A remarkable chart that tells the story of the 2024 Republican race

On Trump, and Ron DeSantis.

Scrolling through Twitter X last night, I came across this — a detailed trend line of the 2024 Republican race through the lens of Quinnipiac University’s polling.

Yes, you are reading that right: Donald Trump was ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 6 points in February of this year. And now — just 8 months later — he is ahead by 50 points.

I think there is a tendency to memory-hole the fact that in the early part of this year, there was a real race for the Republican presidential nomination.

DeSantis was riding high off of his sweeping reelection victory in 2022. Trump was mired in the blame game about Republicans’ underperformance in the midterm elections.

It seemed like a moment in which Trump was genuinely vulnerable, where the grip he had held Republicans under for the previous 5 years might be loosening. Trump, who had announced his campaign the previous fall, seemed listless. DeSantis was the hot, new thing.

All signs seemed to suggest that this was a real and serious race for the Republican nomination. And then, it all collapsed. Totally and completely.

So, how did we get here? A few ways.

1. Trump’s first indictment — in New York — clearly changed the dynamic of the race. It gave Trump energy — he is always best when counterpunching — and a sense of mission. Now, the powers that be were trying to keep him from running for president. And all that. Suddenly, what had been a pretty directionless campaign became a crusade. The race was no longer Trumps versus his Republican opponents. It was Trump vs the Deep State. People who might have been unsure of whether they were for Trump immediately jumped back on board. And never looked back.

2. DeSantis stunk. I don’t think we even grasp fully yet what a disaster the DeSantis campaign has been. It has now been rebooted several times (three by my count) and there are no signs that a turnaround is in the offing. This seems to me to be a classic case of a candidate looking good on paper but that not translating to actual voters in key states. Yes, I know that DeSantis is doing better in Iowa than he is doing nationally but that feels like cold comfort to me given that he is still trailing Trump by a wide margin in the Hawkeye State. DeSantis is significantly less than advertised -- and voters seem to have caught on to it.

3. Trump has shined. I’ve written in this space that I think Trump is running a quite effective campaign — and I still believe it. Trump systematically dismantled DeSantis — and continues to punch at him even though I believe the threat has been largely neutralized. His campaign has fought effectively on the delegate allocation front to ensure that the rules are as favorable to him as possible. He has had stability in the senior management of his campaign. It’s a very different vibe from 2016 or even 2020 when it always felt like Trump was just making up his campaign strategy as he went along.

There are other factors too — but those strike me as the main ones.

It’s a story that I believe is actually under told. This was once a race — a REAL race — and is no longer.

Of course, to play devil’s advocate for a second, the fact that the race has moved so much in the past 8 months might suggest that even more movement is possible between now and, say, March 2024.

To which I say — anything is possible, but I really doubt it. Poll after poll shows that Trump’s support (or the vast majority of it) is now locked in. His voters really believe that the 2020 election was stolen — and that he is the target of overzealous prosecutors bent on exacting political revenge on him.

Take a new South Carolina poll out from the Washington Post today. Of those supporting Trump (46% of all Republican voters), a whopping 87% said Joe Biden won the 2020 election because of voter fraud. (Nota bene: There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election.)

(Sidebar: That same poll showed that DeSantis has slipped to fourth place in South Carolina. Which, ouch.)

In retrospect, the race may have ended this past spring. The Trump indictment began a movement to him, and DeSantis' decision not to launch a campaign until the end of Florida’s legislative session left a vacuum of alternative voices within the primary.

It also didn’t help that DeSantis has been MUCH less than advertised as a candidate. It seems like the Republican donor class spent the first 8 months of the year waiting for DeSantis to have a moment so that they could throw their money and support behind him. It just never happened — and as the months rolled on, support for DeSantis in that monied community dwindled.

But what we are left with is this reality: What once looked like a real fight for the Republican nomination now looks like a walkover. Trump’s lead is growing, not shrinking, nationally and, to a lesser extent, in key early voting states.

At this point, we are looking at a coronation of the former president. Which is a very different race than we thought we’d be getting just a few months ago.