Yes, and it looks like it will come down to Haley and DeSantis vying for the right to take on the former president. Let’s hope Haley prevails.
With Donald Trump in a commanding lead for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, the big question coming out of the first GOP presidential debate is: what does it portend for the winnowing of the field?
That question is important because the assumption by political analysts all along has been that to defeat Trump, you need to winnow down the anti-Trump field to one primary challenger. Otherwise, the anti-Trump vote will splinter, thus allowing the former president to prevail with only a plurality, and not a majority, of the vote.
2016. That’s what happened in 2016, and Republicans eager to move beyond Trump are deathly worried that it might happen again this year. As New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu explains:
While it’s true that Mr. Trump has an iron grip on more than 30 percent of the electorate, the other 60 percent or so is open to moving forward with a new nominee…
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he is consistently polling in the low 40 percent range. The floor of his support may be high, but his ceiling is low…
Mr. Trump must face a smaller field. It is only then that his path to victory shrinks…
After the results from Iowa come in, it is paramount that the field must shrink, before the New Hampshire primary, to the top three or four…
Provided the field shrinks by Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Trump loses. He will always have his die-hard base, but the majority is up for grabs
So, with that in mind, did the first 2024 GOP presidential debate winnow the field, or is it more splintered than ever?
Byron York argues persuasively that field has been winnowed from 13 candidates to at least seven candidates and, more likely, five candidates.
Winnowing the Field. For starters, he notes, four candidates—Larry Elder, Perry Johnson, Francis Suarez, and Will Hurd—did not meet the debate’s minimal qualification standards and thus were no-shows. That leaves nine candidates.
Two candidates, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-North Dakota) and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, “used funding gimmics to meet the RNC’s donor requirements, and both made little impact on the debate.
“There’s really no reason for them to continue participating in the debates,” York notes. “So that is a nine-candidate field going down to a seven-candidate field.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) may stay in the race for a while; however, it is clear that neither man can be nominated. Scott had a very weak debate performance and is not a compelling presidential candidate.
Pence had a strong debate performance, but “given Pence’s history as Trump’s vice president,” York writes, “he has no comfortable place in a race against the president he served.”
Final Five. That leaves five GOP presidential candidates: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Florida), former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-South Carolina), former Gov. Chris Christie (R-New Jersey), Vivek Ramaswamy, and Trump.
Christie no doubt will leave the race in time for the anti-Trump vote to consolidate around a candidate who can deny Trump the nomination. Christie knows he is not that candidate and is committed to doing whatever it takes to defeat Trump, even if it means falling on his sword.
Vivek will not leave the race because is not running against Trump; he is running interference for Trump as the former president’s defender and blocking back.
That leaves DeSantis and Haley as the only viable candidates who can prevail against Trump. The danger is that neither of them will withdraw from the race; they will split the anti-Trump vote; and the former president will again win out with a plurality of the vote.
DeSantis won’t want to withdraw from the race because he has been the anti-Trump favorite all along, polling consistently a distant second to the former president.
DeSantis was underwhelming in the debate. His stellar record as governor, his superb management of the COVID crisis, and his fight against woke indoctrination in the schools have earned him GOP support; but he has been a weak, wooden, and uninspiring presidential candidate.
Haley, meanwhile, started out the race respectably, but did nothing to distinguish herself —until that is she literally lit it up in the debate.
“Voter interest in Nikki Haley is surging after the underdog presidential contender delivered a breakthrough performance during a combative Republican debate in Milwaukee,” write David Drucker, Audrey Fahlberg, and Steve Hayes in The Dispatch.
“We’ve raised more online in the last 24 hours than on any day since the campaign started,” says Haley’s campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas.
Haley’s surge in the race is, indeed, well deserved. She would be the Republican Party’s most formidable presidential candidate against Joe Biden or Kamala Harris and is far better positioned than DeSantis to take down Trump.
She is simply a better and more compelling candidate. And the fact that she is a woman is a decided political advantage, given the GOP’s gender gap and loss of suburban women if Trump is the nominee.
But will DeSantis recognize this and bow out gracefully, thus giving Haley a one-on-one matchup against Trump?
Probably not—unless and until Haley can best him in one or more primary contests.
Conclusion. As I say, DeSantis probably has too much invested in this race to cede the nomination to Haley. As the number two candidate in the polls for many months, he no doubt feels entitled to be the party’s anti-Trump candidate.
But if GOP voters reject him and embrace Haley instead, DeSantis may have no choice but to face the music and accept defeat. We’ll know soon enough.
The Iowa Caucuses are Jan. 15; New Hampshire voters go to the polls a couple of weeks later; the Nevada Caucuses are Feb. 8; and South Carolina renders its verdict Feb. 24. Stay tuned.
Feature photo credit: YouTube video screenshots of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.