Republicans Opposed to Trump Grapple With Consolidation

The still-crowded GOP primary continues to shield the former president.

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Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott at the Fox Business Republican Candidate Debate held at the Reagan Library on September 27, 2023, in Simi Valley, California. (Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS—The failure of the Republican primary field to consolidate behind a consensus alternative to Donald Trump—plus the lack of any organized effort or mechanism to force out struggling candidates—is stymying GOP insiders working to block the former president from the 2024 nomination.

Trump leads his nearest competitor by 46 percentage points in national polling and fares almost as well in key early primary states. No candidates besides Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are cracking double digits. Yet less than 75 days until Iowa’s caucuses, none of the former president’s six other recognizable primary opponents appear to be going anywhere. Here in Nevada, along the sidelines of an annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference, GOP financiers and activists supporting alternative candidates conceded the obvious: It’s a major problem. 

“It has to consolidate,” said Fred Zeidman, a veteran Republican donor from Houston who is backing Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and ex-South Carolina governor. “That’s really the story.” Asked by The Dispatch if there was some way to push stragglers out of the race, or persuade them to pull the plug on their campaigns, Zeidman was candid: “No.” 

Several factors are working against consolidation. But one rather crucial obstacle to slimming the primary field is that even some Republican insiders particularly anxious about Trump winning the nomination are content to give their preferred candidate more time to prove viability. For instance, Eric Levine, a Republican donor from New York who’s backing Sen. Tim Scott,, believes Trump “is completely unqualified to be president.” 

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  1. Bob Cherichella

    Full & fair disclosure, I’m for any Republican candidate still standing over Trump but my strong preference is Ambassador Haley.
    She was a terrific Governor and an outstanding UN Ambassador. Nikki has also shown how to run a presidential campaign, husbanding resources. She won the 1st debate hands down and more than held her own in the second. Her foreign policy chops are there for all to see, you know exactly where she stands.
    Trump gets the nomination and we lose; Haley gets the nomination and there will be nothing the “crooked Dems or Deep State” can do to keep this from being the Red Wave we were supposed to get in ‘22.

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    Mike B

    I worry about how many who support a rival will actually fall back to Trump for their second choice (or just not vote) instead of shifting to another Trump rival if their preferred candidate drops out.

    Still, I think most of the non-Trump voters are *against* Trump more than *for* their first choice and will continue to support one of the remaining Trump rivals.

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  3. Spook1320-Generaluse

    1. National polling is, ***on its face*** unimportant. We do not do a national primary. And, the general is a series of 51 contests.

    But it's just easier for these polling agencies to gain attention, I suppose, and few want to do the ***substantive*** work of gaining ***serious*** insight into (a) the early states and (b) the widely-understood battleground states.

    2. There has been practically zero state polling in the first primary state, New Hampshire, since the 2nd debate.

    Hard to understand how, then, we're supposed to reach any conclusions there on November 3. At all.

    3. That said, I'm all for consolidation, but I believe the campaigns should be talking privately right now about how they can come to covert agreement on some objective measure that will have them align behind one candidate following South Carolina's primary. And that measure needs to be sensitive to which one has the momentum at that point... not unlike how the Ds consolidated in 2020.

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    Mike B

    "... with the floor votes mere formalities ..."

    Like January 6 is supposed to be?

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    Alexander Ioannidis

    As a DeSantis supporter, Haley is at the bottom of my list. If my candidate drops out, I would likely switch to Trump. My support for DeSantis is because I see him as a much more principled and effective conservative than I view Trump.

    I dislike Trump, but I dislike Haley even more. She is just as dishonest and will do or say anything to get elected.

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      To paraphrase a line from the movie North Dallas 40, if you were to remove all the politicians who would say anything to get elected, you wouldn’t have enough players left to field a special teams squad.

      Between DeSantis, Haley, Scott, Christie, Burgham, I’ll vote for which ever one of them gets the lead.

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    C C Writer

    I don't know what else Sununu told Haley, except I hope it was something like "If you want my endorsement, if you want your numbers to keep going up and not stall, it is time for you to distance yourself from Trump and stay distanced. You can't keep playing off both sides against each other if you want to be the non-Trump candidate that voters are demanding. If his toxicity level starts to spike due to some development or other, it'll be too late then. If you want to be the heir apparent to the normies' GOP--and if anyone besides Liz could pull it off it's you--then you must start acting like it. Don't keep your eye on DeSantis, don't try to be a version of him. Keep your eye on where you truly want to go. Be a leader."

    I'll be waiting. But for the cynical flip-flops, which insult my intelligence and have me worried about what else she'd be a weathervane on and what types she'd place in positions of responsibility, she seems qualified.

    (Please don't give me a link to a Twix page. They take about 45 minutes to load, and they don't tell me anything beyond what you already said.)

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    VcL

    Just a really wild idea: Anyone see the possibility of Haley and DeSantis teaming up? They are attracting very different segments of the electorate, but I think both are viewed broadly as sane and acceptable -- even if neither is everyone's first choice.

    The rub is that someone would have to run as Prez and the other as VP. They are both young and could leverage the VP spot to a future presidency, but I'm not sure either would be willing to set their egos aside.

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      I suggested that a week ago and I think it would be a winning combination. The kid who would be on top and who would be the sidekick

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      PaulH

      I think it makes sense, and might unite the party. But it is difficult to pull off while they're both neck and neck. If one of them gains a clear advantage, maybe after South Carolina, then it could happen.

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        C C Writer

        I have no interest in "uniting" with DeSantis. Or anyone who panders to Trumpism.

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  8. Dustin M

    If someone other than Trump wins the primary, I think we will ultimately be able to look favorably upon Pence's role in making that happen. First by running a months-long campaign talking about how Trump failed to respect the constitution, then by getting out as soon as it was clear he couldn't win, and (hopefully) the clincher will be when he endorses either Desantis or Haley over Trump. I just have to hope that at that point, every evangelical who initially got on the Trump train via Pence serving as their permission slip will recognize that it is now time for them to promptly follow Pence off the train while they still have a chance. As an evangelical myself I can attest that Pence's presence was indeed a big factor for many of us who, for at least some length of time, were willing to tolerate a politically transactional Trump presidency despite his clear moral failings. Unfortunately there are clearly some who were then wooed by Trump post-2016 to fully embrace the cult instead of keeping it purely transactional, but there could easily be many more who are willing and able to follow Pence's arc once it's time to actually start voting.

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  9. The Pragmatic Conservative

    One argument I'm surprised Trump's opponents haven't been making is the fact that even if he wins, he'd only be able to serve a single term. Head to head polls seem to give some justification that Trump actually can beat Biden (although this could easily change once he has the nomination and Democrats start running ads featuring January 6 and Trump's other failures), so the electability argument seems dead. Aside from consolidation, the remaining candidate will need to make an argument to peel off the MAGA lite voters, and they're running out of time to find that.

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    1. CB76

      “even if he wins, he'd only be able to serve a single term”

      I’m not sure either Trump or his most ardent supporters agree.

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        Paul Britton

        They’d be thinking, “President for life!”

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  10. Jgwadman

    The problem is if DeSantis drops out, I think, at least half, if not more, of his supporters will probably move to Trump and then where are we. Hard to watch people be so dumb. Who would of thought a serial adulterer, reality game show host, and shady business man would be able to delude so many. Sad very sad ...

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      Blake Fischer

      I think you’re right. I’ve seen several people write about this this week. I myself have said the whole field needs to get behind Haley, but I’m more convinced currently that without DeSantis staying in, she can’t possibly win because so much of his base’s 2nd choice is Trump. What a dumb world we live in.

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