Republicans who want to forget about Trump as president are starting to worry that he will return unscathed.
Despite his technological shortcomings, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as the early primary’s leading alternative to Trump, thanks in large part to the generosity of his campaign’s donors.
It won’t even come close to clearing the field. There are ominous indicators in the GOP that point to a repeat of the chaotic primary in 2016 because of the growing number of potential candidates who have not to officially declare their candidatures. The current intraparty dynamics, combined with Trump’s own alchemical grip on the base, suggest a primary where a constellation of Republicans once again risk splitting the non-Trump vote in early nominating states, as reported by interviews with nearly a dozen GOP strategists, former candidates, and party insiders.
At a Rockingham GOP dinner this week where Nikki Haley was the keynote speaker, New Hampshire House majority leader Jason Osborne, who has endorsed DeSantis in the primary, predicted that Trump would be re-elected if the other candidates were still in the race in January. That’s life, I guess.
DeSantis’s record-breaking first-day fundraising of $8.2 million has not stopped the primary field from expanding. Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, officially joined the race last week. New Jersey’s ex-governor Chris Christie, Indiana’s ex-vp Mike Pence, and New Hampshire’s ex-governor Chris Sununu have all hinted at runs for president in the future.
Former senior adviser to Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign Jason Roe remarked, “It definitely looks like a repeat of 2016.”
The expanding field is simply the latest stroke of luck for Trump, a politician who has for years operated under special, nonstandard rules. He seems immune to the consequences of scandals, both great and petty, that would have otherwise severely wounded practically anybody else. The GOP used a curve that did not apply to DeSantis’ shambolic Twitter launch last week to evaluate his own pair of lengthy and lacklustre announcement speeches in 2016 and again in 2022. DeSantis’s launch, as Trump skated, almost became a symbol for his campaign.
Before that, Trump used an indictment for paying hush money to a porn star to raise money, while DeSantis was criticised for criticising Trump’s behaviour but treading carefully, claiming that he didn’t “know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”
While Trump received widespread praise for his Russia-friendly response to Tucker Carlson’s question about Ukraine, DeSantis was roundly criticised for referring to the conflict in Ukraine as a “territorial conflict.” Even as recently as this week, Trump participated in a golf tournament at his own club that was supported by a Saudi Arabian tour. Nobody in the Republican Party seriously criticised him for it.
“Trump is a unique force in American politics, because people don’t look at him as a typical politician,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and a former adviser to the presidential campaigns of Marco Rubio (2016) and Tim Pawlenty (2012). “There seems to be double standards with him.”
The dynamics of the contest are also in his favour, as the growing number of candidates poses a threat of dividing the anti-Trump vote.
“For those of us who view Donald Trump as an existential threat, we’re kind of tearing our hair out over this idea of a crowded field and a repeat of the same dynamics in 2016,” said Sarah Longwell, Republican political strategist and publisher of the Bulwark, an outlet critical of Trump and the MAGA movement.
The contenders who are being admitted aren’t exactly praising Trump either. In his initial campaign announcement, DeSantis rarely referenced Trump, but in recent days he has begun to distinguish himself from the former president. However, while many in the opposition have been quick to condemn Trump, most have avoided directly attacking the president and have instead focused their ire on DeSantis.
Haley and her campaign ramped up their criticism of the Florida governor in the hours leading up to DeSantis’s announcement of his candidature, first releasing a video meant to paint DeSantis as someone who is imitating Trump and then, in an interview with Fox that same day, Haley herself making disparaging comments about DeSantis ‘copying Trump’.
Scott, in an interview with NBC following his campaign launch event on January 6, 2021, avoided answering questions regarding Trump’s behaviour. But when pressed on DeSantis, with whom Scott contrasted his own approach and tone, he shifted his stance. Even more so, Vivek Ramaswamy has defended and praised Trump while bashing DeSantis, leading some operators to wonder whether he is part of the previous president’s organisation, a claim Ramaswamy categorically rejects. To the Des Moines Register’s editorial board, Pence was the only one to question Trump this week about his planned changes to social security, saying, “my old running mate’s policy is identical to Joe Biden’s.”
Missouri Republican strategist Gregg Keller remarked, “Every person that gets into the race helps Donald Trump be the focal point of the race.” It’s counterintuitive, as it seems like it would make things more murky in the water. It draws more and more attention to him, to the point where he can use violence and personal attacks to gain the spotlight for himself at the expense of others.
Trump plans to visit the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale and hold a Fox News town hall in an effort to take the spotlight from DeSantis’ Iowa launch and events across the state on Wednesday.
The lacklustre start that DeSantis has had on the national stage has reportedly opened the floodgates for Republicans vying to be the new No. 2 in the primary field, as noted by Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who unsuccessfully campaigned against Trump in the 2020 primary.
He’s been a jerk and a jackass all along. “He’s not holding up too well,” Walsh remarked. So, where the field would have been Trump and DeSantis, basically, four or five months ago, you now have all these other people who are getting in or going to get in just because they’ve seen the same thing… In other words, “Fuck this,” since they’re all going to make the bet. You can count on me to be the anti-Trump.
It’s likely that the field size will decrease before it has a significant impact on the result. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who campaigned in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, has claimed that the race will come down to “the speed with which the field narrows,” rather than the number of candidates currently in the race.
Too many Republicans who are sceptical of Trump staying in their seats for too long presents a threat to the party.
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who worked on George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, said, “The size of the field, if they’re all on the ballot when voting starts, is going to be problematic if you’re someone who wants to pick a nominee other than Trump.” Losing 2% of ten distinct persons is a significant amount.
Despite the fact that a large field is bad for everyone involved, they have every motivation to participate.
“You can have 15 or 20 guys, because there’s no cost and no downside, right?” said Steve Bannon, the fiery ex-Trump adviser. A positive outcome is merely possible. I’ll get AWN doing exclusives with me if I catch my roll and reach seven, eight, or nine percent support. Take Mike Pence: he has 5% of the vote and a town hall… Asa Hutchinson’s popularity is at an all-time low, and yet he appears on a new Sunday morning show every week. These broadcasts once occupied a special place in the broadcasting world.
