking about a few months from now.
Brent Nelsen: Let me add one thing. It’s not just Nikki Haley that thinks that staying in the race is important, her donors think she should be in the race. The amazing thing is that the money hasn’t dried up for her. So that’s usually why people have to get out right. They don’t have any more money to maintain a staff hire a bus fly around, but she seems to still be able to, to keep the money coming in. So I do think that there are Republican donors, big donors and voices out there that want to keep this discussion going.
Tom Canalichio: Berman University being in Greenville, South Carolina, you are very accustomed to the presidential primary cycle and South Carolina being one of the important early first states we still have many months to go for other primaries and conventions this summer. So I want to ask you both. In light of Haley’s strategy here to maybe be the last man standing if something else happens. What are some scenarios that could result in Trump out and Trump somehow not being the nominee? The candidate, and what does the party do at that point?
Danielle Vinson: I think the circumstances are pretty limited. I think it would have to be a major health crisis that takes him off the campaign trail for some reason. That’s completely beyond his control. I think even if he were convicted at this point in one of the court cases against him, that that would not necessarily be enough to to keep him off the ballot. I think that if you’re leaving it to him to decide he’s going to wait until he’s exhausted all appeals to remove himself from the ballot. And I think that it would be really hard for the Republican National Committee to make that decision, especially with the changes that are coming right now at the top of the Republican National Committee, where Trump’s having a tremendous input and who becomes the new chair of the RNC. So I can’t really imagine many circumstances that pull him off the ballot and leave her as the last person standing to take over.
Brent Nelsen: Yeah, I agree. I always think that the best chance to knock off Donald Trump off the ballot is the Kentucky Fried Chicken scenario, where to too much fast food gets to his heart or something like that, and he is hospitalized. And of course, I mean, we’re talking about two candidates who are above 75 and some even higher, and so those are always possibilities. And I think Nikki Haley would think that she would be the next person to to the next person up if the the former president is really incapacitated. In some way. But I agree with Danielle, I don’t think the court issues are going to get him in time for the conventions and maybe even time for the general election.
Tom Canalichio: A question here from an audience member. If Haley were to withdraw relatively early, say before Super Tuesday, would that make it one of the shortest primary races before a nominee had been sort of declared and also what does a one person race through the rest of the lead up to the conventions mean for Trump and for the Democrats?
Danielle Vinson: I think it would be early if this were really a completely open primary, but you’ve got an incumbent running. I mean, he’s not the current president, but it is a similar situation to having an incumbent president running. everybody already knew him. Well, they know exactly what they’re getting with him. And so this is a little bit more like what’s happening on the Democratic side with Joe Biden. He has token opposition, Trump’s opposition wasn’t completely token opposition, but it’s not surprising that he was able to dispatch them fairly quickly. And that could he could potentially wrap this up very quickly. I think what it means is we shift to the general election a lot sooner than then many people had hoped we would. And we ended up we’re already starting to see it. Joe Biden is currently running against Donald Trump. He’s not mentioning Nikki Haley. He’s not really leaving it open to assume that she’s going to win. And so I think you’re already seeing the Democrats transition to the to the general election. I think you’ll see Trump beginning to transition pretty quickly to the general election. If she were to drop out of the race pretty soon.
Brent Nelsen: Yeah, I have nothing to add to that. i The South Carolina dimension here though. is interesting, in that Nikki Haley is a native of South Carolina, and you would expect you might expect that she would do very well in her own state and she is still liked in South Carolina, by Republicans. But she’s not liked well enough. It’s interesting for me, as I talk to people, a lot of people have sort of thought that that Nikki Haley and Donald Trump have the same policies, but Donald Trump is just better at articulating them now I don’t see that. I think they have different policies that we really are talking about a debate between significant wings of the Republican Party, but to a lot of people who maybe don’t take politics seriously. And watch it every day. They just see Donald Trump is first string and Nikki Haley who they still like, she’s just second string. And so as long as we’ve got Donald Trump, why do we need Nikki Haley? And so I think that’s been one issue and then I do think the campaign has hurt Nikki Haley’s reputation a little bit because she has gone after the former president and a lot of people in South Carolina are very loyal to Donald Trump. So anybody who criticizes Donald Trump becomes a target. And so, you know, Nikki Haley has now been called a rhino, a Republican in name only. I mean, that’s so ridiculous. For those of us who know Nikki Haley, she is farthest from from being some sort of you know, spy for the Democrats or something like that. She’s called liberal. I mean, that’s also absolutely ridiculous. Look at Nikki Haley’s record as a governor as a UN ambassador. She has been extremely conservative and was seen as you know, kind of a tea party conservative in 2010. Endorsed by Sarah Palin for crying out loud, so…
Tom Canalichio: Totally elected on that wave as a backlash during the Obama presidency. And it’s very interesting to see just how easily be in group out group dynamics or perception shifts, right. So, so as unlikely as you both might think it is to be because of the court cases. But let’s just say hypothetically, something does happen that the Republican Party has to put someone else on the ballot and it does become Nikki Haley, having gone through this process of needing to attack Trump or defend herself against him. Does that burn her so bad with the current Republican voter base that that how would she possibly do in the general election? How would South Carolina voters and the Republican base there that you that you believe is really firmly for Trump and no one else necessarily? Or how will might that? What are your views about how that might shake out?
Danielle Vinson: Those folks are not going to vote for Joe Biden and an election. They’re just not. Now whether she I think the question would be, would she get people as excited in the battleground states? And I think at that point, you’ve got a really clear choice between a traditional Democratic candidate who’s older and a younger, traditional Republican candidate, and I think she actually would would be able to motivate voters. I think she pulls some younger voters that are currently potentially leaning toward the Democrats. She potentially pull some of those folks over to the Republicans, and she would definitely do well. among independents. I think in those kind of races. I think the bigger question for her would be, could she actually get the nomination? She’s picked up some delegates, but there isn’t depending on if or when Trump were to have to leave the race. It’s not necessarily in the delegates hands, it may be in the hands of the leadership of the RNC. And I’m not necessarily confident that they would pick her over somebody else who’s a little more Trumpian in their demeanor and approach to things.
Brent Nelsen: Yeah, I think that’s right. I would think that the leadership might want to skip over Haley and go to a Ron DeSantis or some or Tim Scott or something like that. Somebody who hasn’t really agitated the bass in lots of ways. I think Nikki Haley’s strength would be suburban women, which is a swing demographic, but she would probably lose a lot of the working class men that Trump has gotten out to vote and they’re not going to vote for Joe Biden, but then they’re just gonna sit at home. So I think it’s a I you know, it’d be a very interesting General Election Race, if it were Nikki Haley and Joe Biden. But Haley has her strengths, especially as Daniel already said, among independents are the question of abortion comes up frequently. And while she hasn’t taken a moderate stand, she has certainly been more sympathetic to women in difficult situations and she has been more open to some modifications of of abortion rules that allow more abortions in more cases.
Tom Canalichio: So I think that’s interesting. Brett, you brought up the elephant in the room because this will be the first presidential election since the dogs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. So I’m very curious what you both think about how that factors into presidential politics with a woman on the ballot, potentially as the candidate or the VP on the Republican side, but also there is currently a woman in the incumbent administration as the vice president. These sorts of these sorts of politics and and dynamics there. Certainly play a factor, Professor Vinson, what do you think about that?
Danielle Vinson: I think Dobbs is going to be important Democrats did better than expected in the midterm elections two years ago, at least in part because of the dobs decision. And that’s not an issue. I think a lot of people thought that issue would just kind of dissipate and people will kind of get used to it. I’m not seeing that among younger voters at all. They they are well aware of it. I think some of the headlines that we’re seeing as various states put on some pretty stringent bans essentially on abortion and early bans on these things. I think that is agitating people, and particularly women, particularly younger women. But even some of our younger men are concerned about this. And so I think Democrats will continue to play with play for play on that issue. I think it is a real strength of Kamala Harris, the Democratic VP candidate. She that’s an issue she talks very passionately about, and I think they’re going to continue to use that they will use it in those battleground states. It will be effective with some independence. And a lot of the people that were in favor of the Dobbs decision are not people that are in play in this election. Anyway, they’ll be voting for the Republican candidate, whoever that candidate is, right.
Tom Canalichio: Professor Nelson What are you thought?
Brent Nelsen: I’ve already said my piece on jobs I think and, and I agree completely with Danielle. It’s it’s remaining an issue and so we’re going to hear more about it.
Tom Canalichio: Is the importance of that issue and the Republican Party’s effort to try to mitigate being seen as not favorable for women voters? Would the possibility of putting Nikki Haley on the ballot as the VP pick, be a viable path for them? In spite of her attacks on Trump, in this primary process, do you think it’s likely or unlikely that she becomes the VP candidate?
Brent Nelsen: In my view, it’s very unlikely I’m not even sure she would want to be vice president under a Donald Trum, and I think she’s really gotten under Trump’s skin. So I don’t think she’s going to be top line for for that spot. What do you think Danielle? I think I think you hit on that.
Danielle Vinson: I completely agree with you. I don’t think Trump would put her on the ballot given that he is he is angry with her right now. He was not happy she got into the race. He is not happy with how she’s running her campaign and the criticism she’s leveling at him. And I think that the day she decided he was too old to be president that moved her off the ballot. But I also think Brent’s, right. I don’t think Haley would take it. You look at what Mike Pence had to do for four years. You sit beside the president and you keep your mouth shut and you don’t react when he says things that are potentially unconstitutional. Potentially just kind of off the wall, potentially dangerous to national security. Pence could sit there with a straight face and look at Eddie’s Nikki Haley will be out of her seat, commenting she cannot be quiet about that. She’s not going to be content to be tucked in a corner and trotted out for certain audiences. If she can’t have some voice in the administration, and I don’t think she would, given the disloyalty she has shown to Trump he’s got other women he could put on the ballot that would happily play the role he wants for a vice president. She’s not going to be it and she it would not really serve her interest because at the end of four years, if she wanted to run for president she saddled with all of the baggage that comes with whatever happens in his administration that she had pretty much no control over So I think that would be a no go for her as well.
Tom Canalichio: Question from the chat expanding on this topic. what kind of person do you think he will pick as the VP Do you think it’s likely that he would pick another woman? And also that’s that’s what I’m throwing in there. but also the audience member asks, is there any, any extent to which they might think about identity politics, you know, inclusiveness and diversity…
Brent Nelsen: Republicans are picking up African Americans, particularly male, African Americans and Hispanics, Asians, there’s an uptick in minority support for the Republican Party and to some extent, Donald Trump himself. So I still think that Tim Scott has a pole position. He has shown himself to be very loyal since he got out of the race and even when he was a presidential candidate, he really refused to speak harshly. About the former president. He played his cards very well that way. And I think he provides the sort of sunny side of Trump’s brand of conservativism and Trump is sort of the angry grievance side so the two, you know, obviously different, different ethnic backgrounds, but just different personalities that might complement each other. I just think and I also think that Donald Trump has a hard time. He has a hard time with strong women. And if you just gotta have strong woman run as Vice President, that might irritate him a little bit. So that’s a personal opinion, but I still think that Tim Scott’s got the poll. How about you, Danielle?
Danielle Vinson: I think Tim Scott’s in a good position. I also think you know, at least Stefanik is is doing her best to remake herself into a pro Trump person compared to her first couple of years in Congress. And I think she would happily take the position if offered. I think Kristi Noem is another one that you hear floated about, I think there are plenty of pro-Trump women in government positions right now who would happily take the position. And I do think as much as Republicans rail against identity politics, they would enjoy being able to put someone who is a woman or minority on the ticket as sort of a poke in the eye to the Democrats.
Tom Canalichio: That’s an interesting point that you make it wouldn’t be the first woman VP nominee from the Republican party, so that is a strategy that has historical precedent. You mentioned representative Elise Stefanik. What about Stefanik or maybe other examples? What is it that stands out to you that would make them potentially the pick?
Danielle Vinson: She’s been one of those folks in Congress who has very vocally defended Trump, where the lawsuits are concerned and the legal troubles she has gone all in sort of doing the Trump talking points in public and and pushing for things that he wants in Congress. Sometimes even when the rest of the leadership in the Republican conference in the house was a little more measured in their responses to some of his legal troubles. She’s she’s just been very publicly supportive of Trump. She’s endorsed him early on. I just I think she’s she definitely has her eye on that and she’s been asked, people have asked her if she would consider being vice president and she said, you know, basically, she would be honored. So I think she’s not opposed to the idea.
Tom Canalichio: Professor Nelsen, what other kinds of characteristics are examples of standouts that you think would potentially be the VP pick?
Brent Nelsen: Oh, sure. If if we’re still thinking about women, I think Carrie Lake needs to be thrown into the mix.
Tom Canalichio: Very good observation. Now she’s she’s, she’s followed a very similar course. Just to refresh anybody doesn’t recognize the name. She refused to accept that she lost the race in Arizona.
Brent Nelsen: Yeah, she’s a serial election denier because she was strong backer of of Trump’s arguments that Joe Biden did not win the election in 2020. She’s a media personality and she comes across that way and Trump very much likes those kinds of media personalities. She is caustic she can be caustic and her rhetoric. And she hasn’t been a successful politician. That is one problem. I mean, she’s lost. She lost her election. So, you know, that might be a drawback, but she would be a very vocal supporter and she would always you know, be her her speech would be consistent with the the Presidents If Trump were elected. So I think he or she would be one in terms of men who might be vice president and I certainly don’t think Chris Christie is in the mix anywhere. But you know, people talk about Vivek Ramaswamy. There again, you do have, you know, a South Asian by ethnic background, and that’s a growing population, different religion, and definitely good with words. And he adheres closely to the Trump line. Sometimes he goes beyond the Trump line into conspiracy theories and those kinds of things. So whether he could be controlled enough on the campaign trail, but I would be a question… but I do think that the primary campaign was good for him, the debates were good for him. There are lots of people that really liked him. So I throw his his name into the mix.
Tom Canalichio: Another question from our audience on the possibility of a hypothetical second Trump administration, do you think that trade and climate policies would change all that dramatically? They observe that it seems that there hasn’t been that great of a difference in policy even under the current Biden administration. The American economy is turning to protectionism and energy transition is occurring. I think slowly due to the costs is her point there. What does a hypothetical Trump Part 2, what does that look like, Dr. Vinson? In your opinion?
Danielle Vinson: I’m gonna let Brent start with this because he’s got more of the expertise in international affairs than I do.
Brent Nelsen: Yes, both candidates have been much more protectionist than we have seen traditionally, since, well, since World War II. Trump is trying to go beyond the Biden administration, which by the way, did keep all of the Trump tariffs of which was a bit of a surprise. They kept saying they were studying the issue and for some reason, the study never completed and they kept those those tariffs on, basically on steel, and aluminum, which has raised the price of appliances for Americans. Trump is talking about a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods. Whether he would actually implement that is, is a big question, but it looks like Trump would like to gauge in trade wars rather than shooting wars, and he really wants to go after the Chinese. How can you know that? How the rest of the world would react to that, including the Chinese. is not well known Trump has talked about, you know, very much disrupting the world trade system. The other thing that this the question has to do with energy. And there, Trump has been clear that he wants the United States to drill more and more hydrocarbons. The fact is, we’re already exporting a lot now. And sometimes I wonder if he really understands the position that the United States is in right now, we are a huge energy producer. And we’re even producing for much of the rest of the world. But we do supply the Europeans with natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas. And Biden has put some restrictions on that. And so that might be a big difference. And Biden has done that for climate purposes. Trump is not interested in following any of those pieces of advice from the scientific community on climate change in energy. So I would suspect that he would take off those restrictions and allow American companies to build LNG plants and to drill for more gas.
Tom Canalichio: Professor Vinson?
Danielle Vinson: Yeah, I would add a couple of things there. I think Brent’s right in the things that he talks about a couple of things to add. One is, I do think to the extent that the private sector is already sort of thinking ahead, some on climate change and renewable energy sources that would continue. They I think some companies realize that there is a future there. And they will, they will continue that. I think one of the sort of behind the scenes things we might not focus on as much that would be a stark contrast between the Trump administration and the current Biden administration are things like funding of the Environmental Protection Agency. A lot of the the funding decisions in the Trump administration were cuts, drastic cuts, he would recommend drastic cuts. If he were to get a Congress that’s sympathetic to that, then I would expect that you would see major cuts to some of these agencies that are responsible for enforcement of some of our environmental laws that would ultimately affect climate change. It would also hit in the research side of things, limiting grants for certain kinds of research that would be important to climate change. We’ve seen that happen in other areas, and it can have a really detrimental effect on the research that’s being done and the science that’s developing alternatives. And so I think those would be areas where you would see some stark contrasts, EPA is going to be much better funded under a Biden administration than a Trump administration.
Tom Canalichio: Professor Vinson, we have a question from an international reporter that wants to understand better why Republicans don’t support Haley but love Trump. And could you could you sum that up in, you know, general terms for someone from outside the US?
Danielle Vinson: I think a lot of this primary is coming down to knots. It’s not really about Trump versus Haley. It’s about Trump. And I think for a lot of Republicans who liked Trump, who like his combative style, who likes his policies, they think he’s being picked on and unfairly targeted by the left. And this election, this primary is a chance to to essentially say, No, we’re not going to take this, you can’t pick on our team. That way. You can’t pick on our guy that way. He’s our leader. We’re going to support him even through you know, these attacks and these lawsuits and these legal issues, because we don’t think that’s fair. We don’t think he’s been fairly treated. And so I really think a lot of this just comes down to their take on Trump versus Democrats. Not so much Trump versus Haley. I think if Haley were running in a field that didn’t include Trump, she’d probably come out as the nominee, just like she kind of gotten rid of everybody who wasn’t Trump in this particular primary process. I think she would be well received by a large chunk of the Republican Party. But this is not about Nikki Haley. This is all about Donald Trump, and showing their support for him in the face of what they deem are unfair attacks by Democrats and liberals.
Brent Nelsen: Let me add one more thing. Donald Trump is just fun. He’s an entertainer. He knows how to Get a crowd excited, feeling something, feeling emotional and not, you know, anger is, is an emotion that dumps dopamine, dopamine into your brain as well as you know, fun things. So people really love to hear him exercise, well love to hear him list their grievances. They love to hear him take off after their perceived enemies. And so I think he’s able to use his experience as an entertainer. And let me underline one, one place where he was an entertainer was in professional wrestling. Now, I don’t know if our international listeners know anything about American professional wrestling. But it’s it’s not real. It’s it’s scripted. But people think of it as real. And the, the actors, they, they they simulate these, these conflicts, these personal conflicts. And Donald Trump was very good at that. He wasn’t a wrestler, he was an owner and that kind of thing. But he participated in that kind of thing. And he understands that people aren’t always interested in reality, they’re interested in you painting a picture for them of the reality that they think is there. And he does that. So so well. His rally, I wasn’t at the University of Coastal Carolina, where he was recently. But people who were there that talk about the experience, you know, part of it is a circus. Part of it is a bunch of people selling stuff. But part of it is almost a religious experience, almost like a tent revival meeting, especially at the end, they kind of do these things. And Trump kind of goes into this litany almost liturgical kind of emotional state and the music plays. And so people, you know, they they feel this spiritual oneness with each other and with their leader. And I don’t think we can discount that kind of talent that that Donald Trump has for connecting with his people emotionally.
Tom Canalichio: Well said, I want to ask maybe one other question to both of you about the sort of social fabric and social media environment among American voters, not necessarily the candidates, but American voters amongst themselves. And these reports that continue to come out about foreign interference with sort of the term is sock puppet accounts or other other names for for sort of inauthentic accounts masquerading as fellow Americans. What do you expect to see in this election? And what do you what do you predict?
Danielle Vinson: I just taught a class on this Monday night. The social media, including those inauthentic accounts, really focus on our identity. We the term we use the other night in class was identity propaganda. It’s not just propaganda about a party, but it’s getting at who you the viewer are or the reader are on and that that invest you a little bit more. It’s not merely a difference in policy. When people attack your party, they’re attacking you. We’ve kind of sorted out racially, religiously. In terms of our demographics, we’ve kind of gravitated into two political parties with people who are otherwise also like us. And so social media plays up on this really well on the the folks that are that are running the most frequently posting accounts in partisan politics are focusing on identity and they do it in ways that that set up the other sides not just wrong, they’re morally wrong. They are attacking our values. They’re attacking my beliefs and who I am as a person, and that invests us It pushes us to do two things. One, it pushes us to look for more information on social media and elsewhere that confirms what I already think that my sides right and your sides wrong. So I’m going to actively start looking for information that confirms that. But it also makes me more willing to discount information that challenges my view. And so I’m willing to accept misinformation. I’m willing to accept disinformation, things that are blatantly not right. It’s how you help explain the election denier phenomenon among Republicans. Most elected officials know that that election was not stolen. And Joe Biden is in fact, the actual President of the United States and should be. But for those voters, this attacks their identity, and it becomes this, I just don’t believe you, that can’t possibly be right. How could the country do this? We’re we’re the ones and it’s our country. And so it just makes it easy to reject information that’s accurate and accept information that’s false when your identity is wrapped up in your party’s position or your political candidates position. And social media feeds that and the bots and this the inauthentic accounts all operate on that concept of identity propaganda.
Brent Nelsen: I have nothing. She’s the expert on this. I have nothing to add. That’s very good.
Tom Canalichio: Another question from our audience asking if you could contrast the democratic voter constituents versus the GOP primary, the primary of each party, actually, how would you describe, particularly the primary voting constituents of either party?
Brent Nelsen: I guess I’ll go. Well, we always know that the primary voting population is much smaller than the general election population. And it’s more ideologically homogeneous. So it tends to be the the stronger Republicans, the ones that are most loyal to the party, and the ones that are ideologically more to the right. Now that what, what how you define the right has changed over the last few years, but they are the most committed, and that is true of the Democrats as well. And you see this in the demographics as well. We saw in the last in the, you know, the Democratic primary that was just recently held that, you know, African American women who tend to be the most loyal, Democratic voters, they came out, even in a non competitive race, they came out. So that’s going to happen in the Democrats as well, you’re gonna get the most committed most ideologically left wing people. And that’s true in the Republican Party as well, only on the right. Danielle?
Danielle Vinson: Yeah, I would add one other thing to that. The people that show up in primaries tend to be the most politically attentive, and so they’re paying the closest attention to politics. And that’s why the general election often looks a little bit different. You’re going to have folks that are less focused on politics year round, participating in that general election.
Tom Canalichio: Well, thank you both very much for your time today to discuss the current trajectory of the presidential primaries. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the coming months. Thank you all for attending. And on behalf of Professor Vincent and Professor Nelson, I’d like to say goodbye and good luck. Have a nice day. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
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