Consolidation, Sort Of

2024 isn’t 2016.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speak with Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, at the Thanksgiving Family Forum in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 17, 2023. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

It feels strange to celebrate the consolidation of the anti-Trump Republican field at a moment when a three-candidate race in Iowa has never seemed more certain.

After all, the point of consolidating the field is to produce a two-candidate race. Trump vs. Not Trump, right? When the frontrunner is polling at 46 percent in the early states, the only way to beat him is for a single challenger to win the other 55. When there are two challengers, each of them credible, the math is insuperable.

A prisoner’s dilemma among conservatives made consolidation impossible in 2016. On this date eight years ago, three Trump alternatives were polling north of 12 percent; the second-place candidate, Ben Carson, was just 9 points behind the frontrunner. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were each gaining ground in national surveys, and even prominent also-rans like Jeb Bush and John Kasich could argue, vaguely plausibly, that their numbers would rise as Iowa approached and Republican primary voters started getting serious about the race.

Everyone involved had reason to believe they might emerge as the One True Challenger to Trump, so no one had a reason to drop out early. And no one ever considered a serious contender, save poor Scott Walker, did. You know how that primary turned out.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Marion Coatsworth-Hay

    The Dispatch scored a good one with you, Mr. Catoggio. Your job isn't to write things with which I always agree. It's to write smart things, things that provoke me to thought. You do it very well.

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  2. Cody Murphy

    Come quickly well placed Lightning bolt at Mara-Lago that puts that man in a Coma.

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    Mandy B.

    "the unsavory, illiberal DeSantis."

    Is DeSantis unsavory and illiberal? I'm not at all convinced.

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      BillAZ

      Well, I'll bet if you look up "unsavory and illiberal" in the dictionary there will probably be a picture of DeSantis just a few pages away from Ted Cruz and "oleaginous" and Tuberville and "moron". 😉

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  4. Wes.Bridges

    From the ground in Florida, I'm not sure that DeSantis can or has "united the tribes." I'm not certain those two tribes are susceptible of unification. The Republican Party needs to decide what it wants to be. I've come to describe myself as "conservative," as distinct from the Republican Party, which is no longer. I, for one, believe that conservatism begins with the fiscal side of the equation.

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      Mandy B.

      As a fellow Floridian and lifelong conservative, I have always believed that my version of American conservatism (aka classical liberalism) begins with an appreciation of FREEDOM, and the conditions thereof. The economy is essential, but it's downstream from the constitution of any polity.

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      John N.

      Ruby red Collier County resident and former republican here. I'm pretty on board with that analysis.

      One minor quibble: "The Republican Party needs to decide what it wants to be."

      I think it has decided. At least, republican voters have decided.

      Trump sitting at 60% in national polls proves that.

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  5. R. James

    Nick wrote this article with his heart rather than his head. The Koch endorsement will not wear as well to the Republican primary electorate as it does to the donor and pundit classes. The Koch stamp of approval means that Haley is the most socially liberal and open borders friendly candidate in the race. That dog won't hunt in a 2023 GOP primary. Add to that the fact that she is more hawkish than most of the GOP electorate and you can see that there is a ceiling to Haley's ability to build a coalition large enough to beat Trump. Nick, himself, wrote the same thing a few weeks ago when he said that DeSantis is the only candidate that has positioned himself to make it possible to build a coalition that could defeat Trump. That was a far more level headed article than this one. It's not just MAGA diehards who will struggle to vote for Haley, social conservatives, immigration hawks and foreign policy skeptics will all struggle to go for Haley, especially with DeSantis still in the race. Anti-Trumpers need to avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good or they will ensure Trump's re-nomination by backing a person who cannot build a coalition to win a GOP primary.

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      Gcull94

      I don't think the endorsement will matter either way and will not hurt or help Haley that much other than extra cash.

      Also, I don't think either the maga or traditional conservative sides are compatible with each other. Maga will go for Trump no matter what and the only chance the non-Trump candidate has is to hope that a smaller 50% of Rs don't want Trump. Appealing to Trump voters will only destroy that chance as DeSantis has found out.

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    Retired Prosecutor

    A fairly optimistic, almost cheery, installment from Nick. Good work!

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    Normb1442

    A little thought-experiment: Haley closes to within 15 points in IA and Trump falls short of 50%. Haley then comes to within FIVE points of Trump in NH, and wins outright is SC. Super Tuesday in now looming.

    Trump's instinct is going to be pretend she's Hillary Clinton 2.0, and smear, smear, smear. But the sight of a 260-pound lunatic smearing a woman who has not been softened up for him by right-wing media for 20 years will not play well in many primary states. For most male MAGA voters, it's fine, but a lot of the females in that cohort may recognize...a lot of the males, and the secret ballot does still exist in this country. Trump is smart enough, and knows his base well enough, to realize all of this.

    And since Haley beats Biden handily in most polls, if I'm Trump, I go full Bobby Riggs vs. Margaret Court on her. Have a bouquet of roses handed to her as the debate begins. Agree with everything she says, or if that's not possible on some issues, jovially disagree. In short, treat her like a total incompetent to be humored, and even flattered a bit. It might even help in November to be able to point out how gracious Trump was to Haley. It's good practice for the coming campaign, since the Trump who's threatening to take down the Constitution today can't run on that in the fall, unless the whole country is beyond hope.

    If nothing else, it's got to throw Haley off her game, since it's not what she most likely expects from him.

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    1. CB76

      "But the sight of a 260-pound lunatic smearing a woman who has not been softened up for him by right-wing media for 20 years will not play well in many primary states."

      That's so cute that you think so! Trump openly attacking Nikki Haley will just be a cue to his voters that she is a threat and someone not to be trusted, and they'll fall in line against her just like everybody else he's done this to. Over and over and over again since 2015, this has been the way it has worked. There is zero reason to believe it would be any different now.

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        Normb1442

        Well, I can't deny what you say maybe the case. I do recall however that Haley was elected governor in the first place because she was attacked in the Republican primary in South Carolina as having had an affair, which she was able to prove she had not. This led her to rise from the status of also ran to contender to FrontRunner. Of course, that was before Trump was on the scene.

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    2. R. James

      Did you drop acid before this thought experiment?

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        Normb1442

        Why, with Trump in the world, would anyone need to drop acid? He's a walking hallucination.

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          Isaac Pigott

          I don’t know of any LSD tabs that would make me confuse Margaret Court for Billie Jean King.

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            Manleys

            Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Court, not Billie Jean King (who defeated Riggs).

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    3. Jefsut

      What if Trump buys Haley off by offering her the VP slot?

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        Normb1442

        He'd never do it. She doesn't owe him anything, and she's Independent enough that she can't be relied on to be an adoring toady, which is what he wants this time around. My money remains on Khristi Noem.

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  8. Dustin M

    If only someone could convince the culture-war loving right that there's no better way to own the libs than for the first female POTUS to be a Republican...

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      Gcull94

      Unfortunately, they aren't the smartest bunch in the world.

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  9. Andrew M

    I swear, all this "Trump is guaranteed to be the nominee because the Polls say so" malarkey is like a Greek tragedy. It serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy. All your efforts to stave off a tragedy will only serve to cause the tragedy.

    The only people who respond to Polls nowadays are the radically committed individuals. The rest of us either ignore them or never get asked in the first place because we didn't respond to previous polling.

    So when the media insists on keeping up the narrative, it drives the rest of us to either think that casting a vote for anyone other than Trump is a waste of time, so they either don't vote at all in the primary, or they vote for Trump just to go along with the crowd. 73 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020 can't ALL be wrong, right?

    (Yes, they can, and were. In his 77 years on this planet, Trump has not once demonstrated any leadership ability or character that would make him more qualified to be president than any of the other 190 million people who meet the constitutional requirements to be president and who are also not Joe Biden.)

    Please, stop with this nonsense. Put these polling numbers in context-it's only a small minority of the population saying they want Trump. The only numbers that matter are the votes cast, and the goal should be to get as many people out as possible rather than providing the Trump campaign with free advertising and advocacy.

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    1. CB76

      If it was a single poll or a handful of polls we were talking about I might agree. But we're talking about dozens of polls taken over a more than six month period, both nationally and in the various primary states, and they all consistently indicate a more than 45 point lead for Trump. That's... convincing.

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      1. Martin W Kraegel III

        Threshold issue in this primary race was always going to be whether or not to move on from Trump.

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      2. Martin W Kraegel III

        Exactly.

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    2. Joe

      Thanks for your vote of confidence. I agree, I'd be a far better President than Trump or Biden. I may be "green" but that's what advisors are for.

      I still think DeSantis can take the nomination. His ceiling is much higher than Haley's.

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        Xsearnold

        DeSantis has the same problem Ted Cruz did - no one can stand him. I've never understood why anyone cares who wins Iowa (or New Hampshire for that matter). I certainly think Haley is the better bet to win South Carolina, though.

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        1. Martin W Kraegel III

          It would seem in the final analysis that RDS has not survived contact with the voters.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Delenda Est

    So much of this is tilting at windmills. Reagan-Republicans are not going to save this country from Trumpist Fascism - not unless they vote en bloc for Joe Biden. Even now, it's not realistic to hope for that. There is no one coming to save us. Democrats have to go back into the breach again. We've defeated Trumpist forces three times in a throw since 2018, but still they keep coming, zombie-like. Bad as the threat of Fascism in America is, it's never enough to simply vote against something. You have to vote *for* a candidate, and fairly or not Joe Biden simply does not have the support to win again. Democrats must choose another standard-bearer, but party-inertia and in particular the inertia surrounding the modern presidency is preventing us from doing this. The waters are parting for Trump.

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    1. Wes.Bridges

      "If liberals insist that only fascists will enforce borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals refuse to do. "
      --David Frum, "The Atlantic"

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        Delenda Est

        Democrats are not going to activate ICE like a Gestapo, the way Trump and his cronies did.

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    2. Kittyecws

      I wouldn’t count Biden out. The same skepticism about the polls applies to Biden. I really doubt that Democrats will go for Trump. They might go for Haley, but not for Trump or RDS. Kennedy will likely draw more Qanon votes than Democrat votes. The other third-party candidates are crying in the wilderness. The Trump cult will go for him. There is no substitute. What a world!

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        Delenda Est

        Democrats under Biden are simply demoralized, particularly minority voters. This election cycle Biden is poised to hemorrhage a lot of those voters to 3rd parties (RFK is getting outsized Black support, it's a knife in the heart to Biden's chances). I think it's really not a policy thing so much as a charisma thing. Biden never had charisma, but it was enough for him to project normalcy vs. Trump in 2020. But that's not enough, this time. We face a real prospect of a 3 or 4-way race with no outright winner in the EC, and the House MAGA caucus handing the Presidency to Trump.

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        1. Kittyecws

          Well, there isn’t really an alternative, apparently in either party, so we are stuck with it.

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      2. Martin W Kraegel III

        Yeah...that's gonna be interesting. Trump is the central deity in the QAnon cult, OTOH they can convince themselves of some convoluted things (Trump and Kennedy are secretly working together to expose the cabal, blah blah blah). OTOH Kennedy antivaxxer bona fides could be potent especially as Trump has championed Operation Warp Speed in the past (he may tone that down for the general election campaign).

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    3. R. James

      Yes, vote for the guy who declared half the country threats to democracy and the republic while flanked by Marines. That's a defence of fascism?

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        Delenda Est

        Fascist forces in our politics are not some foreign threat. Democracies fall by lapsing into home-grown authoritarianism. The Founders would recognize Trump and his movement for what they are - a Demagogue and his Mob. The Founders warned us, they warned us, about figures like Trump. Biden did the hard thing and told the country the truth!

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      Xsearnold

      "...it's never enough to simply vote against something."
      Where have you been the last 20 years?

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    5. Martin W Kraegel III

      Gee you think that was accomplished just with progressive Democrats?

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        Delenda Est

        Of course it wasn't.

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