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In response to my piece on Monday about Mike Pompeo’s decision not to run for president — and what it meant — several people took issue with an assumption I made in the piece: That the Republican nomination is Donald Trump’s to lose, and he probably won’t lose it.
“I’m kind of surprised that so many commentators are already declaring the Republican nomination race over,” wrote Jon Sexton. “There is a lot of time left and a lot of that time seems likely to be filled with more and more serious indictments of Trump and others in his senior circle.”
“It’s way too early to declare the Republican nomination to be in the bag for Trump — as much as most Democrats are desperate for that to be true,” wrote Toby Harnden.
Which, I was a little surprised by!
And then I saw this piece by GOP strategist Mike Murphy in The Bulwark — laying out problems that Trump is likely to have in next year’s Iowa caucuses:
So now Trump, having turned the party of Lincoln into the party of Rasputin, cannot be defeated by any mortal Republican—only by Joe Biden in the general.
Perhaps. But I spent a few days in Iowa last week checking in with old friends from my decades working in state Republican politics. I had a useful captive audience of Iowa pols and operatives when I gave the annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College in Indianola, and I met other local politicos in Des Moines. In each chat, the take was unanimous: They told me that Donald Trump is going to lose the Iowa caucus. Some of them predicted a third-place finish.
All of which got me to thinking: Am I overestimating Trump’s chances of winning the GOP nod next year? And, if so, how?
Let’s start on where the race stands as of today.
Trump has clearly strengthened in recent months — particularly against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Trump is now averaging 52% of the vote in the Republican field. His next closest competitor is DeSantis — at 24%. There’s no one else over 5%.
I used this chart yesterday but it’s telling about the state of the race at the moment — so I am using it again:
Which looks VERY different than that same chart did for the 2016 race. At this point in that contest, the leading candidate was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 15%. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul all had double digit support between 10%-15%. (Look to the very far left of the chart for the early days of the 2016 nomination fight.)
Now, this can be looked at two different ways:
Trump is in a stronger position — by a lot — than he (or any other candidate) was at this point in the 2016 race
We are SO early in the nomination fight that lots can and will change. Hell, Jeb Bush would have been the nominee if the 2016 race had ended at this point!
The it’s-too-early argument is an intriguing one. At this point, there are only a handful of Republican candidates even running — and DeSantis is not one of them. The race, advocates of this view argue, will change several times before a single vote is cast in Iowa or New Hampshire early next year.
Let’s go down that rabbit hole for a minute.
It seems to me there are two obvious factors that could fundamentally alter the current state of the Republican race.
Trump is indicted — in either the Georgia election case or the classified documents investigation (or both) — at some point over the next 6 to 9 months
Debate season begins — and either Trump stumbles or another candidate — likely DeSantis or maybe Nikki Haley rises.
DeSantis is a national star.
Trump loses an early state primary or caucus
On the indictment front, we already have some evidence of its impact on the race.
After Trump was indicted for allegedly paying hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair in the runup to the 2016 election, the former president’s numbers actually improved!
I am on record saying that that bounce is likely temporary but that the indictment isn’t likely to change much of anything in terms of Trump’s near-term politics. Could multiple indictments — especially on trying to fiddle with an election or retaining top secret documents — change Trump’s political trajectory?
I mean, sure they could. Do I think — given the blind loyalty shown to him by his supporters for the past 8 years — that more indictments will fundamentally alter Trump’s political calculus? I do not.
Then there’s the debate question. Debates in a presidential primary fight clearly do matter and have the potential to change a candidate’s or even a whole race’s trajectory.
So, what do we know about the forthcoming debates? If past is prologue, Trump will dominate them — bullying, interrupting and overall making a menace of himself. The entire debate — no matter how many candidates are on the stage — will revolve around Trump and his hijinks.
Which may not be your cup of tea! But as the 2016 election showed, plenty of Republicans loved the idea of Trump-as-ringmaster of the GOP circus. They loved the reality show vibe he brought to the proceedings. They loved that he would just say stuff — and not care who he offended.
Which brings me to another point: Trump has done this debate thing before. He weathered a slew of primary debates in 2016 as well as three general election debates in both 2016 (against Hillary Clinton) and 2020 (against Joe Biden).
No one else who gets on that stage with him in August — not DeSantis or Haley or Sen Tim Scott or anyone — will have that sort of debate experience at the highest levels of scrutiny and pressure. Only Trump.
That is clearly an advantage for him. It might not be determinative but it definitely matters.
So, then, I ask — what else could fundamentally change the current trajectory of the race?
One is that DeSantis is the real deal — a bonafide political star on the national stage ala Barack Obama in 2007-2008.
And, it seemed like that was a possibility in the wake of DeSantis’ massive reelection victory last November. He seemed like a major force, someone who might well emerge as a credible alternative to Trump in 2024.
The intervening months have been less kind to DeSantis. Trump has gone on the attack on, well, everything — from DeSantis’ past support for cuts to Social Security and Medicare to him allegedly being a RINO to his way of eating pudding.
DeSantis hasn’t helped his cause either. There have been a series of stories — the latest was in the Orlando Sentinel over the weekend — in which DeSantis allies question why he isn’t in the race yet, and whether he is really up to the job of taking on Trump. Not good!
All of these issues — self-created and Trump-created — have had a direct impact on DeSantis’ poll numbers. A direct and drastic impact.
Could DeSantis find his footing once he formally gets into the race?1 Absolutely! But, he will start from a much-weaker position than he might have if he had announced his candidacy in January. Which doesn't mean he can't win -- just that the road to get there is both longer and rockier than it was a few months ago.
What else? What else could alter in a meaningful way the trajectory of the 2024 GOP nomination?
The only other answer I could come up with — per Murphy’s piece — is a loss in one of the early-state contests like Iowa or New Hampshire.
Except that we’ve sort of already seen this movie before. Remember that Trump was the favorite — nationally — going into the Iowa caucuses. And that he lost Iowa to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. And that he insisted he had been cheated out of victory.
“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it,” Trump tweeted in the aftermath of his Iowa loss. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong any [sic] why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
It ultimately didn’t matter as Trump went on to win New Hampshire and South Carolina — reclaiming his frontrunner status in the 2016 process.
Now ask yourself this: Is there ANY reason to believe that Trump wouldn’t do the exact same thing if he wound up losing Iowa to, say, Haley or Scott? Of course not! Trump is still arguing that the 2020 election was stolen from him! What’s one more election conspiracy?
And, unless Trump went on to lose New Hampshire and South Carolina — and I don’t see anyone suggesting that will be the case — why would an Iowa loss (that he never admits happened) hurt Trump any worse in 2024 than it did in 2016?
Look, you’ll get no argument from that it’s early in the presidential nomination fight. Politics is a fungible business. Stuff changes. It’s why we keep thinking and writing about it over decades. It’s not boring or predictable.
But it is also true that many of the potential game-changers in a presidential primary fight are unlikely to impact Trump’s frontrunner status as they might influence a race without the former president in it. His whole I-could-shoot-someone-on-5th-Avenue-and-not-lose votes boast has a LOT of truth in it when it comes to the Republican primary electorate.
I wouldn’t say Donald Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee next year. But, an examination of what could keep him from the nomination reveals a certain thinness that works, without question, to his advantage.
Most people expect DeSantis to announce sometime after the end of the Florida legislative session next month. I have argued that there is a case to be made for DeSantis to take a pass on this race and wait until 2028.
If I’m debating Trump in the primaries, and knowing how he debated in 2016, I’d come in with all “guns” blazing. He’s a bully so going at him head on is the only way I see someone getting anywhere. If you can put him in his place, then his supporters can see someone stronger to put their money on.
As usual, Chris, I agree with you. His supporters love him so much, they will all turn out for the primaries - and the results will reflect how many of the Republicans who DON’T love him bothered to show up