Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed “the top political strategist in the country,” Ward Baker in studio to give his assessment on the 2024 presidential race and the Democrat that could be a serious contender.
Leahy: In studio, Ward Baker, the top political strategist in the country. Ward, I’d ask you to kind of give us a snapshot of what 2024 looks like, particularly on the Senate side, but you wanted to add your assessment on the presidential side. I’m very curious to see what you think about that.
Baker: Sure. I think one thing to remember; it’s extremely, extremely early. There are 648 days until the 2024 election. At this point in 2016, Jeb Bush was winning.
Leahy: Who?
Baker: Jeb Bush. (Leahy chuckles) By April, he had $74 million in the bank, and he was crushing everything. He was almost to 45 percent on the ballot of the caucus in Iowa. He was over 50 in New Hampshire, and then he finished fifth, I believe, in the Iowa caucus. Scott Walker was the flavor of the month for a while.
He came here; he campaigned here. He ended up getting out, I believe, in the first four months. And so we have a lot of runway in front of us. We have a lot of time. And so I think what we see now, I guarantee what we see now is going to change so much in the presidential. Many different things will happen, whether it’s foreign policy or who else gets in, and things that happen. And so it’s going to be so much different.
Legally, DeSantis can’t get in, I believe, until the second week of May, until after the session is over, after the three days. There’s some unusual ruling of that. And so that’s all till May.
So we have a lot of runway. There’s open option right now for possibly a candidate to get in that’s maybe a lower tier candidate to get some media. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next six months.
Leahy: One of the things that’s quite true is how fluid this entire situation is, how early it is. Roger Simon, our all-star panelist who writes for The Epoch Times made the same point that it’s very early, too early, really.
You can see all these polls out there. And typically the GOP race, I describe it right now as, Trump versus DeSantis versus the Munchkins. That’s how I describe it. But that can change.
Baker: Sure.
Leahy: In particular, I think what you point out is world events beyond our control may have a dramatic influence on the 2024 election.
Baker: If I was looking at this in August or September, thinking about the GOP and who may run, I would have thought in August, Hawley would probably get in. Rick Scott would probably get in Florida. Ted Cruz of Texas would probably get in.
And then looking at Tom Cotton of Arkansas. And so looking at that, I thought there would be more senators come August. And there were high reports they were having meetings, donor meetings, and traveling around. Now I don’t see them running.
I think one thing that might be interesting is that there may not be as many candidates running as we originally thought. There may not be as many people entering the race and as early as it happened last time. And part of that is for Trump because he takes up so much space in auction of the sort of thinking of a primary voter.
But a lot of the centers that we thought were going to run aren’t running. It’ll be very interesting. And then there’s this space of DeSantis not getting in until probably the third week of May unless the rules change.
Leahy: Yes. You are exactly right. So stay tuned is the theme on that. And, of course, the other part about that is I don’t know if you have any particular insights on the Democrat side. Joe Biden and his gang have said they want to make the first primary, the South Carolina primary, where Jim Clyburn, in essence, is a lot of black voters.
Baker: Power broker in South Carolina.
Leahy: And Clyburn, a leading black legislator. Basically, if he picks you, you’ve got a really good chance of winning. He basically saved the Biden campaign.
Baker: Obama, Biden. He’s been with them. So if I was the Democrats, everyone is talking about Biden. There’s a spin of Booker. He was in town a couple of weeks ago here.
Leahy: Please save me from the wokest of the woke.
Baker: Speaking of woke. If I was the Democrats, I would nominate Warnock. I would get behind Warnock. If I was a Democrat strategist, I think Warnock, if he decided to win, you got to think of the donor file that he has for those two races.
Leahy: Very good point.
Baker: The national money that he’s raised because of the runoff and it was such a focus, he’s raised over $150 million twice. He has donor awareness and is very well known. That’s what I would do.
And now that it’s not in Iowa, New Hampshire, and it starts in South Carolina, and then Super Tuesday is four or five weeks later, and you hit some of those southern states where you’re looking at 60, 70 percent, such a smaller turnout model than our model in the southeastern states.
But of the African American turnout, it’s 60 to 65 and 68 percent. Warnock, you would think, would be able to win four of those seven states. And then on top of that, South Carolina runs a decent campaign.
Leahy: And not only that, back to your argument that Warnock actually would be a strong candidate for the Democrats. Forget the fact that he’s a far-left Communist, but just in terms of electoral capabilities, he’s won narrowly twice in Georgia.
And by the way, when I look at the map, Ward, I’d be curious about your thoughts. In 2024, the Republicans or whoever the Republican nominee is, they have to win all the states Trump won in 2020. And there are three key battleground states that they must win. And that’s Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia.
If you take the Trump states, 238 Electoral College votes, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia, the total difference in each state was like 20,000 in Wisconsin, 10,000 in Georgia, and 11,000 in Arizona. 2020, not very much.
But if you put those together, you got 275 Electoral College votes. But it’s a very narrow path, it seems to me. That would be an argument that Warnock could use since he’s won twice statewide and in Georgia.
Baker: What I was going to say, is if you look at Trump’s election, if I’m Warnock, who is a Fidel Castro-type believer, I would make that play, especially because it’s interesting to me, are they doing this for Harris, who’s been the worst vice president of all time? Do nothing VP?
I don’t know why they skip these top two states. And so going there, you have to think this is an amazing opportunity for Warnock. I don’t think it’s planned that way. I just think it sort of happened.
Leahy: It turned out to be that way. Do you agree with my assessment that we’ve got to flip Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia, or we’re done?
Baker: Yes. Georgia is changing. We had this conversation. I remember when David Perdue ran in 14 people were like, oh, we don’t need to spend money there. And Georgia has changed. And Georgia continues to change. We talk about the growth here in Middle Tennessee.
We don’t have a top-five growth in Middle Tennessee compared to other states. People think we’re growing, you should see other places like Phoenix and Tucson. Atlanta has been doing this since 2004.
They have multiple counties that have been averaging 1,000 people a month, 800 people a month for 15 and 16 years. We have some. Wilson, Williamson, and Rutherford. We have some of those counties, but we’ve really just been hitting that for about eight or nine years now.
Leahy: Our buddy Clay Travis has said the guy that he thinks could succeed in South Carolina is Eric Adams out of New York City. Here’s the thing. New York state is not in play in 2024. Georgia is in play. P.S., Raphael Warnock has a huge donor base which Eric Adams does not have.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Ward Baker” by Baker Group Strategies. Background Photo “The White House” by The White House.
