Nearly a Dozen Republican Candidates Are Vying to Enter the U.S. Presidential Race: Is Trump the Front-Runner?

With three Republicans announcing their candidacy for the presidency in the United States over the past few days, the road to the 2024 vote looks like the 2016 electoral marathon full of candidates, which ultimately benefited former President Donald Trump.

In addition to Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former U.S. delegate to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, as well as others, want to obtain the Republican nomination in the primaries scheduled after 7 months.

Looking at the contenders for the Republican nomination in the race for the White House presidency, it will be challenging to thwart Trump because there is a large bloc that supports him no matter what.

However, the progress of the litigation against Trump and the tarnishing of his image will inflame debates about the viable candidate.

The experiences of the 46 U.S. presidents indicate that only one of them succeeded in regaining the presidency four years after he failed to renew his term, Grover Cleveland (1885 and 1897), while four other presidents made unsuccessful attempts to return.

Likewise, no president has ever returned to the candidacy arena to face partisan rivals, including his former vice president, with the exception of one case that occurred 127 years ago.

 

Republican Contenders

On June 7, 2023, Mike Pence announced that he would compete with his former boss, Donald Trump, who had previously served as his loyal deputy, for the Republican nomination to run for the presidential elections scheduled for 2024, although he criticized his role in the attack on the Congressional Building in 2021.

Pence played a key role in Trump winning the votes of conservative evangelicals earlier, but he gifted the presidency to the Democrats by not questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election results.

Therefore, evangelicals might prefer Pence, whom Trump supporters have accused of being a traitor, and centrist Republicans might see him as a more reasonable candidate.

While Republican candidates avoid direct attacks on Trump, hoping to gain the support of members of the Republican Party to run for the presidency, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (60 years) presented himself recently as an opponent of Trump and his viable alternative.

Throughout the four years that Trump spent in the White House, Trump’s relationship with Christie strengthened a lot, but after his allegations of stealing the 2020 elections, and then the January 6, 2021 attack, Christie was keen to attack and criticize Trump and vowed to rid the Republican Party (GOP) of his grip.

Nikki Haley, 51, was the first to seek objection to her party’s nomination to Donald Trump. The former South Carolina Governor is the daughter of immigrants from India, and in former President Trump’s administration, she served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Today, she distances herself from her former boss despite her conservative views.

The announcement of her candidacy garnered some attention, which has since faded. The maximum voting intentions for her are 4%.

There is also another Republican candidate coming from the state of South Carolina, which he represents in the Senate, and he is Tim Scott (57 years), the only black Republican in the upper chamber of Congress.

He achieved great success during his course, but when he asserts that racism is non-existent in the United States, other blacks turn away from him. His message is full of optimism, and he strives to unite his party, but he is not well known to Americans, and only 1% said they would vote for him.

Earlier, ultra-conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 44, launched his campaign to run the Republican race to nominate a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. According to the BBC, DeSantis describes himself as a Trump-style conservative, but without his faults.

DeSantis is betting on Trump’s exit from the electoral race due to the increasing legal threats he faces, according to the theory of the last man standing, which is based on keeping Trump’s supporters satisfied with him and avoiding conflicts with the aim of attracting them to his side when Trump is forced to withdraw.

However, DeSantis has also recently begun to direct criticism of his main rival, questioning Trump’s commitment to conservatism and his prospects for defeating incumbent President Joe Biden.

There is also Asa Hutchinson (72 years), a former legislator who became governor of Arkansas, and this candidate represents the moderate wing within the GOP, especially since he is from the old school of the party and one of Trump’s outspoken critics.

Hutchinson has managed his term in a way that appeals to conservatives, but he has yet to win the support of the 1%.

Vivek Ramaswamy (37 years) is the youngest among the constellation of Republican candidates, and he is a businessman of Indian origin who has built a company that combats all the social, environmental, and cultural initiatives supported by big companies.

Ramaswamy is also considered more attached to Trump’s hardline policy, especially on labor, education, and migration issues, than Trump himself, but he lies on the sidelines of the political arena.

Several Republicans who had taken steps to prepare for a run in 2024 ultimately bowed out. They include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

 

Trump Opponents

The large number of Republican candidates does not mean that Trump’s fortunes have declined, especially since he told Fox News last February: “The more the merrier,” which means that the greater the number of candidates, the greater the likelihood of dispersal of anti-Trump votes, and thus this will be in his favor.

In 2016, Trump was able to eliminate 16 rival candidates, in addition to obtaining good percentages in the states represented by his competitors in the primaries before 2016, and he took Marco Rubio out of the race by defeating him in Florida and Jeb Bush in Carolina.

After winning the presidency, Trump kept boasting that he had defeated 16 candidates in the 2016 primaries before winning the party’s national convention nomination, and then defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The rivalry was suppressed in 2020, as there was no competitor to Trump for the Republican nomination, while 11 candidates competed with him this time, with the main goal of preventing him from winning the party nomination.

Although the circumstances of 2024 will be somewhat different from the circumstances of 2016, Trump appears to be clearly ahead of Nikki Haley in South Carolina, while in Florida, he appears to be close to Ron DeSantis.

In those elections, Trump was not pursued by this many lawsuits in the courts, including his accusation on June 8, 2023, of mishandling confidential documents at his home in Florida, which could launch a federal trial could be the most serious legal threat against the former president in his quest to regain the White House, according to the Associated Press.

The New York Times said that it is the first time in American history that a former president faces federal charges, which puts the country in an exceptional position because Trump is not only a former president but also the most likely candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidential elections.

The case adds to the growing legal risk for Trump, who has already been charged in New York and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that could also lead to criminal charges.

But the lawsuits, seen as just part of a conspiracy by a GOP base that has remained mostly loyal to Trump so far, could impact centrist Republicans who want more change.

On her part, Jennifer Horn, former New Hampshire GOP chair, said: “The GOP grassroots has become so dependent on Trump to raise money and energize the voter base that abandoning him is not possible.”

Ten GOP senators officially endorsed Trump, with several others leaning that way and several dozen House members also on board. DeSantis has no Senate endorsements and just a handful of House Republicans backing him.

 

The Front-Runner Candidate

The latest polls indicate that Trump and DeSantis are leading the race, with a significant advantage for the former president.

Trump dominates among likely Republican primary voters with 49%, while DeSantis is expected to get 19% of the vote, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll conducted in May.

As for the rest of the candidates, the gap is large with their closest competitors, as Pence received only 5%, Nikki Haley 4%, and 1% each for Christie and Scott.

Candidates who oppose Trump are expected to face a major challenge in their states, and their percentages against Trump in opinion polls could be dangerous indicators for them.

But Trump, who is considered the front-runner in opinion polls, is not satisfied with the proportions in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, where the primaries will be held.

It will be a difficult task for Trump if he fails early in the race or even if he is defeated in at least one state, but the party base shows that the candidate closest to success is again Trump.

It is noteworthy that the U.S. presidency cannot be won without the support of 40% of independent voters across the country, as this matter may not be in Trump’s interest this time.

Trump may receive a high degree of flattery within the GOP with the support of his base in the primaries, but he will be seen as a polarizing and tied presidential candidate who must win votes from elsewhere.

Trump’s continued support in the party may not be enough in the general elections that would increase the party’s votes.

Whatever happens to the party, Trump will risk losing the presidency, but if the hypothesis that the party should outperform Trump works, the other candidates’ chances may increase.

(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)

Republican candidates for the U.S. presidential elections will face each other in a first debate organized on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a state that usually witnesses intense competition between Republicans and Democrats in every election, and the Democratic president won in 2020 by a narrow margin, according to AFP.

In order for the Republican candidates to participate in the debate, they must fulfill a series of criteria (polls, fundraising…) in addition to their commitment to support the Republican candidate that the party will eventually choose.

If the number of candidates is large, a second debate can be held on August 24, according to what was announced by the party’s chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel.

The Republican primaries, which will be held in each state, will begin in February 2024, and the winner will face in November 2024 the candidate chosen by the Democratic Party, and it will most likely be the current President, Joe Biden.