Jan.02

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Who's Running? (Republican Edition)

In the new year, most of the political attention will be focused on the 2024 presidential race, which is well underway already. A year from now we may look back and say: "How did anyone think X was viable and completely missed Y?" But this is now and not then. We'll do the Republican field today and the potential Democratic field tomorrow.

Our first thought about the Republican field was: "It's Donald Trump's to lose and if he loses it, then Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) will be the nominee. Will everyone else kindly go home and shut up?" But maybe not so fast. In baseball, it is three strikes and you're out. In politics, sometimes it is one strike and you're out. Remember "macaca"? Or Hillary's e-mail server? Is an e-mail server really that important? Well, if one party makes the whole campaign about it, maybe yes.

DeSantis looks strong now, but what if Migrantgate (Texasgate? Immigrant Mobilier?) takes off? We can easily imagine Trump or Pence or other Republicans repeating over and over: "Please explain why you gave a million dollars of the taxpayers' money to one of your friends to ship migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. What did the Florida taxpayers get for their money? Heaven knows how much of the taxpayers' money you'll waste on PR stunts if you get to the White House. We better not risk it." DeSantis could say: "Well, I owned the libs," but first, that is not cool to say out loud and second, the migrants were welcomed and treated well in Massachusetts. The libs acted like adults and made DeSantis look like an angry toddler. Repeated often enough, that could end up hurting DeSantis. He has an extremely thin skin. He is great at dishing it out but no good at all handling incoming fire. And this is only the first potential problem he may have to deal with.

Taking away the Walt Disney Corporation's special tax status, which resulted in transferring a billion dollars in debt from Disney to the state of Florida could also come back to haunt DeSantis—even if the situation is returned to the status quo ante tantrum, which seems likely. Opponents will ask: "If it was a good idea, why did you reverse it and if it was a bad idea, why did you do it in the first place?" An answer of "I tricked the voters and got reelected" may not cut it.

So it is entirely possible that Trump will soon be in big trouble due to legal issues and DeSantis will be in trouble politically due to Migrantgate, Disneygate, or some other gate not yet opened. Hence it is worth looking at who else is out there. Here's the field is roughly descending order of the likihood of getting the nomination:

• Donald Trump: About 70% of Republican voters want Trump as their nominee. If he can maintain that following, he's got it. However, he has two big problems. First, he is almost sure to be indicted in Georgia and there is a good chance he will be convicted. The trial will be the #1 news story in the country for as long as it takes. There is also a decent chance that special counsel Jack Smith recommends indicting Trump on federal charges as well, either for unauthorized possession of national security documents or something related to the coup attempt or both. Again, Some of the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020 did so because they don't like Joe Biden, but not liking Joe Biden is not an automatic vote for Trump in a Republican primary. None of the Republican candidates like Joe Biden.
  
  Second, Trump is almost certain to have serious competition in the primary. DeSantis is probably going to jump in and if does, so will others. Trump will come under attack from Republicans like never before. In 2016, Jeb! and the others didn't take him seriously and didn't hit him hard. This time the mud will fly. Where's that wall? Where is the emptied swamp? Why did you make a terrible deal with the Taliban that forced Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan helter skelter? Why did you appoint so many corrupt people to your administration? There's plenty of material on both policy and personality.
  
  One of Trump's strongest rejoinders can be summarized in three words: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. For a many conservatives, those three words make up for a lot of other failings.
  
  
• Ron DeSantis: He is a young, fresh face who looks great on television—provided you turn the sound off. His pitch is "Ultra-Trumpism, but without the baggage." He is also just off a landslide reelection that he can boast about. He also banned abortion after 15 weeks and has some good one-liners that the base loves, like "Florida is where woke goes to die!" He also has $70 million left over in his campaign account. He can't use all of that for a federal election, because of contribution limits, but he can use some, and then give the rest to an affiliated PAC. There are multiple billionaires, including Ken Griffin, Ronald Lauder, and Robert Mercer, who will pony up and keep that PAC fully funded, no matter how much DeSantis spends. It will be like the bottomless coffee cup.
  
  However, DeSantis hasn't been tested at all outside Florida and all he has going for him is his attempts at owning the libs. That might not be enough. Even Trump had an actual platform in 2016. It is hard to see what might be on DeSantis platform except culture-wars stuff. Maybe education, except the federal government doesn't play much of a role in education. The states and local school boards do that.
  
  As mentioned above, he has several areas where he can be attacked, such as Migrantgate and Disneygate, and oppo researchers are at this very moment scouring his past, looking for more. Did he write a racist poem in middle school? Are there any photos in his high school yearbook that document... unfortunate Halloween costume choices? Did he take a vote as a young congressman that can now be held against him? There could be all manner of dirt somewhere.
  
  One thing that is sure to work against him is that DeSantis is a venal, angry person. Trump, for his many faults, charmed the base in 2016. Charm is not on the menu with DeSantis, only anger, and you usually don't win elections when you are the angriest guy on the stage. He fails the beer test horribly. Also, DeSantis is a Catholic and may not be a hit with evangelical Protestants, who form a disproportionate fraction of the Republican primary electorate.
  
  
• Mike Pence: One candidate who could pick up the bulk of the evangelical vote if Trump and DeSantis obliterate each other is Mike Pence. He doesn't have to advertise his religion; he wears it on his sleeve and everyone can see it. Also, unlike Trump and DeSantis, he really believes it and everyone knows that, too. In the general election, that will be a minus, but in the Republican primary it is a plus. On the culture-wars agenda, he is as far right as DeSantis, just more polite about it. His stint as vice president means that every Republican voter already knows who he is, whereas DeSantis will first have to introduce himself.
  
  Pence also has some minuses. He is a boring speaker and not someone you would want to have a beer with. In fact, if you are a woman, he will refuse to have that beer with you unless his wife is present to watch his every move. In general, he makes Al Gore look like Mr. Charisma. But if the Republican voters get tired of Trump and DeSantis mud wrestling, maybe a boring, sober, true conservative will start looking very good. Though we very seriously doubt it, especially since the Trumpers hate, hate, hate Pence.
  
  
• Mike Pompeo: The Politico article lumps John Bolton, Liz Cheney, Chris Christie, Chris Sununu, Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchinson, Kristi Noem, and Pompeo together in the basket of "people who broke with Trump." We think that is too coarse a sifting. Bolton and Cheney are not going to enter the Republican primary. Christie would be a fool if he did. Noem and Haley are eyeing the #2 slot, not the top slot. That leaves Sununu, Hutchinson, Hogan, and Pompeo.
  
  Of these, Pompeo is the best positioned. He served as secretary of state but didn't get into any fights with Trump, so Trump supporters have nothing against him. He can make a case that he is sane, conservative, and qualified. He is also less boring than Pence and doesn't shove his religion in everyone's face, but could make the evangelicals happy if the top three on this list flame out.
  
  
• Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchinson, and Chris Sununu: All three are really longshots. Hogan is too liberal for the Republican base. In April, Sununu called Trump "f**king crazy" and said: "I don't think he's so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain't getting out!" That's not language that will endear Sununu to Trump's supporters. Hutchinson is completely unknown at this point, but we are smart enough not to say that an unknown governor from Arkansas could never be elected president. He could win the nomination if he is the last man standing.
  
  
• The Senators: Republican senators Tom Cotton (AR), Josh Hawley (MO), and Rick Scott (FL) have already dropped out. Gee, that was fast. That leaves three other potential senators: Tim Scott (SC), Marco Rubio (FL), and Ted Cruz (TX). Scott is Black. The Democrats will nominate a toaster before the Republicans will nominate a Black person. Remember, Scott was appointed to the Senate in 2012 by then-governor Nikki Haley. Then when he ran in the 2014 special election, he was already an incumbent.
  
  Rubio ran for president in 2016 and got only 27% of the vote in his home state. He got 11% of the popular vote and 7% of the delegates nationwide. He is widely regarded as lazy and a poor campaigner and fundraiser. The Republicans would have to be fairly desperate to nominate him.
  
  Next up is Ted Cruz. All of the other 99 senators despise him, but he did come in second in 2016 with 25% of the popular vote and 553 delegates (22%). One thing that has happened since then is his ill-advised vacation in Cancun when Texas was freezing in a freak storm that took out power for thousands of Texans. It's true that as a senator, it wasn't his fault that a massive storm hit Texas and there wasn't much he could do about it, but the optics were just horrendous. He would have been much better off in his office in D.C. photographed on the phone yelling at FEMA to get aid to Texas—and fast, or else. At least people would have thought that he cared about his constituents and was trying to help them. "Cancun" could be as potent as "e-mail server"
  
  
• Brian Kemp: Above are the national figures. Now on to state figures. Donald Trump strongly opposed Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in his primary this year—and he nevertheless won by 50 points against a candidate Trump handpicked. He also knocked off Stacey Abrams in a key swing state with ease. He is much more friendly than most of the above candidates and comes from a critical state with 16 electoral votes. As a governor, Kemp has run a large state and has remained scandal free. The biggest problem for the Republicans is that he might not run. He has apparently set his sights on the seat of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), which comes up in 2026, just when his last term as governor runs out. That's much more realistic for him. He could run for president in 2024 and then, if he loses, try for the Senate in 2026, but then he would have the image of a loser rather than skipping 2024 and having the image of a winner. A better strategy might be to run for the Senate in 2026, win, and then use that as a springboard for a 2028 presidential run, assuming that Biden gets another term.
  
  
• Glenn Youngkin: Youngkin won election in a blue state, which is impressive. However, he beat a fairly sleazy retread. He might not have done so well if the Democrats had sent the A-team. His main campaign issue was education. That works fine at the state level, but a campaign about who uses which locker room and requiring parental consent concerning a student's pronouns is not a national platform. Also, by next summer, he will have been in the governor's mansion for a year and a half and will be judged by his accomplishments, if any. Whining that it's not his fault that he can't do anything because the Democrats control the state Senate is probably not a winning play. And the Virginia Democrats are aware that he is a potential presidential candidate and are not about to give him any easy victories.
  

That's the field now as Politico sees it, but remember, sometimes candidates pop up out of the blue. Certainly, few people in early 2015 saw Trump as the Republican nominee. Someone from business, entertainment, sports, or something else could jump in and surprise people. President Musk, anyone?

For an alternative viewpoint, The Hill also has a list. From most likely to least likely, the top ten are: DeSantis, Trump, Cruz, Haley, Pompeo, Youngkin, Pence, Scott, Noem, and Sununu. It is noteworthy that DeSantis is #1. We expect more lists in the weeks ahead with DeSantis as #1. In our view, the chances of the nominee being a straight, white conservative Christian male are roughly 99.99%. So scratch Haley, Scott, and Noem, although all three are conceivable as veep. We also think Sununu, who otherwise qualifies, is not nearly conservative enough. Other than that, the list is plausible. The order of Pompeo, Youngkin, and Pence is kind of arbitrary. Each one has different strengths and weaknesses. Notably absent from the list is Brian Kemp. We think that is correct, If he runs for the Senate in 2026 against Jon Ossoff, he probably has a 90% chance of getting the GOP nomination vs. maybe 2% for president in 2024. (V)