Can Anyone Stop Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican Primary?

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Another week, another participant in the GOP Presidential primary: Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman from Texas. This is a decision that my wife and I decided to make because we live in complicated times and we need common sense, said Hurd, an African American former CIA officer who left Congress in 2021 and has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump. on CBS Mornings. With Hurd’s declaration of candidacy, which came a week after Miami mayor Francis Suarez ran, the Republican primary field swelled to thirteen.

That’s not nearly as many as in 2016, when seventeen candidates ran in the primary that Trump eventually won at a canter. However, this is a big change from the situation at the end of last year, when Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, was leading in some early polls, and much of the political media framed the contest as a potential head -to-head race. Now the main field is not only big; it features several other senior Republicans, including Trumps former Vice-President, Mike Pence, and Trumps Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, as well as Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie . In 2016, Christie led Trumps transition team. Now he’s promoting himself as an attack dog capable of taking down his former master. On Friday, he appeared at a gathering of religious conservatives in Washington, DC, where he was jeered when he said Trump had failed us.

The interaction is a reminder that even though the attack on Trump is playing well in the mainstream media, where Christie has received a lot of attention since entering the primaries earlier this month, it has leaving many GOP voters, most of whom returned to the former President, according to recent polls. In the RealClearPolitics poll average, Christie currently has the support of 2.3 percent of Republicans. Trump stands at 52.2 percent; DeSantis was in second place, at 21.4 percent; and Pence was third, at 5.7 percent. These numbers are clear, but the Iowa caucuses are more than six months away, and the first televised GOP debate isn’t until late August. At least in theory, there is plenty of time for the dynamics of the primary to shift. But is that likely?

Many political observers don’t think so, but Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican consultant and pollster, told me Friday that the outcome of the primary is more uncertain than the polls suggest. (Ayres, who has advised a wide range of GOP politicians, including Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and DeSantis, is not currently advising any Republican candidates in 2024.) To be honest, it’s a long shot. for anyone not named Trump, he said. But I also think it’s premature to write anyone off. Ayres based this conclusion on his analysis of the Republican electorate, which he says is divided into three parts: Trumps base, which is about a third of the total, and will support him in almost any situation; Never Trumpers, who make up about ten to twelve percent of GOP voters; and a voting bloc that Ayres refers to as Maybe TrumpersRepublicans who voted for Trump twice and would vote for him again if he won the nomination, but also think he has too much baggage and are, therefore, at least willing to be considered -consider an alternative. The real question is whether any of the other candidates can unify the Maybe Trump side of the Party, Ayres said.

Based on the polls, DeSantis still appears to be the candidate most likely to accomplish the feat, but his numbers have dropped significantly over the past few months. Ayres puts this shift down to two factors: mistakes on DeSantiss’ part, including his characterization of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a territorial dispute, and the huge political boost among Republican voters that Trump received during Alvin Bragg, the Democratic District Attorney for Manhattan, filed suit. him on charges of falsifying business records to hide payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 Presidential campaign. It’s a good case for Trump to paint as a partisan witch hunt, Ayres said, citing the novel legal theory that the Manhattan DA relies on to raise misdemeanor counts to felonies.

While Bragg and his supporters will certainly dispute Ayress’s characterization of the Manhattan case, there can be little doubt that the federal charges of mishandling classified information and conspiracy to obstruct justice brought by special adviser, Jack Smith, earlier this month was more serious and blunt. . So far, the leveling of these charges, which Smith has backed up with extensive evidence, including notes obtained from one of Trump’s own lawyers, has done little to shake up the top poll numbers of former President, but some of the cross-tabs from recent surveys contain worrying details for him. A CNN poll released earlier this week showed his approval rating among Republican-aligned voters dropped from seventy-seven percent in May to sixty-seven percent this month. In an Emerson College poll, about half of independents and close to a quarter of Republicans said the classified-documents charges made them less likely to vote for Trump in 2024.

Trump clearly sees Smith’s indictment as more difficult to dismiss than Braggs’. And, Ayres pointed out, he could be hit later this summer with more serious charges, in Georgia, where Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, is investigating whether then-President has illegally interfered in the 2020 election. With all the Trump cases, and with Smith’s ongoing investigation into trying to overturn the 2020 election results, the timetable is somewhat uncertain, but it is possible that one or more trials take place before the election. When I asked Ayres if he thought a guilty verdict would have much of an effect on Trump’s support among Republicans, he laughed and said, The only honest answer I can give, or anyone can give, is: Who the hell knows?

Ayress’s instinct is that national GOP polls don’t change much before the actual primaries begin, but he also said they could move significantly if another candidate manages to beat Trump in Iowa or New Hampshire. In both of these states, Trump is currently leading the polls, but his lead is not as large as it is in national polls. Ayres said there’s still a chance DeSantis or one of the Republicans could get burned in the low polls. Tim Scott is a very interesting candidate with a lot to offer, he said. Nikki Haley is one of the few people to come out of the Trump Administration that has enhanced her reputation. Will Hurd is a charming man, too, for that matter.

The veteran strategist also raised the possibility that in 2024, unlike in 2016, many of the GOP’s secondary candidates could drop out of the race early in the primary season, and that this could conceivably enable one of the surviving candidates. to unite the anti-Trump vote. What really matters is not how many candidates get in but how many stay long after they don’t have any realistic chance of winning, Ayres said, citing John Kasich in 2016 as a candidate who stayed too long, hindering to Marco Rubio.

For an effective anti-Trump move to take place, of course, the GOP will have to show the kind of coordination that the moderate wing of the Democratic Party showed in 2020 after Bernie Sanders swept the New Hampshire primary. At that time, Congressman James Clyburn threw his support behind Joe Biden in South Carolina, and two of the moderate candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchard, dropped out and endorsed Biden. Ayres stopped short of saying that a Republican Party still led by Trump could engineer a similar feat, but he said the political environment is too volatile and unpredictable to crown the former President. And he added, Six months ago, they were ready to give DeSantis a coronation.

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