GOP debates reach a dead end
Byron York
GOP DEBATES REACH A DEAD END. The first unique thing about the 2024 Republican race is that at no time in living memory has a former president, popular with the party base, run for the office he used to occupy. The second unique thing is that former President Donald Trump is so far ahead of his GOP competitors that the Republican contest is essentially a one-candidate race. According to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump is 43.7 points ahead of second-place Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and 48.9 points ahead of third-place former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. He is more than 50 points ahead of everybody else. The third unique thing about the race is that Trump has skipped every debate, including the third one, held Wednesday night in Miami.
That has changed the nature of the debates, making them, by and large, underwhelming, unsatisfying exercises. The reason is obvious: With the leading candidate absent, the stakes are lower. We have now had three debates with the purpose of identifying a first, and a second, runner-up. That is a meaningful task — if Trump falters, one of these candidates will be the nominee. But the debates are missing the ingredient that makes high-stakes debates compelling.
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The debates have, though, identified the first and second runner-up. On Wednesday night, the first runner-up, DeSantis, and the second runner-up, Haley, emerged from the pack again to show themselves as the best of the Trump challengers. The other three candidates onstage shouldn’t be there for long. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a solid, qualified candidate, but he is also the most disliked man in the Republican field. Vivek Ramaswamy is not a solid, qualified candidate — much of the time, he appears to be trying to generate web buzz — and has emerged as the second-most disliked man in the Republican field. And Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) simply has not caught on and is very likely not going to catch on.
A week ago, this newsletter called the Republican contest “a one-candidate race, with two backups.” That’s where things stand after the third debate. In mid-October, a top Scott super PAC official declared the race “stuck.” That’s true. This is it: Trump is far ahead, DeSantis and Haley are vying for the next spot, 40-plus points behind, and everybody else is out of the picture.
So what is next? Republican voters deserve to see a face-off between Trump and his two challengers before the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses. Of course, DeSantis and Haley would jump at the chance. But what is the incentive for Trump, with that big lead? He doesn’t really have one.
Trump’s unstated strategy of late has been to stay out of the way of his own lead. He has had fewer rallies and has done less on-the-ground campaigning than he did back in 2016. (The COVID Campaign of 2020 does not count as a comparison.) Yes, he has been busy responding to four indictments, a high-profile lawsuit that aims to destroy his business empire, and efforts to take him off the 2024 ballot. But the current idea in the Trump campaign is that what Trump is doing is working. That includes skipping debates.
The recent Des Moines Register poll of Iowa Republicans asked, “Do you think Trump should participate in at least one debate before the caucuses, or does that not matter to you?” Among Trump supporters, 81% said it doesn’t matter. Among Iowa Republicans overall, 57% said it doesn’t matter.
There’s not a lot of incentive in that for Trump to debate. Maybe those numbers will change — maybe his new, less-is-more strategy will slowly start to fail — and he will be forced to take the stage with DeSantis and Haley. But maybe this is the way the one-candidate-two-backups race goes all the way to Iowa. The next step is voters making a decision.
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