There has been a big move in the betting on who will win the 2024 White House race. The controversial Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has now become the favourite pushing out Trump.

He’s been helped by an extensive profile which has just been published by the New Yorker and this from the Daily Beast gives a summary of his approach.

DeSantis’ opposition to vaccine mandates, for example, included signing legislation “telling companies that they were not free to decide how to manage their employees,” hardly a free-market stance. He rails against “Soros-funded prosecutors,” which presumably means the reformist district attorneys whom libertarians tend to support. And he’s taken heat from actual libertarians for his eagerness to regulate tech companies, his use of tax policy as a culture-war weapon, and his recent push to sic Child Protective Services on parents who take their kids to drag shows

We are more than two years out from the next White Election and if DeSantis was to do it he would not take over until January 20th 2025.

It is very likely that others will put themselves forward for the Republican nomination in the next twelve months.

Meanwhile the New York Times is reporting that Joe Biden is becoming increasingly irked by the widespread assumption that he won’t seek re-election even though he would be nearly 82.

Mike Smithson