The 3 most disappointing 2024 campaigns

You know who is #1.

(Ron DeSantis)

The first Republican presidential debate is 8 days away.

The Iowa caucuses are five months — to the day— from today.

All of which has me in a reflective mood about the campaign to date.

The big story of the race is, obviously, Donald Trump who, with every passing day (and every passing indictment), is looking more and more like the nominee. (A new New Hampshire poll out today put Trump ahead of his nearest competitor by 40 points!)

But what about if we look through the other end of the lens — as in who has run the most disappointing campaigns to date?

My top (bottom?) three are below. And, of course, we still have months to go before a vote — which means that these campaigns can go from from bad to bodacious (oomph) between now and then. Although I doubt it.

1. Ron DeSantis. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. DeSantis is the green line in this polling chart.

That trend line is in the exact wrong direction.

It all started to go bad for DeSantis even before he became a candidate, with people — including some in his own orbit — wondering if he was waiting too long to get into the race against Trump.

Then he announced — in late May — to disastrous results. Little did we know that the glitch-laden Twitter X announcement was a precursor of things to come.

DeSantis campaign never appears to have really got going. He spent most of the last month rebooting it — finally getting rid of his campaign manager last week.

But, at least at the moment, there’s every reason to believe that he is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. DeSantis continues to struggle to make anything but bad headlines — his recent fight over whether slavery had some beneficial aspects was colossally dumb — and all signs suggest that the real problem with the campaign is the candidate.

DeSantis has staked much of the future of his campaign on Iowa — and there’s a little bit of polling evidence to suggest that he isn’t as far behind Trump there as he is nationally.

I mean, maybe? Trump has been largely dismissive of Iowa (and its governor) so if DeSantis is ever going to come back, it’s going to be there. But count me as very skeptical that DeSantis even makes it that far. This looks like a campaign collapsing under its own weight.

2. Nikki Haley. Haley has been running for a long time relative to the rest of the field. (She got in February 14.) And yet, she remains stuck where she started — in mid-single digits nationally and in early voting states.

Which is weird — to me at least. Because I have covered Haley from the time she ran for governor and one thing I’ve always believed is that she has significant natural charisma and an ability to connect with voters.

And, in her defense, she has put the work in. She’s been in Iowa and New Hampshire a TON, according to tabulations kept by 538 and ABC News.

But, she is stuck. Which, again, weird.

Her allies note that they have just begun spending for her — the super PAC supporting her has a $13 million ad campaign that has begun to run in early states — and that it’s not fair to judge her until the ads have begun to sink in with the public.

Haley herself has, of late, touted the August 23 debate as critical to her chances. “Once the first debate starts and we get past Labor Day, it's off to the races,” she told Axios earlier this week.

All of that may be true. But, it’s also true that Haley advocates would have wanted her to be where her home state colleague Tim Scott is in the race right now — high single digits or low double digits nationally and in early states. At least.

That she isn’t is, well, disappointing.

3. Mike Pence. I thought long and hard on this one — and I will have more to say on Pence later this week.

But the conclusion I ultimately arrived at was that it is disappointing for the former vice president of the United States to be a deep also-ran in a presidential primary fight — no matter the context.

And, make no mistake, that is what Pence is in this race. A new Emerson College poll out of New Hampshire confirms it.

Now, Pence was never going to win New Hampshire. As a social conservative from the Midwest, Iowa was always going to be friendlier ground for him.

But, to poll at 1% in New Hampshire — behind little known Gov. Doug Burgum and never-known Perry Johnson? That’s just plain embarrassing.

Pence’s message — again, more on this later in the week — has been essentially to claim credit for the accomplishments of the Trump administration while taking a clear and Constitutionally-backed stance on January 6, and against Trump.

It hasn’t worked.

There is simply no energy for a Pence candidacy within the Republican party — as evidenced by the fact that the former vice president had to scrap and claw to qualify for the first debate next week.

I had low expectations for Pence. But in terms of his performance with Republican voters, he had gone beneath them.