Republicans Don’t Think They Can Lose in 2024, Even with Trump

Maryland governor Larry Hogan was speaking for many if not most Republican politicos when he endorsed a quiet pressure campaign designed to winnow the field of GOP presidential candidates to present Donald Trump with one viable challenger. Trump’s defeat in the GOP primary is a crucial first step on the GOP’s path back to “winning elections again,” he told CBS News correspondent Robert Costa. But Hogan doesn’t seem to be speaking for Republican voters. Among the GOP rank and file, there is a prevailing sense that Republicans can’t lose in 2024.

Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson has documented a strange mix of catastrophism and overconfidence that dominates the thinking among Republican voters. “Republicans both deeply fear a 2024 loss and can’t fathom its actually happening,” she wrote. And the focus groups she conducts for the New York Times bear this conclusion out. Though their political views and values differed, precisely none of the eleven Republican participants in her last sample could envision a scenario in which Joe Biden won reelection in 2024. That doesn’t just also apply to Donald Trump if he emerges as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. They think it is especially true of the former president, who Republican primary voters appear to believe is Biden’s strongest hypothetical opponent.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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Maryland governor Larry Hogan was speaking for many if not most Republican politicos when he endorsed a quiet pressure campaign designed to winnow the field of GOP presidential candidates to present Donald Trump with one viable challenger. Trump’s defeat in the GOP primary is a crucial first step on the GOP’s path back to “winning elections again,” he told CBS News correspondent Robert Costa. But Hogan doesn’t seem to be speaking for Republican voters. Among the GOP rank and file, there is a prevailing sense that Republicans can’t lose in 2024.

Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson has documented a strange mix of catastrophism and overconfidence that dominates the thinking among Republican voters. “Republicans both deeply fear a 2024 loss and can’t fathom its actually happening,” she wrote. And the focus groups she conducts for the New York Times bear this conclusion out. Though their political views and values differed, precisely none of the eleven Republican participants in her last sample could envision a scenario in which Joe Biden won reelection in 2024. That doesn’t just also apply to Donald Trump if he emerges as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. They think it is especially true of the former president, who Republican primary voters appear to believe is Biden’s strongest hypothetical opponent.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.