Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwork, and this week we are going to indulge in a little 2024 talk. Now I know what you're thinking, I said I was going to wrap up on the last

election and I promise you I am but as you may have heard Donald Trump

announced that he is running to be president again in 2024 and I'm sorry but I want to talk about that for a little bit

because Republicans lack-laster midterm performance especially among Trump's

endorsed candidates in swing states, seemed to have

stabbed Trump's announcement of his typical dark electricity. I was actually a

little bored. And instead the guy getting all the buzz is a potential Trump challenger right now,

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is fresh off a 19-point re-election win in Florida

where he won Miami-Dade County by 11 points.

Even as Republicans underperformed in most of the rest of the country.

Now, over the past year, we've talked to a lot of Republican voters about their interest in

Trump running again in 2024 as well as their interest in DeSantis and other potential GOP candidates.

So we've pulled together a bunch of that sound to give you a

sense of how Trump voters are thinking about the Republican Party's future.

My guest today is David Drucker, author of In Trump Shadow, the Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP, and he is a senior

correspondent at the Washington Examiner.

David, thank you so much for being here.

Good to be here, Sarah.

Thank you.

So you're at the R.J.C. the Republican Jewish Coalition's meeting in Las Vegas right now, where there's a whole bunch

of 2024 contenders in attendance. What are you seeing and

hearing? Who's there? What's the vibe like? Well, there was a big fundraising

...