Tom and Steve took to the podium recently to talk to a local group about the 2024 race. It was a 'Point Counterpoint' debate about who would win the Republican nomination. We reprise our roles in this written version, with Tom arguing that Trump will get the nod, Steve countering with DeSantis.
Point: Don’t Count Trump Out…Math and Logic Rule
Donald Trump has not been having a good stretch over the last
five months or so, and he is undoubtedly a damaged candidate in 2024 as
compared with 2016 or 2020. You know the
litany of his troubles, but schadenfreude
is sweet, so here is a brief recap.
He was widely blamed for blowing the midterms for the GOP. What should have been a GOP rout – yes, a red wave – was radically diminished and ultimately a GOP loss in the eyes of public perception. Trump handpicked inept, underqualified and/or radically conservative Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, when more mainstream and qualified candidates -- who were available – would have likely won all three races, which would have handed the GOP the Senate. The midterms are usually a referendum on the sitting president. Less focus on the Big Lie and more on Joe Biden surely would have translated into more GOP House seats, giving Kevin McCarthy a margin he could work with, rather than be embarrassed by. The midterms gave Biden a “better than expected” boost, the perfect way to kick-off his reelection campaign.
Then Trump announced his candidacy at the worst possible
time, right when finger-pointing at Trump for the midterms failure was at full
force, and just weeks before the crucial Georgia Senate run-off election. Instead
Trump should have worked to build back some capital from the midterm debacle,
and done whatever he could to help Hershel Walker (even simply shutting up would have
been better). Instead Walker,
one of his hand-picked candidates, lost in Georgia, setting off yet another
round of Trump recriminations on two fronts:
the choice of Walker and the deflection of attention caused by his
launch timing.
Worse still, the launch speech itself was about the last
thing one might have expected: it was...boring. Some advisers got it into his head that Trump
needed to be more, um, presidential, somehow.
But that is one thing he is incapable of, and his tepid delivery of conservative
talking points did not fool anyone among mainstreamers and disappointed the
base, who crave the grievance-laced rants of the madman. Just a
few nights later, Trump hosted an infamous dinner with the notorious Ye and
Nick Fuentes, seemingly with the incredulous goal of burnishing his credentials
among white supremacists and anti-Semites.
Then came the mountain legal troubles, with near-certain
indictments soon to be announced in Georgia (for actions taken to overturn the
2020 election); and in New York (for buying the silence of Stormy Daniels in
the weeks before the 2016 election); and the machinations of a heat-seeking
missile named Jack Smith, who is barreling forward apace on the two federal
cases related to January 6 and the theft of classified documents.
At this point, the big money started fleeing, as the Koch
family and other super PACs announced they were all in in 2024 for anyone in
the GOP save Trump.
Sounds bad, right?
Well, for a general election, sure.
But for the GOP nomination – not so much. Apart from the boring speech, none of this
run of misfortune particularly bothers the Trump base one bit. In fact, accusations and indictments only add
fuel to Trump’s victim-based rantings. He
has and will continue to maintain that everyone is out to get him – a “witch
hunt” by the deep state, the elites, the Democrats and even the mainstream GOP. He will continue to tell the base that he is
fighting for them, and that is why
all of those evil forces are out to get him.
This is the core belief of the base:
that Trump buys into their own grievance, he identifies with it, his
enemies are their enemies, and he is the only one on their side. And who needs the large donors? You watch:
if the indictments come, Trump will turn those indictments into massive
small donations faster than you can say “Leavenworth.”
Don’t underestimate Trump.
He may be wounded but he is hardly done.
In fact, Donald Trump will be
the GOP nominee in 2024, barring some truly incredible unforeseen circumstance
or event. And by “unforeseen” I don’t
mean an indictment or even jail time. Those,
at this point, are foreseeable. I mean
something truly unforeseen. And it is hard to imagine just what, at this
point, that could possibly be.
It all boils down to two essential facts:
1) Trump has unshakeable control over roughly 40% of the Republican Party, and those “Unshakeables” are far more likely than other Republicans to vote in primaries.
2) Trump’s
opponents, including Ron DeSantis, cannot afford to attack Trump at will, because they need those Unshakeables behind them to have a prayer of winning in November, 2024. But here's the catch -- how you can defeat Trump without attacking him? .
The numbers don’t lie. Below is a summary of the Republican presidential nomination polls during a variety of periods over 2021, 2022 and thus far in 2023.
There is a lot going on in this simply chart. First, Trump’s lead, while showing modest slippage over the past two years, remains formidable. He still leads DeSantis by about 15 points (averaging all polls in calendar year 2023). Second, it is a two-person race as of now – the others are mired in single-digits. Mike Pence has actually slipped a bit, Nikki Haley’s announcement hasn’t increased her standing materially, and the rest of the “big” names in the field, all unannounced, barely register a heartbeat. Third, while DeSantis has made impressive progress over these two years, tripling his support from about 10% to 30%, including a nice jump after his big win in November, only half of that gain has come from Trump’s support; the rest has come from the others or the undecideds. Fourth, while DeSantis did make that nice jump at the end of 2022, that momentum appears to have stalled in 2023, despite all that bad news for Trump.
There are two other factors about the polls that are
important (though not revealed by this chart).
Polls in the year before the primary tend to be stable. There are not too many “catalysts” for
change, apart from how candidates “break from the gate” (how they appeal on the
campaign trail at the outset) and how they do in the debates. For someone as well-known as Trump, it is
hard to imagine his 2023 performance revealing anything new. Once Trump joined the field in late June, 2015,
he led the GOP field with between 25% and 30% for the balance of the year
(until he jumped to 35% in December) – and that was when he was brand new. Back then, the other candidates – notably Jeb
Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson -- rose and fell in the “non-Trump”
lane. But the Trump base formed early
and stuck with him, and has ever since, through thick and thin, for eight years
now.
The “non-Trump lane” reference leads to the other
factor. In polling so far, DeSantis does
far better versus Trump, running a few points ahead, when the preference question
is framed as a two-person race. But when
the question is framed with a longer list of candidates, Trump’s numbers remain
as they were, while DeSantis’s drop precipitously. Thus the conclusion that a larger field helps
Trump, because it divides the non-Trump lane.
Put all this together, and you can see why Trump’s position
is so enviable and perhaps impregnable.
He has 40%+ of the party under his thumb and there is little likelihood
that that will change. They’ve stuck
with him thus far, and it is hard to imagine what could possibly make them change
their minds. They tend to vote in
primaries. Bad news that would normally
destroy a political career only energizes his base. News of affairs, lies, truly horrible
statements, and likely criminal activity are all simply fundraising opportunities
to him – gold mines, in fact.
What is truly ironic is that Trump tried to browbeat
potential challenges to prevent them from entering the race, as a loyalty test,
yet he is the one who benefits from the larger field. DeSantis is clearly the lead choice to unify
the non-Trump lane, yet he has been slow to enter the race, giving others an
opening. Haley is already in, and Pence,
Pompeo, Tim Scott and others are likely to enter. DeSantis has essentially lost his best chance
to try to limit the field.
Let’s not diminish what DeSantis has already accomplished
in crashing the field, which is impressive.
It is rare for a non-VP to command 20% or more support of party support a
year away from the primaries in a first time run for the White House. Those that have achieved that in the last 50
years include Ronald Reagan (‘76), Ted Kennedy (‘80), George W. Bush (‘00),
Barack Obama (‘08), Rudy Giuliani (‘08), Hillary Clinton (‘16) and now DeSantis
in 2024. Kennedy, Bush and Clinton all
had famous lineage and high profiles and Giuliani achieved unique fame post
9/11. That leaves just Reagan and Obama
as comparative with DeSantis. Both essentially
became legendary politicians with remarkable personal charm and charisma. Is that Ron DeSantis?
No, of course not. The
DeSantis package is void of charm and charisma.
The better parallel may be Scott Walker, the former governor of
Wisconsin who was the darling of the 2015 field, having achieved a national reputation
for standing up to the teacher’s union in swing state Wisconsin as a true
conservative. Eight years ago, Walker, then 47, was leading
the pre-Trump GOP field, despite being a rather drab and dull retail politician. He entered the race and promptly stumbled,
going from “first to worst” in just 70 days.
He dropped out well before the Iowa caucuses.
Outside of Florida, not too many people know Ron
DeSantis. He has put himself in a solid
position, but he still trails Trump by a healthy margin. Soon many voters – in Iowa and New Hampshire
in particular – will be assessing him, and they will quickly find his
personality is more Walker than Trump.
He is never going to fill arenas like a rock star. The media will begin their deep probes. He will not be able to attack Trump directly –
he can’t inflame the base -- but the reverse is not true. Trump will try to define DeSantis and then crush
him. And every one of those single-digit
candidates will be focused on destroying DeSantis, not Trump, to lay claim to the non-Trump lane throne, and avoid ticking off the
Trump base. The oppo research will come.
DeSantis is walking an extremely difficult tightrope.
Trump-Haley 2024. You can print the bumper stickers.
Counterpoint: DeSantis Will Beat Trump By
Beating Him at His Own Game
Donald Trump has no idea what is about to hit him.
Huh?
Sure, the current wisdom is that Ron DeSantis will be eaten
alive by the vicious, candidacy-destroying venom of Donald Trump, just as Jeb
Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz found in 2016.
Well, there’s a case to be made for pretty much exactly the
opposite: that Trump has never been put on the defensive by a hyper-aggressive,
uber-ambitious killer with an instinct for the jugular. Trump has never faced
an opponent who is as natively cruel and soullessly Machiavellian as Ron
DeSantis. This is going to be a battle to the death between two velociraptors,
and this bet is on the younger, more prepared raptor.
Sure, Trump looks good in the polls. Current poll numbers
are mostly knee-jerk reaction and brand name recognition. A year from now?
Let’s start with a key fact: America hates losers. The last
time a major political party renominated a candidate who lost a prior
presidential election was 1968.
In today’s radically polarized political landscape, there
is only one criterion that the party out of power uses to select its nominee: who
can win? For the Democrats in 2020, the prospect of four more years of
Trump was so terrifying that the party quickly settled on the one candidate who
seemed best positioned to beat him.
Now Republicans ask the same question, and it is Trump’s
kryptonite. If Trump hosted a reality show today, it would be called “The
Biggest Loser.” He is widely viewed as the man who dragged the GOP down to
underwhelming performances in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
Big-time donors see it. American Prosperity Group CEO Emily
Seidel announced “to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the
page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a
president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.” Have you noticed all the
big-name Republicans who have endorsed Trump for 2024? Neither have we.
Perhaps you believe that the Republican faithful do
whatever Fox News tells them to. Well, Fox began to bail on Trump after the
mid-terms. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post called DeSantis “De Future,” and
DeSantis was granted a fawning Tour de Fox to shill for his new
autobiography.
Let’s talk about that supposedly uber-loyal Trump base. The
percentage of Republicans who favored Trump as the 2024 nominee of the party
had slid from 54% in 2021 to 46% in January/February 2023. That’s right… the
“non-Trump lane” is now bigger than the “Trump lane.”
By mid-year, there will be indictments on the Stormy
Daniels case, Mar-a-Lago documents, the Georgia election interference, and – at
the rate Jack Smith is flying – the monster: Trump’s criminal role on January
6. Throw in an actual felony conviction on any of the above, and by primary
season, Donald Trump looks more toxic than the fourth reactor at Chernobyl.
Trump’s base will be loyal to the end, but criminal
investigations will keep reminding Republicans of the essential issue: can
he win? By the time Iowans head to the caucuses, Trump will have more
baggage than a Tumi warehouse.
Ok, fine… so that’s why Donald Trump will lose.
Why will DeSantis win?
In 2016 – the last time Donald Trump competed in a primary,
he was a political unknown with no track record to defend. He toyed with his
opponents with previously unfathomable personal insults, brazen lies, and
shockingly racist, xenophobic, and misogynist rants that thrilled the hard
right.
Eight years later, Trump is slower, and this time everybody
is ready for him. Some say it will be to Trump’s advantage if many candidates
enter the GOP primary, arguing that it will splinter the “anti-Trump” lane. But
they fail to realize that if a half-dozen or more candidates chant in unison
that Donald Trump is too old, too tainted, and too responsible for too many losses,
it can’t be good for Trump. Sure, the
Nikki Haleys and Tim Scotts – the ones who are actually running for VP –
won’t risk a head-on confrontation with Trump. But when Mike Pence goes
ballistic on Trump at the Gridiron Club Dinner, you know that the sands are shifting.
The hunch here is that Ron DeSantis is savvy enough to know
that direct confrontation is the only formula for beating Trump… that if you
challenge the King, you have to take him down. And DeSantis is working all fronts to prepare
his assault.
DeSantis will take the risk of saying nasty things about
Trump that could well anger Trump’s base, but DeSantis figures that if he wins the
nomination, Trump’s base will fall in line… knowing that sitting on their hands
will only result in Biden’s re-election.
One reason that 2024 will be different than 2016 is that
nobody has ever successfully put Donald Trump on the defensive. Trump was
always in “attack mode,” and he had no record to defend. Not this time.
DeSantis has already begun to talk about his governorship
as “no drama,” emphasizing a record of disciplined, effective leadership that gets
stuff done. The clear implication: Trump is all talk, all chaos, and no action.
You can expect to hear Ron DeSantis talk extensively about a wall that never
got built, and a country that never paid for it.
Between now and May – when he is likely to announce -- Ron
DeSantis is on a holy crusade in Florida to prove to the right-wing base that
he is vastly more effective in passing conservative legislation than Trump ever
was. An entirely new fusillade of “anti-woke” laws – building on the base of barely-veiled
racist and anti-LGBTQ legislation of his first term – will be rushed through by
DeSantis not simply as proof of his right-wing fealty, but of far greater
effectiveness than Trump in implementing a right-wing agenda.
For all Ron DeSantis wants to talk about “woke,” there are
far bigger, far more important issues that he can and will lean heavily into
once the campaign is cooking. First, he can speak to a record of strong
economic vitality during his stewardship. And when Jamie Dimon goes on the record
about how “business friendly” Florida is, you know the governor has a story to
tell. Who knows where inflation will stand in 2024, but a strong message on
economic stewardship is solid campaign gold.
Second: he is a huge, proven winner in what is still by
most measures a “purple” state. The man beat a perfectly respectable Democrat –
a former Governor – by nearly 20 points. In today’s polarized politics,
that is simply unheard of in a swing state. If the only criterion is “who can
win,” DeSantis has a vastly better story to tell than Trump.
If Ron DeSantis implements a sound messaging strategy, he
has a helluva story to tell… particularly against a President who failed to
keep key campaign promises.
Once the campaigning starts in earnest, any gap between the
two men will narrow. A key reason: Ron
DeSantis will annihilate Trump in debates. DeSantis may be an asshole,
but he is a Yale undergrad and Harvard Law asshole. Watch him behind any podium
in Florida. He comes prepared, thinks on his feet, is skilled at reframing a
debate to his favor, and only loses his cool for theater. He is a wonk who
knows the details. He is constantly on attack mode with the press. He can do to Trump what Trump used to do to
everyone else – initiate the attack, and put Trump on the defensive.
Trump, of course, never met a policy detail he couldn’t
ignore, famously needed pictures and single page summaries to cope with
intelligence briefings, and blithely blustered his way through significant
public appearances by lying, hopelessly meandering, and – in crucial situations
– reading from a teleprompter as if on quaaludes. Trump was appallingly bad in the 2024 debates
when facing Biden, himself a leaden debater at best. Donald Trump is a lazy man
who will not do the hard work of campaign debate prep. And he will pay for it.
Just wait until Ron DeSantis starts talking about “winners”
and “losers” on a debate stage as Donald Trump seethes with rage. I can already
hear DeSantis: “We Republicans are tired of losing! We can’t be the party
of losers! We lost in 2018, we lost in 2020, we lost
in 2022! We need a proven winner!” Watch as the camera pans to Donald
Trump, sweating, smoldering, and absolutely losing his, uh, composure
under the scorching, humiliating, withering assault.
If Ron DeSantis is smart, he will take one further step… he
will aim at the myth of Donald Trump. As we speak, Ron DeSantis surely has a team
of oppo pit bulls combing through the 80s and 90s footage that reveals Trump to
have been a classic New York City liberal right up until he ran for President. DeSantis will draw a hard line between his own
consistent right-wing orthodoxy and Trump’s Johnny-Come-Lately, opportunistic,
and calculated conservatism.
Let’s rest our case with one final point: Ron DeSantis
truly is the coldest, most calculating, most Machiavellian foe Donald Trump has
ever faced. This is the man that cruelly forced frightened and vulnerable
immigrants into an airplane and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard as a political
stunt. How depraved do you have to be to manipulate the poor, the vulnerable, and the
powerless for a childish political gag? Donald Trump does not know what is about to
hit him.
Have doubts? Here are the specifics on how this goes down.
Flash forward to the Iowa Caucuses. Trump edges out
DeSantis in Iowa by 40% to 35%. Also-rans (led by Haley, Pence, and Scott) are
in single digits. The poorest performing also-rans have the oxygen of funding
cut off, and must drop out.
But thinning the field just a bit will give DeSantis enough
mojo to squeak out a win in New Hampshire.
With each side claiming a win, it is on to South Carolina… where
Ron DeSantis swings the deal that seals the deal. He offers his VP slot to
South Carolina hometown favorite Nikki Haley. Trump does not take the bait, as
he not-so-secretly lusts for the uber-loyal election denier Kari Lake to be his
VP. Buoyed by the locally popular Haley, DeSantis scores a big win in South
Carolina. Instantly, the wheels come off the “inevitability” of a Trump
nomination.
More single-digit losers drop out, giving more and more of
the “anti-Trump lane” to DeSantis. By
Super Tuesday, it is Trump v. DeSantis mano-a-mano in a sprint to the
convention… and DeSantis has all the momentum. Then it is just a matter of winning by thin
but discernable margins, and DeSantis cleans up the delegate count.
DeSantis closes the deal by offering Trump a face-saving
exit. They will cut a secret agreement in which Trump’s doctor supposedly
orders Trump to drop out for “health reasons.” (That is, anything but an
admission that he is losing!) In turn, DeSantis promises to do everything in
his power to cut off all Federal prosecution of Trump, and he will name Jim
Jordan his Attorney General so that Trump gets his “retribution,” which is the
only reason he has given thus far for running in 2024.
DeSantis-Haley 2024. You can print the bumper stickers.
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