What Happens If DeSantis Bows Out?
Meatball Ron wants this to be his moment. That doesn’t mean it is his moment, though. Trump is crushing him in the polls and he hasn’t even declared yet. When he does, Trump will start detonating nuclear bombs every time he takes a step. Even if— by some miracle— he beats Trump in the primary contest, he’ll be so toxic to the MAGAts that at least some percentage of them will not vote for him in the general. The poll of Republican voters that Reuters released from Ipsos on Friday shows Trump absolutely untouchable:
Señor Trumpanzee: 58%
Meatball Ron: 21%
Mike Pence- 4%
Liz Cheney- 3%
Nikki Haley- 1%
Așa Hutchinson- 1%
Vivek Ramaswamy- 1%
Mike Pompeo- 1%
Glenn Youngkin- 1%
Chris Christie- 0%
Chris Sununu- 0%
And if he ever got to the general election, his gun free-for-all and new 6 week abortion ban would probably be enough to kill whatever shot he might have— not to mention a growing perception among people that he’s an authoritarian bully who wants to take away peoples’ and businesses’ rights and freedoms— and Social Security and Medicare. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but I don’t think he’s going to run… unless Trump chokes on a hamburger and keels over and dies.
So Ed Kilgore’s question on Sunday— What Happens If DeSantis Takes a Pass on 2024?— Is not far-fetched in the slightest. Kilgore wrote that DeSantis has built himself an escape hatch if he decides to back out of challenging Trump. “After all, he’s definitely losing not only polling numbers but also conservative-media attention to Trump right now. His signature bullying of the ‘woke’ Walt Disney Company is looking a lot less successful. And he’s facing a tough slog through the primaries knowing that Trump’s legal battles will continue to dominate news cycles and excite primary voters who are already favorably inclined toward the 45th president. On top of everything else, DeSantis is only 44 years old, which means, if he passes up potential cage matches with two presidents in 2024, he could pick another presidential cycle for about three decades.” So… what happens in GOP-ville if DeSantis slinks away? (Separate question for another day: will Biden feel less obligated to run and just walk away?)
Kilgore offers a couple of alternative scenarios for Republicans— a free for all and a coronation.
Seventeen Republican candidates ran for president in 2016, the last time there was no incumbent in the race. There are many, many GOP officeholders who have pretty clearly seen a future president of the United States in the mirror yet ruled out or expressed little interest in a 2024 run. They might reconsider if DeSantis and Trump are not together sucking all the oxygen (and campaign dollars) out of the room. Might Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Brian Kemp, or Greg Abbott take a flier in 2024 if a DeSantis-size vacuum in the field appears? And if not, would the longtime co–front runner’s self-defenestration push quasi candidates who haven’t announced— such as Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Glenn Youngkin, Chris Christie, or Chris Sununu— over the brink into an active run?
A free-for-all is possible mostly because (a) Republican elected officials, donors, and lobbyists who have been urging DeSantis to run are deeply fearful that Trump can’t win a 2024 general election and/or they can’t stand the idea of another turbulent and even revolutionary Trump administration; and (b) the presidential-nominating process creates opportunities for dark horses who beat expectations in the early going, making long-shot candidacies worth a try. The past three winners of competitive GOP Iowa caucus contests are Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz, Evangelical-friendly ideologues willing to put in the sweat equity to build an organization there. New Hampshire is a bandbox of a state famed for presidential-primary upsets. And with Trump the only whale in a race featuring multiple minnows, media folk will be eager to inflate any upward movement of a rival candidate into a David-and-Goliath story.
Tim Scott, the apple of many a Senate Republican’s eye, and Glenn Youngkin, who has nowhere to go after his one term as Virginia governor ends in 2025, are probably the proto-candidates to watch if DeSantis takes a powder. If either or both of these media and Republican Establishment favorites jump in, things could get interesting.
The alternative scenario for a 2024 without Ron was nicely articulated in late March by the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last:
The next thing that happens is Trump pops higher in both national and early-state polls. That’s because Trump is the second choice of about half of the voters who support DeSantis. Which means that you’d expect Trump to almost immediately add >10 points to his poll numbers, putting him close to the 60 percent mark nationally …
The Republican establishment, which has been pushing DeSantis relentlessly for two years, would freak the eff out.
Last figures that, after casting about wildly for another champion, Establishment Republicans would soon resign themselves to another Trump nomination since “conservative and Republican elites would believe that this really was the last time they’d have to bend over for Trump”:
They would assume that he can’t win and that the actuarial charts will prevent a 2028 Trump campaign. They’d tell themselves that January 7, 2025 will be the first day of the rest of their lives and all they have to do is gut out the Trumpism for a few more months.
Elites aside, a Trump candidacy without a formidable opponent like DeSantis might fall somewhere between his 2016 campaign, when he steadily gained strength against divided opposition, and his unopposed 2020 candidacy as an incumbent. Yes, the expectations game might work against Trump in this scenario, but it’s not as if he couldn’t make a comeback. His entire 2024 candidacy represents a comeback from two impeachments, a general-election defeat, a failed insurrection, and whatever prosecutors can pin on him between now and the end of the 2024 election cycle.
The same factors that might lead DeSantis to decide against a 2024 presidential run could lead to a Trump cakewalk to the nomination in Milwaukee 15 months from now.