We have five months until Iowa, and anti-Trump Republicans are scrambling. A new CBS News/YouGov poll gives the 45th president a commanding lead over his rivals, Ron DeSantis has failed to catch on as the clear Trump alternative, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear replacement should his campaign completely implode.
As Barak Ravid and Alex Thompson reported for Axios over the weekend, several big-money GOP donors are looking to Virginia for answers. Cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder is reportedly considering backing Glenn Youngkin if the Old Dominion governor ultimately enters the primary. Fellow billionaire Thomas Petterffy, who notably halted his support for DeSantis in April over the Floridian’s positions on abortion and education, has given $2 million to the Youngkin-aligned Spirit of Virginia PAC. The biggest name Axios drops is that of Rupert Murdoch, who has “privately said he wants Youngkin to enter the race.”
It’s understandable for donors to be scrambling. Trump’s lead has only increased since DeSantis officially jumped into the race, and it doesn’t look like any candidate already in the primary field is going to cut into his numbers. Donors’ personal feelings about Trump aside, the appeal of a Youngkin run is electability: A Virginia Commonwealth University poll has the governor beating President Biden in a head-to-head matchup in his state, which would make the road to 270 much easier to travel for Republicans in 2024. But whether Youngkin is a viable candidate for the anti-Trump faction of the party is unclear, as is whether running now would be the smartest path for his still-young political career.
The first stumbling block for Youngkin is self-made. He has committed himself to helping the Virginia GOP take the state senate in this year’s election, meaning he wouldn’t announce his campaign until November at the earliest. As the Axios story notes, the filing deadline for the Nevada caucuses is October 15, and for the South Carolina primary it’s October 31. It would be difficult for Youngkin to run a successful campaign without participating in those two contests, and the fact that he’d have only a few months to try to catch up to Trump before the Iowa and New Hampshire rounds further complicates things. For that to work, the other candidates — or at least some of them — would have to drop out of the race before Iowa so Youngkin could consolidate the non-Trump vote, which seems exceedingly unlikely to happen. And if by mid November no other candidate has managed to cut significantly into Trump’s lead, especially in the early primary states, the former president may already be a virtual lock for the nomination (with the caveat that his legal troubles could yet change things).
For Youngkin, the risk of running is clear. He’s widely viewed as one of the best potential candidates on the Republican bench, but an embarrassing primary showing could destroy the political capital he earned with his 2021 gubernatorial victory over Terry McAuliffe. On the other hand, history tells us that when a politician has an opportunity, they have to take it. Chris Christie’s career — going from a viable general-election candidate in 2012 to a broadly unpopular former governor in the blink of an eye — should serve as a cautionary tale for Youngkin. He can just look at 2016, when Christie did throw his hat in and failed to win even a single delegate. For Youngkin, it might be wise to capitalize on his current standing among the party’s establishment.
For those in the GOP who are planning ahead for 2028, Youngkin is certainly near the top of the list of potential nominees. But, just as his state’s off-year elections complicate his presidential chances this go-around, they’d do the same in the next cycle. Governors of Virginia are prohibited from serving two consecutive terms, meaning Youngkin has to leave office in January 2026. He’d then have to find something to do for a year and a half before seeking the White House. The question for him, then, is whether the risk of running now and making little impact on the race outweighs that of waiting until 2028 and losing all his momentum after he leaves the Virginia governor’s mansion.
If Youngkin jumps in after Virginia’s legislative elections in November and does well in the primary but doesn’t win, he’ll be fine. After all, the Republican Party has a history of handing its keys to candidates who did well in the previous cycle’s nominating contests — Reagan in 1980 after finishing as the runner-up in 1976, Dole in 1996 after coming in second to Bush in 1988, McCain in 2008 after his 2000 run, and Romney in 2012 after the 2008 nomination slipped through his fingers. An embarrassingly poor showing in the primaries, though, could end up being a career-ender. That said, he’ll be out of office in 2026 regardless of his success in a hypothetical presidential campaign. If he waits for 2028 and finds he’s lost all the juice he has right now, Youngkin will regret staying out of the 2024 race.