If Republican voters continue to evaluate Trump by a double standard, they will probably end up giving him the enthronement he demands.
“Where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis said during Wednesday night’s Republican presidential-primary debate. “And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight.” DeSantis maintained that Trump “owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation we have now.”
“Every person on this stage has shown respect for Republican voters, to come here, to express their views honestly, candidly, and directly, and to take your questions honestly,” Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie agreed. By contrast, Trump “hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won’t show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer.”
These criticisms failed to convince the former president to rethink his strategy of skipping the primary debates. Shortly after the close of last night’s contest, Trump senior aide Chris LaCivita told CBS News that the former president would not attend the third debate scheduled for November. Indeed, he’s unlikely to attend any debates. “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate,” a Trump campaign statement read. “The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.”
Donald Trump believes he has earned a coronation. At least, that’s the pose he and his associates are striking in public. They seen no need to even dignify the criticisms they’re receiving from popular Republican elected officials and conservatives in good standing with a response. If the polling is to be believed, Republican primary voters show no signs of displeasure with the Trump campaign’s strategy, nor have they indicated their willingness to punish Trump for his presumptuousness. And yet, if we do believe the polls, they still might.
On the eve of the first primary debate in August, a Quinnipiac University poll of GOP primary voters nationwide found that 57 percent of Republicans said it was “very important” to them that the candidates who qualify for the debates participate in them. Another 27 percent said it was merely “somewhat important.” An Economist/YouGov survey taken after the August debate found that 61 percent of Republicans were willing to give Trump a pass on the first debate, but 57 percent of GOP voters said they believed the former president should at least participate in the second. A CBS News survey of Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire confirmed that the primary electorate regards the debates as a crucial tool for evaluating the field of candidates. That survey found that “most Republican voters” were “planning to watch” the debates and regard them as a “major factor” in determining their vote. Sixty-two percent of Iowa voters said as much. So did 53 percent of New Hampshire voters.
Now, these polls also show that Trump isn’t paying much of a price yet for his unwillingness to subject himself to the gauntlet, so maybe that’s just something voters think they’re supposed to believe. But that CBS survey of early-state Republicans indicated that voters are still evaluating the field, and their votes are — at least, in theory — up for grabs. Only one in five Iowa Republicans and roughly one-quarter of Granite State GOP voters are dead set on Trump. About one-third of GOP primary voters in those states were not open to Trump’s candidacy. That leaves 48 percent of the primary vote in Iowa and 43 percent in New Hampshire up for grabs.
Irrespective of what civic-minded Republicans tell pollsters, Trump may benefit by preserving his remove from the political fray. Neither of the Republican Party’s first two debates produced anything like a decisive victor, and the crabs-in-a-pot dynamic the debates have encouraged may do more to diminish the reputations of their participants than burnish them. After all, GOP voters were perfectly happy to tell reporters in the weeks leading up to the debate that Trump deserved special consideration because he’s “got a lot going on right now.”
If Republican voters continue to evaluate Trump by a double standard, they will probably end up giving him the enthronement he demands. Most Republicans appear willing to tell reporters and pollsters that is their intention. But perhaps that’s just what they’re willing to tell reporters and pollsters. Maybe they are evaluating the field of candidates in Trump’s absence. Maybe they are grateful for the respect their presence on the debate stage represents. Maybe Trump’s aloofness comes off as galling in ways Republican voters resent but won’t dare share with media professionals if only to deny them the satisfaction. Maybe.