The Lane That Never Was
In the end, there was no candidate - real or ideal - that could have wrested the GOP nomination from Trump
A week after the Iowa caucus soft opening, the Republican primary season begins tomorrow with the New Hampshire primary. Now that Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis have dropped out, leaving Nikki Haley as the only viable Republican competitor to Donald Trump, it’s hard to underestimate the stakes.
There are two possible outcomes:
Scenario 1: Trump, with the help of DeSantis and Ramaswamy supporters, wins by a substantial and better than expected margin (say, 20-plus points) - essentially ending the Republican primary season on the day it started.
Scenario 2: Haley, with the help of New Hampshire’s notoriously educated, informed, and skeptical electorate and legions of independent and Democratic voters crossing over to vote in the GOP primary, loses by a narrow margin (say, single digits) or ekes out a startling victory. This positions her as a viable candidate in other states with a similar profile to New Hampshire. Since there are no other states with New Hampshire’s profile, this essentially ends the Republican primary season on the day it started.
For a year, political talking heads have talked about the need to avoid the alleged critical mistake of 2016, when too many Trump rivals stayed in the race and opened the lane for an extremist candidate with a small but dedicated following to maneuver his way to the nomination. There is little evidence or logic to suggest that, say, Ted Cruz as solo rival could have scraped up enough support to beat Trump. Still, the theory went, it was critical for anti-Trump Republicans to coalesce as soon as possible around a single alternative.
Great. Before the first primary, we have the two-person race they wanted, between Trump and a rival that Republicans don’t like.
Here are the favorability scores that Republicans give Haley from the three most recent polls tracked by Five Thirty Eight: 47% favorable vs. 33% unfavorable (Harris); 49% favorable vs. 36% unfavorable (Ipsos/ABC); 51% favorable vs. 33% unfavorable (YouGov/Economist). Those are net favorability ratings between 13 and 18 points. While these Republican net favorability ratings outperform Hillary Clinton - I think - I can confidently say that the last time a candidate with net favorability ratings under 20 points in her own party won that party’s nomination was never.
The same Republican voters in the same three polls give Trump these favorable/unfavorable splits: 80%-17%, 72%-26%, and 84%-15%, or net favorability ratings between 46 and 69 points.
DeSantis and Ramaswamy, who looked at the political landscape and decided their candidacies were hopeless, have net favorability ratings among Republican voters two to three times Haley’s numbers.
Republican voters’ reluctance to embrace Haley is baffling to anyone who has never heard her speak. Others, who have heard Haley criticize Trump for January 6 while promising to pardon him if he’s found guilty in the January 6 case, tap dance around the cause of the Civil War, and trumpet her pro-life record while arguing in debates that consensus pro-life legislation is too radical for Congress, are less impressed. Their near unanimous assessment of Haley to The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell in Longwell’s focus groups is: We don’t trust her. Go figure.
If only Republican voters had coalesced around DeSantis or Ramaswamy. DeSantis offered a reasonable proposition to Trump supporters: I’m just like Trump, but I’m more electable, which would have succeeded if
Trump weren’t more electable than DeSantis and
Trump supporters gave a fig about electability. They will either win the 2024 election or pretend they won.
Ramaswamy was arguably a longer shot, perhaps because of his value proposition - I’m just like Trump, except even slimier and less qualified.
Unfortunately, Republican truth tellers Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson never gained traction. Christie failed because he was too blunt for Republican voters. They preferred Hutchison’s rock-solid Conservative principles and low-key approach to accepting the hard truth that Biden won the 2020, and proved it by flocking by the dozens to support him.
Tim Scott found what seemed like a promising lane, following Hutchinson’s low-key approach unburdened by integrity. But Scott’s positive message of hope, opportunity, and apocryphal incidents of Democratic racism against him failed to lift him out of single-digit support.
Others adopted out-of-the-box strategies, like Mike Pence’s commitment to downplay the singular moment of patriotism and bravery of his political career, or North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s effort to do nothing noteworthy during his campaign except tear his Achilles tendon.
So orthodox, unorthodox, idealistic and sophisticated strategies didn’t work against Trump. Frontal assaults, subtle attacks, measured criticism, complement sandwiches and fan boy approaches to Trump didn’t work. Experienced hands, former Trump allies, fresh faces - none could break through.
Republican voters couldn’t be clearer. They want Trump, period.