AUGUST Politics: 5 Potential Game-Changers

With Congress in recess and Americans enjoying the last weeks of summer, August is typically a slow political news month. But a number of simmering developments are worth paying close attention to this year.

What Will the First GOP Primary Debate Look Like?

Republicans are scheduled to host their first presidential primary debate on August 23.

So far, seven candidates have met the requirements to make the debate stage: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, and Doug Burgum. Other candidates have until August 21 to qualify.

The biggest remaining question is whether or not frontrunner Donald Trump will be at the debate in Milwaukee. With a 35-point lead in the latest RealClearPolitics average, there appears to be little political incentive for Trump to attend, and the former president has said that he’s undecided on the matter.

If Trump does appear, it will automatically make the GOP debate the biggest media event of the summer. But as AMAC Newsline reported last month, Trump’s absence could render the event largely irrelevant, thus further solidifying his stranglehold on the nomination.

Either way, it’s a big news story with significant ramifications for the 2024 race.

Can Ron DeSantis Recover?

It’s make-or-break time for the DeSantis campaign. After surging above 30 percent in the polls in January and closing the gap with Trump to just 13 points, the Florida governor began a downward slide that now has him polling between 15 and 20 percent.

Initially, political analysts predicted DeSantis would be the greatest – and perhaps only – legitimate threat to Trump for the GOP nomination. The governor was on top of the political world after his stunning 20-point re-election victory last year, and had built a $110 million war chest ahead of his announcement in May.

But big spending hasn’t helped his standing with primary voters so far. DeSantis’s PAC has burned through $34 million amid his polling decline, and the campaign has now fired more than 40 percent of its original staff.

If DeSantis is going to recover, it will have to start this month – and will likely require a strong performance in a debate that includes Trump. Without being able to take on the GOP frontrunner directly in front of a national audience (a confrontation it is by no means certain DeSantis would win), it seems doubtful the governor will be able to reverse his fortunes.

If DeSantis continues to falter, the next question is if another candidate will rise to become a serious challenger to Trump – someone like entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has gone from virtual obscurity to polling even with DeSantis in some surveys.

Will Biden’s Corruption Finally Break Through?

Although the House officially adjourned for August recess last Thursday, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee conducted an interview on Monday with Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, as part of a rapidly expanding probe into the Biden family’s corruption.

According to a transcript of Archer’s testimony, the younger Biden “occasionally” put his father on the phone to help close business deals – a revelation which, if true, would confirm Joe Biden has lied repeatedly about his knowledge of and involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings.

This development is just the latest in a series of seemingly damning details unearthed by House Republicans’ probe into the First Family.

As the evidence piles up, the media has been forced to go to increasingly extreme lengths to cover for Biden – including simply ignoring the scandal altogether.

But with the political news drought that typically comes each August, the stories about Biden’s corruption that are already being blasted on conservative outlets may receive more attention.

Moreover, as Democrats, particularly those in purple districts, leave the D.C. bubble and return home, they may find that the Biden corruption saga is a far bigger concern with ordinary voters than the beltway crowd would like to believe – a notion supported by public polling. If moderate Democrats feel that Biden could be an electoral drag on them next year, scrutiny on the president from his own side could ramp up significantly by the time Congress returns in September.

Will Biden Face Public Pressure to Drop Out of the 2024 Race?

House Republicans’ investigation has serious implications for Biden’s 2024 re-election bid. Combine that with mounting concerns about the president’s physical and cognitive decline (just 32 percent of Americans say Biden is mentally sharp enough to effectively serve as president) and the soon-to-be 81-year-old president looks like a less viable candidate by the day.

There’s also the fact that Biden has been slipping in polling on a potential re-match with Trump. Just before Biden announced his re-election plans, even most Democrats said they didn’t want him to run again.

If Biden drops out late in the primary cycle, thrusting the nominating decision on the Democrat establishment, the party will be hard-pressed to deny Kamala Harris the nomination – a prospect that would likely be an electoral disaster given Harris’s historic unpopularity.

With the first primaries rapidly approaching, the calendar dictates that if Democrats are going to force Biden out and pave the way for a legitimate primary contest (thus creating a path for a nominee not named Joe Biden or Kamala Harris) it will have to be soon. August might be the month where signs of such a coup begin to emerge.

Will the Economy Falter?

After two years of dreadful economic headlines, things have begun to look up slightly in the past few months. That’s good news for Biden and Democrats, who have taken a beating in the polls on the state of the economy.

But many economists still believe that the country could enter into recession territory in the second half of the year. Adding to the pessimism, Fitch Ratings downgraded the country’s credit rating earlier this week, citing a “steady deterioration in standards of governance.” The S&P 500 lost almost 7 percent the last time such a downgrade occurred.

If the economy goes south again this month, it will play a significant role in dictating what the rest of the year looks like politically – starting with the battle to fund the government that will begin as soon as Congress returns in September.

Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.