comment: >
  
  Trump will mop the floor with him in the primaries.
context: Well the thing you must consider is will RD still have his popularity in 2028 or will he be old news and replaced by another rising star. 
  In politics all it takes is a few really good moments for you to rocket up and take everyone’s a attention and more importantly funding and support 
  So while it may seem better to wait as a young politician if he waits to long he may be old news especially as much of RD fame comes from his covid policy which may be a dead issue by 2028 and therefore will only help in a primary in the best case scenario >
  
  Remember how fast Bobby Jindal went from rising Republican superstar to person non grata? >
  
  We'd probably be talking the same way about Obama if he hadn't run when he did. >
  
  I think in many ways the Democrats wasted Obama. A ham sandwich could have beaten McCain after five years of R failure/malfeasance in Iraq. I'd have loved to see Obama run against Trump in 2016 with the Dem base nominally exhausted/complacent after 8 years of governing. >
  
  I think Trump was in large part a backlash to Obama. I'm not sure he gets nominated (or even runs) if Obama had not been president. >
  
  Obama goaded Trump into running by humiliating him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011. I'm sure Obama regrets that night more than any other in his life. >
  
  Obama became an emblem of the cultural and demographic shift away from total white dominance to partial/tenuous white dominance. And Trump made himself the figurehead of the fight to hold back that tide. I'm sure it didn't hurt that Trump had contempt for Obama personally, but I don't think it was the main thing that caused him to run in 2016. >
  
  Trump also tapped into the resentment of those that found the post-great recession recovery to either be anemic or didn’t restore their personal economic situation. >
  
  No one was voting for trump for his excellent economic policy.  That's just the excuse the out of touch journalists came up with post facto so that they wouldn't have to say the r word. >
  
  IMO it was the exact opposite. The out-of-touch journalists in their upper class urban bubbles had no concept of the recovery not reaching middle America, whereas “conservatives be conservatives because racism” is about the most boilerplate take out there. It’s not like they were refusing to factor race into his rhetoric on immigrants. >
  
  Three scenarios.
  
  Trump gets out of the race for one reason or another. Maybe he's just in it for the grift and doesn't intend to carry on into the primaries. Or maybe he's indicted? Something.
  He runs for and wins the nomination, then goes on to lose spectacularly in the general.
  Hr runs for and loses the nomination, after which he will devote himself to tearing down the Republican candidate, causing them to lose spectacularly. >
  
  True. RDs best bet is to play keepalive, hope the guy goes down somehow, and withdraw if Trump is still active when the primaries heat up. >
  
  IMO RD has to run now. He is the heir apparent to the Republican Party and nomination. He has spent his time as gov fashioning himself in that way. Based on the midterm results the party is slowly moving away from Trump. 
  In 4 years issues will change, so his platform may not be appealing to the voter. Waiting leaves the door open for new rising stars in the party to overshadow him. He may not be the golden boy he is now. 
  He was a representative now he’s a Governor the upward mobility is either President or VP. Youth in office doesn’t hurt. >
  
  I agree. I don't like him but I think '24 is his best chance >
  
  DeSantis needs to run now because he is term limited. In 2028, instead of being a sitting governor with all the prestige that holds, he will be a two years removed former governor. And former governors have terrible track records running for office. See Gary Johnson, Christ Christie, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rick Perry, Deval Patrick, John Hickenlooper, Jeb Bush, etc. Part of the issue with completing a governorship is there's really no place to go up than the presidency;  a senate or congressional run is a step backwards. If you've completed your term, that basically means you've ended your political career in the government unless another president swoops you up as a running mate or cabinet pick.
  However, politicians who ran as governor have had very good luck. Three of our last six presidents: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter all began their run for presidency when they were still governor.  Ronald Reagan could have run for a third term as governor but chose not to; in that way, he was not as much a "finished" politician as he was waiting in the wings for another chance, and voters in 1980 knew it. Reagan was also sort of a unicorn in this regard, since this was coming on the heels of an incumbent defeat after an incumbent defeat.
  This is basically his only shot. >
  
  Carter actually finished his term in 1975. >
  
  He then proceeded to hang around Iowa for a year and created our modern primary season. >
  
  Despite Joe Biden being the current President, it’s not actually that common for someone to be a well known national political figure for very long before becoming President. If someone has been getting national attention for a long time, then they’ve probably racked up a good amount of baggage from scandals or from policies that haven’t aged well. Plus people usually like to hope that a fresh face as President will mean they can come in and fix everything, while obviously someone who has been in politics a long time and hasn’t fixed everything yet isn’t likely to achieve that. Most candidates with long prior histories lose the general election.
  So if DeSantis runs in 2028, then he risks no longer being as strong of a candidate. By that point people might be a bit tired of him and they might want someone newer and more exciting.
  This is why so many people ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and for the Republican nomination in 2016. A lot of politicians thought that was their time and they went for it because they didn’t think their candidacies would get stronger if they waited longer. >
  
  I doubt Trump is going to mount a serious candidacy for 2024. There's not a lot of evidence for it imo (apart from what Trump says, assuming that counts as evidence). >
  
  Trump takes his 2020 loss extremely personally. He will run because he’s a jealous, vindictive man child with the temperament of a chihuahua. >
  
  Desantis has to run in '24. There's too much noise around about him running for him to sit back. He has no choice at this point if he wants a real shot at the White House.
  People have already mentioned characters like Chris Christie in this, but on the Democratic side, I'd offer up Elizabeth Warren as an example of this phenomenon. Her "time" to run was in 2016. She would have checked the box for people who really wanted a woman as president, but one that wasn't covered in Clinton-slime. She would have also split the difference between the progressive Bernie Sanders faction and Hillary's ultra-lib followers. I believe she would have fared better against Trump in the general as well.
  But, she cleared the deck for Hillary and tried her hand in 2020 and is now a footnote in US presidential history. Strike while the iron is hot people. >
  
  Yea EW would have beaten Clinton in 2016 imho, but would she take Trump down idk. >
  
  EW would have been fighting the headwinds of the Democrats already having the presidency for 8 years. >
  
  At this point I don't think DeSantis will risk it. I also disagree that he's favored by Republicans. He polls higher in the "would you like candidate x to run" but polls consistently behind Trump in "which candidate would you support in a Primary". More than 90% if polls right now have Trump well ahead of the pack and even up by double digits. 
  HOWEVER, this is the really interesting part. Florida has term limits on the Governor's seat. He can't hold office for more than 8 years in a 12 year span. So DeSantis won't be able to run again in 2026. He needs to find a new office or retire by then. And I don't think he'll challenge Rubio or Rick Scott for their Senate seats. Rick Scott is 70, which is old but probably not old enough to retire in 4 years. 
  DeSantis can choose the safe choice and prepare for a 2028 run or he can risk it all against Trump. Trump will call him every name in the book, DeSantis and his family will recieve death threats (although most candidates do to some degree), and he has a very very small chance of winning. >
  
  I think Ron DeSantis will run in 2024. He has to strike while the iron is hot. If he does wait until 2028, his momentum is gonna end. He‘s term limited as governor after 2026. By 2028, he will have been an ex governor for 2 years, and wouldn’t have a way to be in the headlines. The main reason Republicans love him is because he kept Florida open during the pandemic. As Covid fades, that loses its relevance. “Vote for Ron because he kept Florida open 8 years ago!” doesn’t sound convincing. He’s gonna be old news by then. His culture war nonsense won’t work in the rest of the country.
  But then again, if he does run against Trump, Trump‘s gonna destroy him in the debates. He performed terribly against Charlie Crist. He might be a less deranged version of Trump, but why would the MAGA crowd go for a knock off when they can have the real thing. >
  
  People announce their candidacy like 1-1.5 years before election nowadays. Coming this (late) summer, we can expect to see some people announcing or ”seriously considering” running. Then the whole campaign machinery gonna run, news about fundraising, speech, talking about issues, interviews gonna start trickling in. Some particular person announced well 2 years in advance. 
  Side note, we have our peace for like half a year left. Need to enjoy ourselves! >
  
  Haley and Hutchinson and Cheney and Pompeo have already stated that they will make an announcement this spring. >
  
  I want to say that RD can be effective against DT but when you analyze like just RD speech it's like a knock bland version of DT. This just makes him look like he knows DT has the winning formula so I'm just going to copy that guy. I want to see them debate so i can see a mirror act lol. >
  
  Momentum. 
  RD is the only person besides DT who can win the 2024 nomination. He can force the GOP to choose between him and DT. This is an immense amount of power, and it's going to be gone in 2028. DT isn't running in 2028 no matter what happens, there are going to be multiple candidates who don't have the negative baggage of being DT. 
  It's in RD's best interest to face DT in 2024. If he doesn't he'll find himself facing much harder candidates like Ivanka Trump or Josh Hawley, who also have the benefit of simply not being Donald Trump.