It’s been a very hectic 48 hours in USA and Australian Politics. In USA Politics Ron DeSantis bid adieu to the Republican Primary Race and Endorsed Donald Trump, Tim Scott also endorsed Trump and those two events helped Trump win New Hampshire and despite the media’s best efforts effectively ended whatever contest was left in the Republican Primary. Someone forgot to tell Nikki Haley this however and she decided to finally go full on attack mode on Trump in her New Hampshire Concession Speech. Meanwhile in the Democratic side Joe Biden won the New Hampshire Primary with an effective write in campaign after he refused to appear on the official ballot for reasons I will discuss later in my blog. Meanwhile it has been chaotic in Australian Politics too in the last 48 hours. You had Anthony Albanese finally confirm the worst kept secret in politics and curtail the Stage Three Tax-Cuts, you also had polling out showing Labor stretching their lead over the Coalition again after early polls in the year showed the Coalition drawing level with the Labor Party in the polls. You had the Coalition pre-select a very popular mayor in Dunkley to set up a juicy contest in that seat and you had former PM and State Premier Scott Morrison and Steven Marshall announcing they will retire from Politics very shortly, both cases confirming long thought rumours. So in this blog I will start by discussing USA Politics before moving onto Australian Politics.
So let’s not bury the lead here on USA Politics, Donald Trump won New Hampshire today about an hour and a half ago in a move that shocked very few serious political pundits despite the media trying to hype up a tight contest to keep clicks being generated on the contest. Everyone will go, oh Trump only won by 10-12% points maybe it could be close going forward… I got news for you it wont be. Trump is leading Haley by 35% points in South Carolina which is Nikki Haley’s home state and she got a further body blow in the last 48 hours as Tim Scott who was appointed by Haley to the Senate endorsed Donald Trump as the only viable candidate to take on Joe Biden come November. This also came as Ron DeSantis officially suspended his campaign and also endorsed Donald Trump and he too gave Haley a broadside on the way out. So you’d think with those two body blows Trump would have kowtowed Haley out of the race but no siree, Haley in her concession speech that I must admit sounded more like a victory speech took the attack to the Former President Finally and said he has an issue with memory, temperament and didn’t deliver enough for the Country, she also said that he is the Democrats best hope, indeed he is the only candidate that Biden can actually beat at this point. Now there’s an argument on that last point, Trump has been tied or is leading Biden by a small margin in most recent polls but New Hampshire is not following that trend, indeed Biden is currently leading in New Hampshire by just over double digits, so while Trump is leading well in most swing states, New Hampshire is not one of those states. Now I said earlier that this ends the Primary race as a contest but Nikki Haley has courageously I think decided, no there is a non insignificant portion of the Country that would like someone other than Trump to be the Republican Nominee and she feels she owes it to them to continue fighting it out with Trump even if it ends her career as a Republican which given the Victory Speech of Trump tonight and how nasty he was tonight is a real possibility. Unfortunately the reason I say the race is now officially finished is there just aren’t enough votes in the Republican Primaries/Caucuses who aren’t rusted on Trump voters. New Hampshire really was Haley best chance as the amount of Independents in that state who vote in the Republican Primary is almost equal to the amount of pure Republicans. In the Republican voters Trump won that demographic 3 to 1 and if he replicates that in other states where the Independent vote is significantly lower then he will win easily. One more thing about the Republican Primary and I thought it was very intriguing that Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott were both standing behind Trump as he gave his victory speech tonight and that both Tim Scott and Vivek were referenced and then Ramaswamy was given the chance to speak in the victory speech tonight. I know everyone wants Trump to pick a Woman for VP as that would make sense from a softening of the Trump brand view but I don’t think Trump does sensible in the traditional sense, I believe one of Vivek Ramaswamy or Tim Scott will be the eventual VP Pick and my money at present is on Vivek Ramaswamy. Now onto the Democratic Race and yes there was a New Hampshire Primary for the Democrats tonight also. It was won by Joe Biden thanks to a large campaign to write him in as the winning candidate for this state after he refused to appear on the official ballot. The reason for this is that the Democrats changed the rules this year on what State would come first in the Democratic Nomination Process and said no South Carolina has to be the first state to vote in the Primaries for 2024 to which New Hampshire said screw that we are going to go first anyway which was in violation of the official Democratic Primary rules. As a result of this Joe Biden refused to appear on the official ballot but then organised his supporters to mount a write-in nomination that would ensure he still won New Hampshire while not violating the new Democrat rules. So Joe Biden ended up winning the New Hampshire Primary with a projected final vote of about 68%. Dean Phillips has come second with around 20% of the vote. So the Democratic race is still as uncompetitive as we thought although Dean Phillips will try and spin his 20% of the vote as a rejection of the current President, although that’s muted given Joe Biden didn’t do any “official” campaigning in New Hampshire. The two most recent General Election Polls have shown Biden trailing the former President Donald Trump by 5% and I think as a recent pod said, you have start taking the threat of Donald Trump becoming President again in November seriously because he is leading Biden, he is well on track to wrapping up the Republican Nomination before Super Tuesday and the closer it gets to the Election the less likely the Criminal Proceedings will catch up with Trump.
Now onto Australian Politics and a lot has been happening here too recently. The candidates for the Dunkley By-Election have been set and the date for the By-Election has been set, namely the 2nd of March. Now I think the race will be very close but I think Kos Samaras hit the nail on the head, Dutton is back in the ballgame and given the characteristics of Dunkley which is a high amount of suburban working class tafe educated personalities the Liberals deserve to start favourites in this seat. Indeed both sides of the political pendulum are talking down their hopes in this seat. I will be very intrigued in this seat where the 5% of the United Australian Party votes go, you’d assume that it wouldn’t matter much because at the last election surely most of those votes went to the LNP on preferences anyway, but that’s not quite true, while Greens to Labor have a high preference flow, the flows from right of centre parties do not always flow as heavily back to the Coalition, if most of those voters at this election however to go straight to the Coalition then that may give the LNP the edge in this seat. But the real news of the last 48 hours was the leaking to the Media of an apparent change to the Stage three Tax Cuts. This was quickly denied by Labor but surprise surprise fast forward too today and there were indeed changes being made to the Stage Three Tax Cuts. The changes are as followed there will now be more tax benefits for lower income earners with an increase to the Tax Free Threshold as well as an increase in how much tax is given back to lower to middle income earners. This comes at a cost though and it is too higher income earners who have to pay the higher tax bracket that they were promised too not have to do anymore. The Coalition have said this is the mother of all broken promises and indeed the PM Anthony Albanese said indirectly or directly that the Stage 3 Tax Cuts would not break changed on more than 100 occasions. Now if you are asking my view, I thought these Stage 3 Tax Cuts were terrible from an inflationary point of view and also took away from the progressive tax system that redistributes wealth in a fair and reasonable way. That’s my view as an economist but Politically, this is a stinker of a decision, I really do believe that Peter Dutton and the Coalition will now attack Labor for breaking a core Election Promise and yes there’s the point that they may be wedged on whether too support the increased gains for lower and middle income workers but they are already pivoting to the attack line that if you can’t trust Labor on this promise how can you trust Labor on other more contentious issues. I think this decision is going to cost Labor Dunkley, and yes sometimes you have to make the right decision even if it is not popular, but that also has to be balanced with staying in power and not losing to ability to make decisions. I see a lot of comparisons here to the GST Decision and that Howard changed his mind on this and still won further elections, that’s true but you have to remember Howard nearly lost the 1998 General Election after the GST Decision, he did lose the popular vote in that election and only won subsequent elections more comfortably on the back of other issues. Now to amend these tax changes the Government will have to pass this through the Parliament and I think it will pass both houses, but I will be very intrigued by how the Teal Independents vote on this issue in the lower house. I think this might split them and that could open the door to attacks by the Coalition to try and win some of the teal seats back at the next Election. I mentioned the Polls earlier and the Labor Party have recently clawed some of their lead back after early polls in the year showed a tie or small Liberal Lead. I would imagine this decision on Stage Three Tax Cuts will change that dynamic polling wise. Lastly, I want to talk about two recent high profile departures from Politics, one Federally and one from my home state of South Australia. In Australia Scott Morrison confirmed the worst kept secret and announced his soon to be intention to resign from Federal Politics. That will open up a race to succeed him that will be very interesting because while the Liberals will win that seat, it will be just as interesting in who that Liberal will be, will it be a Moderate, Conservative or a Female. Also in South Australia Steven Marshall has announced his intention to leave State Politics and this will be a very intriguing by-election because it will give some numerical evidence of how the Peter Malinauskas government is going in a state where we are badly lacking numerical polling data. Dunstan is currently a very marginal seat, indeed on Election Night it looked like it might fall to Labor at various times, but the ramping issue which is biting hard here in SA may do enough to keep the seat in Liberals hands.
Thanks for reading my blog, stay tuned next week on my next Political Blog.
Political Musings from the Man Down Under 