Candidates Shift Back to the Moscow Primary

The following is part of  The Moscow  Primary, an  irregular series on yours truly’s speculations regarding the views of the 2024 Republican nomination contest from the most important player: the Kremlin.

Here we go again.

After agreeing to Ukraine’s request for “cluster bombs,” the Biden Administration was tag-teamed by the leading GOP contenders to defenestrate it (The Hill).

“So, yes or no to cluster bombs if you were president?” (radio host Howie) Carr pressed the Florida governor.

“I would not do that, no. I think it runs, I think it probably runs a risk of escalation. Basically what I said from the beginning is no weapons that could lead to attacks inside Russia or escalating the conflict. We cannot become involved in this directly,” DeSantis said.

…

Trump, who lost his reelection bid to Biden in 2020 and is running for another four years in the White House in 2024, said this week that Biden “should not be dragging us further toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine.”

Not all the GOP candidates were so willing to ally themselves with the Kremlin, but as Pew Research noted, Republicans as a whole are more comfortable taking Russia’s side of things.

Currently, 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the U.S. is giving too much aid to Ukraine, up modestly since January (40%) and the highest level since shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Just 14% of Democrats and Democratic leaners view the current level of U.S. aid as excessive, little changed in recent months.

In March of last year, Republicans were only 4 percentage points more likely than Democrats to say the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine (9% vs. 5%). Today, Republicans are 30 points more likely to say so.

Moreover, as shown in the graphics from the link, more Republicans say too much has gone to Ukraine than say not enough or the right amount combined, further tightening Moscow’s grip on the party.

Even close to home, the majority of Republicans representing western Virginia took the Kremlin line in numerous votes to cripple Biden’s ability to support Ukraine (thankfully, none passed).

It should surprise no one, then, that both the front-runner (Trump) and his closest challenger (DeSantis) are both competing hard to win the Moscow Primary. The rest of the country should take note, and act accordingly.