Mark Sanford drops longshot primary challenge against President Trump.

Mark Sanford government photo. 

Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford has dropped his longshot 2020 primary challenge against President Trump. Reuters. Sanford joined the race along with Bill Weld and Joe Walsh. Sanford said that the impeachment inquiry made it impossible to get his pet issue, government debt, into the news. Sanford's longshot run was seen as revenge for Trump support of Sanford's primary challenger in 2018. Sanford was most famous for a sex scandal where he disappeared for several weeks while visiting his mistress.

My Comment:

Just a quick update to a previous story. I knew that Sanford had no chance of ever unseating President Trump, but his campaign was a total failure. Since this is the first time anyone has talked about him since he announced his candidacy, he made absolutely zero impact. 

He never had much of a chance in the first place. President Trump is extremely popular among Republicans, often reaching 95% approval in polling among the GOP. There is pretty much zero chance of anyone else being the candidate for the Republicans in 2020, and that's even after the joke of an impeachment effort that is being used right now to try to destroy his 2020 chances. 

Sanford didn't have much of a platform either. His main issue, the public debt and government spending, is nobodies biggest priority right now. Though I would agree that we should cut spending, there is zero desire for anyone to actually do anything about it right now and even if there was there are so many other major issues that are sucking all the air out of the room. 

I do think that Sanford does have a point, impeachment is pretty much dominating the news. It's a real problem for the 2020 candidates as they can't get on the news. Sanford was held up as the great hope that there would be someone other than President Trump running in 2020 but, like a baby with a shiny object, they have moved on to other things. It's not just Sanford that will be screwed by this as the Democrats are just as distracted by this impeachment nonsense. 

I think the other two longshot candidates will drop out soon as well. Joe Walsh and Bill Weld have even less media attention than Sanford had and are largely unknown nationally. They have no chance to gain any momentum and won't even be on the ballot in many states. Barring some kind of massive disaster, President Trump will be the candidate in 2020.