What Desantis v. Trump Would Look Like
It is no secret that after the underperformance of Republicans in the 2022 midterms, there is a lot of blame and finger-pointing going around. Some are blaming Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, and others are blaming former President Donald Trump. However, the reality is that the answer for what precisely made the GOP fail to deliver a red wave is somewhere between many of the offered explanations. Moreover, it is doubtful that a single factor led to Democrats defeating historical trends and overcoming a terrible political environment. Regardless, politics is, especially in America, about the future and not the past. And that is the key to the incoming battle for the GOP nomination in 2024.
The fact is that after the midterms, former President Trump has suffered a blow to his political prestige, President Biden has had a boost, the Republicans are soul-searching for new leadership, and the Democrats haven’t learned a thing about their policy failures. But, as has been noted repeatedly, there is one place where the Republican wave did materialize and where the GOP seems to have built a lasting political majority: Florida. This has created momentum for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Though it is very early, one can indeed notice weaknesses in Trump’s candidacy that were not there before. This is not surprising, as the former British Conservative leader William Hague once wrote, “The real power of politicians always depends not on the station they presently hold, but on the general expectation of their future influence.” This is part of the problem with Trump’s current campaign. He is filled with past grievances, and there is little about the future since most of his reason for running seems to be to erase his 2020 defeat. It also doesn’t take many powers of prediction to say that, probably, Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024. He likely will win the primary but then proceed to lose the general election. Again.
Of course, none of this is set in stone. Even if there is momentum for a challenge, it doesn’t mean that DeSantis will challenge Trump, nor that Trump will lose the nomination. But the midterm debacle does show, once again, that Trump is an internal Republican political juggernaut but a general election loser. However, if DeSantis, or anyone else, should run, what would that primary look like?
The closest, albeit imperfect, parallel to a Trump vs. DeSantis fight would be the Republican primary of 1976 between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. In that race, a sitting President (and Republican leader) faced a challenge from a popular, widely supported governor. Of course, the analogy is imperfect. First, Ford was never elected to the Presidency, nor did he win any primaries to become President. He lacked broad political support. While in contrast, Trump won both the primaries and the White House. So Trump is in a much different and better position than Ford ever was. Moreover, Reagan was no longer Governor of California when he challenged Ford, while DeSantis is currently an incumbent.
Nonetheless, that primary was a hard-fought one. After it was over, the divisions possibly helped Ford be defeated by Jimmy Carter in the general election. This is important to remember. If the Republican Party is divided in 2024, it will most likely lose the general election. If, for example, DeSantis beats Trump in a primary, then Trump refuses to rally behind him, it could cost the GOP the Presidency. Trump might also, if he loses, refuse to accept that he lost, claim fraud (as he did when Ted Cruz won the Iowa primary in 2016), and spend the rest of the 2024 campaign undermining the nominee’s general election campaign.
Trump, then, is a paradox. It means that the Republican Party is beholden to Trump. Which also means that it is, in a certain sense, taken hostage by him. If his ego is bruised at any point, he can try to take his voters with him and create havoc for the GOP. The GOP needs his voters but, at the same time, is politically limited by him in the larger electorate.
On the other hand, DeSantis faces various obstacles. In foreign policy, very little is known about his views except for his dislike of leftist dictatorships, for example. In an era of increased great power competition, this is something that he will have to address. In addition, it remains to be seen if DeSantis can apply his rhetoric and style to a national audience. Recent history is filled with Governors who ran for President after successful records in their states only to collapse politically under the gaze of national attention. Moreover, a vital thing for anyone wishing to defeat Trump in a primary is that the primary field cannot be crowded with too many candidates. A one-on-one contest is the best bet for a hypothetical DeSantis challenge to Trump, so voters will be given a clear choice.
In addition, some other vital questions about DeSantis would be: How will he fare with the increased scrutiny of running for the most powerful and challenging job in the world? Can he attract independents or suburban voters? Can he retain Trump voters?
Thankfully, the answer to some of these questions seems clear from his whopping 20% reelection victory last Election Day. Despite Trump’s best efforts, DeSantis has avoided entering into petty conflict with the former president. DeSantis has also demonstrated that he can, contrary to Trump, win with broad political support support from independents and some Democrats. DeSantis won male and female voters. He won Hispanics. To win by such a large percentage means that DeSantis can build a sizeable electoral coalition.
For the last question, it is essential that anyone who challenges Trump acknowledge that he had significant and good policy successes. It is also vital that they recognize that Trump voters are fiercely loyal and that they wish their worries and concerns to be taken seriously by politicians. Therefore, a correct approach to dealing with Trump is not to try, as some former Republicans or liberals would wish the GOP to do, to exorcize him and betray all former principles in the name of Never Trumpism, but to recognize his successes, maintain permanent conservative principles and to build on them. Moreover, Republican politicians need to view where the Republican base is on issues and seek to represent them more. The criticism should be, in any case, over Trump, the candidate, and not his voters. A distinction many people fail to make.
Thankfully, in most of these criteria, DeSantis’ reelection victory proves that he is one of the few Republican politicians who can build the Republican Party across many groups. The choice is simple for Republican primary voters. They can choose to go with a Trump who is electorally very weak, who has consistently been incapable, for whatever reason, of expanding his electoral coalition, and whose erratic governance gave Democrats a united government in 2020.
There is another option. Voters can go with a candidate who banned critical race theory, required teaching about the evils of totalitarianism for students, took on and defeated Disney, resisted lockdowns, protected parent’s rights, successfully established record budget surplus, job growth, blocked puberty blockers and sex reassignment for minors, etc. The result of that record? A Republican wave in Florida, so large that the state is considered more and more of a red state. In other words, this is what winning for the Right actually looks like. In short, the Right can support merely the appearance of winning by just angering the Left, or it can use its power to build a broad and lasting conservative majority, such as in Ohio, Florida, or Texas. The choice is simple, do we want actual change and winning, or do we want to whine about “stolen” elections for four more years?