The wide 2024 highway

Everyone now needs to pick a lane? I'd prefer a Constitutional conservative roadhog.

Back when our politics had some sanity, I used to put these sorts of posts up during the summer and early fall of the year before a Presidential election. But the Presidential campaign season has now pretty much become one that begins immediately after midterms, and the new buzzword among the politicos is that of occupying a “lane” in the race. (For example, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan would be occupying the “moderate Trump hating” lane once he gets in next spring, a few weeks after his state is doomed to at least four years of Obama-wannabe Wes Moore because he failed to build much of a GOP bench.)

Because Joe Biden has changed what’s left of his mind to now insist he’s running again in 2024 - only to perhaps back off the declaration in remarks last week - that news is clearing the Democrat field that may have assumed Biden would actually follow through on a campaign promise to be a one-term president if his health declined. California Governor Gavin Newsom, perhaps the front-runner for the nomination if Biden were to withdraw, was the latest to take a pass, deferring a run to 2028. And it may have to be Biden: notice the lack of support for a Kamala Harris bid to succeed him.

Since the chances of me supporting the Democrat nominee are somewhere less than zero, though, my interest is seeing who runs on the conservative side. Indeed, my Constitution Party could do much better than the grifter they chose in 2020, but I’m going to presume for the sake of argument that you’ve read this far because you want to see who I think will run against Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

There’s an argument out there that Donald Trump is the best man for the job because he has the experience and the most passionate supporters. I won’t argue the first point, but something I saw the other day driving up to my in-laws begs to differ with the second: instead of the Trump flag flying in front of the house, there was a similarly-styled DeSantis flag. Obviously that could be one outlier, but election results don’t lie and the failure to win back the Georgia Senate seat with Herschel Walker means a large number of Trump’s hand-picked candidates failed in high-profile races in swing states: he got J.D. Vance in Ohio but lost with Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona, Tudor Dixon in Michigan, and Walker in Georgia. And while Trump initially endorsed Lee Zeldin in the New York governor’s race (and helped him raise $1.5 million in September) it was Ron DeSantis who came on to help Zeldin make his closing argument, and perhaps secured the House for the Republicans with gains in New York Congressional districts. “DeSantis is so far up in his home state he’s in other states campaigning,” said one political observer. “That’s not about the Florida election.”

The coalition that got Trump over the finish line in 2016 was not made up of a lot of traditional Republicans. It was a volatile mix of disaffected working-class voters who saw Trump as he portrayed himself on The Apprentice and liked his pro-America stance on immigration and protectionist spin on trade, which differed from the Chamber of Commerce amnesty and free trade approach most Republicans seemed to favor. Blue-collar men who used to be Democrats were the Trump backers who broke down Hillary Clinton’s “firewall” of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And as I’ve said many times before after coming to the conclusion, backing Trump is where the rank-and-file of the TEA Party went after the Republican Congress dashed their hopes with a puddle of excuses as to why they failed in opposing the uberliberal Obama agenda.

While the latter group took its turn to put a thumb in the eye of “establishment” Republicans by backing Trump, I believe there were probably as many agnostic Democrats in the Trump mix who voted in the general as there were Republicans, and they came on board after a GOP primary season where Trump’s name recognition - and up to $5 billion in free media - helped him outlast a crowded field of lesser lights by sucking up their media oxygen.

But the political world has changed, and while Donald Trump still draws headlines he’s alienated a lot of his previous supporters who see a 76-year-old man yelling “get off my lawn!” in so many words by rerunning the 2020 election as they deal with the economic and foreign policy messes his now-octogenarian successor has made. Trump himself would turn 80 midstream should he win another term, but he seems to have his mental faculties - for now. While the thought that Donald Trump could bring us back to a pre-pandemic economy and world situation is pleasing enough, reality bites in the form of the new electoral map: while a lot of population has moved to GOP-backing states, whoever wins the GOP nomination in 2024 needs to get back at least three* of the five states that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020 (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.) I would say the best bets are Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, but it’s still a tough row to hoe.

As I mentioned above, there is a #NeverTrump lane among establishment Republicans who want their power to be a slightly less pastel version of Beltway Democrats to somehow magically reappear. It’s the centrist campaign that John Kasich tried in 2016 and Larry Hogan will negotiate in 2024. (Hogan’s friend Chris Christie, who helped Larry become governor back in the day and had Larry’s 2016 endorsement, is another possibility.) One could also argue that Mike Pence would be this style of candidate, too, since he’s the villain in the eyes of many Trump supporters. Unfortunately, Mike’s talked a good conservative game, but several times when the chips were down he folded, such as the religious freedom debate he was placed within as governor of Indiana.

This is also the same group that constantly tries to convince us that Americans want a moderate third party yet fail at creating one election cycle after election cycle. Note the last somewhat successful outsider third party presidential candidate, Ross Perot, was anti-establishment and pro-America on trade, which is why Donald Trump called the party Perot eventually formed (the Reform Party) home in his very first run for the Oval Office back in 2000.

Then we have a group of Beltway insiders who believe they can somehow cobble together an insider coalition to defeat Trump for the nomination - guys (and girls) like Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton, and Rick Scott. I think Ted Cruz still somehow transcends this list with a reputation as an outsider - as does Rand Paul, should he decide to try again - but they may not be interested in another go-round with Trump in the race. With the exception of Haley, a former governor, and Pompeo, who served in the House before becoming Secretary of State, all the others currently serve in the Senate.

Perhaps my favorite track is that of conservatives with the executive experience as governor. Besides the obvious Ron DeSantis, you could put Greg Abbott of Texas on that track, with Kristi Noem of South Dakota as a longer shot. (She’s probably on the short list as a VP choice, though.) All three are in office until 2026, but Abbott is not term-limited as the others are so there wouldn’t be a surprise if one or more passed up a 2024 run.

If the Republicans wish to be rid of Donald Trump, they would be well advised to limit the number of opponents he has. A 16-person field in 2016 enabled Trump’s passionate 35% of the party to win a number of early primaries for him, then the rest of the field exhausted themselves by thinking they were the only ones who could stop the Trump train and staying in the fight until it was too late.

Talk it over right now, folks. We know the #NeverTrump lane will be taken, but if we could hold the number from the other lanes to two or three, the Republicans might just have a better candidate than Trump waiting in the wings for Joe Biden. That’s what we need, but we have to wait a little longer to see how the race plays out.

*Georgia + Pennsylvania would work in getting to 270 as well, but I think Pennsylvania is the least likely to flip back.