Could that happen again? Sure it could:
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that in a head-to-head matchup, more Republican voters would cast their ballots for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (45%) than for former President Donald Trump (41%) if the party’s 2024 presidential primary were held today.
Yet if even one additional Republican candidate challenges Trump and DeSantis for the nomination, splitting the party’s “anti-Trump” vote, the former president would take the lead.
The survey of 1,585 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Feb. 2 to 6, vividly illustrates the dilemma facing GOP officials who believe that renominating Trump could doom the party’s chances in 2024: How do you narrow the field enough to prevent the former president from skirting past a divided opposition with less than 50% of the vote (just as he did in 2016)?
How do you narrow the field enough to prevent the former president from skirting past a divided opposition with less than 50 percent of the vote (just as he did in 2016)? You do it by impressing upon enough potential candidates that they aren’t going to be president, and that, by running, they’re going to let Donald Trump in again.
Is that happening? No, it is not. At least not yet. Nikki Haley is about to run. Mike Pompeo is about to run. Chris Sununu is gearing up. Larry Hogan is flirting with the idea. Chris Christie is making telling noises. And that’s all before we get to the bigger players on the stage.
I am not with MBD, who has written that he is “ready to bet the future of the Republican Party on Ron DeSantis.” It’s too early for that. We don’t know yet if DeSantis can make the jump up to the presidential level, and, even if he can, we don’t know if a majority of Republican primary voters will want him as their nominee once he has. In my view, we need some competition. But there is an enormous difference between a competition between four or five serious contenders and a field of ten, thirteen, fifteen people. Yahoo’s poll found that Trump would prevail “if even one additional Republican candidate challenges Trump and DeSantis for the nomination.” In all likelihood, that won’t be true once the primary is under way, because, in such a circumstance, the candidate who beats Trump — if there is a candidate who can beat Trump — will be able to push Trump’s numbers down to the point at which the fate of another candidate or two does not matter. But eleven other candidates — each taking 3, 4, 6 percent? That’s a different story.
Editor’s note: This post originally incorrectly identified New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu.