As the Republican presidential primary race gets under way, pay attention to two intersecting dynamics.
Last week, Ron DeSantis finally announced his long-expected entry into the 2024 presidential race. By the time he’d gotten there, he had been beaten to the punch by Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Larry Elder, and Tim Scott. Next week, they will reportedly be joined in the race by former vice president Mike Pence, former Garden State governor Chris Christie . . . and electoral juggernaut Doug Burgum. That brings the total to ten.
With the understanding that many of these candidates will not make it to the Iowa caucuses (and some not even to the debate stage), it is nevertheless clear that Ron DeSantis has failed to clear the field of competitors. This much has been obvious for months now; Trump’s resilience in GOP primary polls ensured it. While we are thankfully being spared the ridiculous 17-person clown car that was the 2016 Republican presidential primary (remember the seriocomic travesty of “undercard debates”?), the sheer number of non-DeSantis entrants in the race suggests something ominous: Most have concluded that Trump is already the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. What they are doing instead is running for second place, either so they can step into the breach should Trump suddenly “fall down a manhole” (i.e., suffer a suddenly incapacitating event), or so they can position themselves for the future.
Thus, regardless of whether their electoral strategy is to play footsie with Trump or attack him directly (Christie is signaling this, and Pence will have no choice in the matter as his continued political existence is a living rebuke to Trump’s January 6 narrative), the candidates are not really paying attention to him: Their eyes are all on DeSantis. They believe they have the opportunity to supplant him as the last remaining non-Trump alternative.
Historically, coming in second in the presidential primary sweepstakes has carried real long-term political value. (Ted Cruz was notably unable to capitalize on it, but that is largely because Ted Cruz is a charismatically challenged man who believes himself to be Machiavelli in The Prince when in reality he is Vizzini in The Princess Bride.) 2024 is set to be Trump’s final race regardless — do not accuse me here of tempting fate — making the runner-up spot a prize plum, whether claimed by an aspirant heir or by a would-be repudiator.
As the race begins to properly develop over the next weeks and months (seemingly every potential impact candidate save New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu is off the fence), my recommendation is to pay attention to two intersecting dynamics. First, is there any softening in Trump’s poll numbers in the wake of sustained attacks against him by primary opponents? It is easy enough to forget that all the other 2016 candidates basically ignored Trump until long after it was too late, assuming throughout the fall and winter of 2015 that he was a joke candidate whose bubble would burst. Nobody suffers from any such illusions nowadays; the race will be entirely about him until the primary has concluded, and all know it. If Trump’s numbers begin to perceptibly sag, then that means his base isn’t nearly as locked in as many believe, and it’s a brand new ball game.
If Trump’s base is united by a shared sense of resentment and defensiveness towards their candidate, however, the attacks on Trump may only have the effect of solidifying his support. They may simply fall on deaf ears. In that event, pay attention to a second emerging dynamic: the remaining candidates targeting one another instead of Trump or Biden. Only Tim Scott — running a purely upbeat campaign in accordance with his native good nature — seems likely to refrain from what will then become a mêlée amongst the non-Trump candidates competing for a prize few Republican voters are actually all that invested in helping them obtain: the title of Second-to-Last Man Standing.