Is 2024 really a new year for the GOP?
Zachary Faria
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New Year’s Day is normally a time for people to turn the page on a previous chapter of their lives. For the GOP, the major question is whether 2024 truly will be a new year or just more of the same.
The state of the GOP primary has been clear for the last few months. Former President Donald Trump is the polling front-runner, his lifeless campaign bolstered by Democrats hitting him with dubious indictments and now trying to ban him from the ballot in several states. Nikki Haley is the popular pick in New Hampshire, home to moderate Republicans and independents who can vote in the primary, and has solidified the anti-Trump primary electorate as it exists.
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Then there is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is hoping to break the Trump seal on the party in Iowa and capitalize on his high favorable numbers among GOP voters who widely view him as their favorite Trump alternative, should they ever choose it.
If it were truly a new year, DeSantis would be the pick. He is a post-pandemic Republican, one who understands the media game, the need to reform and hollow out unelected bureaucracies, and how to pile up wins. He isn’t a go-along-to-get-along Republican relic of the past.
Haley is, though. She is not merely a pre-pandemic Republican, but even a pre-Trump Republican. She left her last significant position of power in 2017 — no, ambassador to the United Nations doesn’t count. She hasn’t adapted to the times, and she can’t handle planted questions from Democratic voters. Her campaign would be dated in 2016, let alone now.
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Trump is also a relic of the past, albeit for a different reason. He is 77, just four years younger than President Joe Biden and the same age as when Biden started his campaign in 2019. Trump isn’t as much a pre-pandemic politician as he is a pandemic politician — he supported lockdowns, shamed states that reopened too quickly, and meekly deferred to health bureaucrats on every question. And, on top of it all, he lost to Biden.
The GOP is left with Nikki Haley and the party of 2014, Donald Trump and the party of 2020, or Ron DeSantis and the party of 2024. Voters have to choose if they actually want the new year to be a new year, or if they want to remake the same old years that have left the country in its current condition.