WASHINGTON — To some, Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 looks a lot like his winning run in 2016 — and at the same time is entirely unprecedented in the history of American politics.
As in the 2016 campaign cycle, Trump faces a herd of main challengers who could split the opposition vote and allow the former businessman and TV celebrity to win primaries – and delegates. – with as little as 30% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the Trump of 2024 is not the Trump of 2016: he is a former president who practically controls the Republican Party; he also faces two criminal trials that could generate embarrassing details about his conduct and two other investigations are still ongoing.
“He’s the favorite,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “But there are a lot of things that will happen between now and the appointment.”
Many of these events, he added, “are unprecedented, meaning they are impossible to predict.”
Always the favorite
As in 2016, Trump is the Republican frontrunner pursued by a long list of challengers.
This time around, Trump’s opponents include Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Larry Elder and Will Hurd.
The RealClearPolitics website’s average of recent polls puts Trump at 53% among Republican voters, well ahead of DeSantis at just under 21% and Pence at just over 6%.
“I think Trump is stronger this year than he was in 2016,” said Chris Jackson, pollster and senior vice president at Ipsos. He noted that DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has very similar policies to Trump, reflecting the fact that the anti-Trump vote among Republicans is smaller now than it was then.
Just like in 2016, Trump still presents himself as an outsider fighting the “establishment,” regardless that he is a former president who leads much of the Republican Party and has cronies in key positions in GOP organizations at across the country.
In this election, Trump is running against a “deep state” that he says, without evidence, is trying to derail his campaign “using law enforcement” and indictments.
“They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Trump told supporters in Iowa on Friday.
2024 election polls
Trump has a 32-point lead in the GOP field, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average.
Here’s how candidates vote:
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Asset: 53%
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DeSantis: 20.9%
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Pence: 6.1%
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Haley: 3.6%
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Scott: 3.3%
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Christie: 2.5%
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Ramaswamy: 2.4%
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Hutchison: 0.9%
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Elder: 0.7%
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Burgum: 0.1%
A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll in June showed Trump with a 25-point lead, with 48% support to DeSantis’ 23%. All other candidates were in the single digits in this poll.
Pence and ‘New Leadership’
Some of his opponents see a key difference from 2016: Trump has become his own establishment, with a record that challengers will try to exploit in order to turn the tide of that previous election.
Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president but is now running against him, said during a stop in Iowa last week that turning things around needed “new leadership within the Republican Party,” as well as in the nation as a whole.
Pence is looking to make inroads in Iowa, which opens the nominating process next year with caucuses, in part by using its foreign policy record.
A Pence-aligned political action committee released an ad disparaging Trump for being “an apologist for thugs and dictators,” references to the former president’s praise for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The main challenger, DeSantis, is planning a series of political speeches designed to highlight differences with Trump on issues such as law enforcement and the economy. Last week, DeSantis challenged Trump’s record on border security
Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, is focusing his campaign on New Hampshire, site of the first Republican primary. He is also the GOP’s biggest critic of Trump’s legal troubles, particularly his indictment for his handling of classified information.
Campaigning from courtrooms
One difference between 2024 and 2016, or any other presidential primary race: the frontrunner may have to campaign from the courtrooms.
The former president is already on trial in a secret money case in New York as well as in the classified documents case in Florida.
Trump also warned his supporters that more indictments may be forthcoming. There are two ongoing investigations dealing with efforts to overturn his 2020 election of President Joe Biden, one a state investigation based in Atlanta, Georgia, and the other a federal review based in Washington, D.C.
“Unprecedented”
There are many predictions out there, but no one knows for sure how the trials will affect the 2024 election, whether Trump is convicted, acquitted, or left in limbo by hung juries.
“It’s totally unprecedented,” Ayres said. “There is no way to assess the impact.”
So far, it appears the indictments have hurt Trump with independent voters but made him stronger with the types of Republican voters who decide the primaries.
Most voters on all sides want the trials to take place before people vote, but that seems unlikely. Also: If Trump is found guilty, he will likely appeal and that process could take years.
All the while, Trump will likely be campaigning against the indictments. Jackson said Trump was successful as a foreign candidate because he reflected so much “Republican anger against the establishment. Trump did that very effectively.”
The Debate Factor
As in 2016, Republicans are counting on the debates to change the dynamics of the race.
Trump used the early debates in 2015 to develop and solidify his frontrunner status, but he may not play this time around. The former president has repeatedly suggested he might skip the first debate, Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, because he’s so far ahead in the polls
Other candidates see the debates as their best chance to catch up – if they can qualify.
Applicants must prove they have at least 40,000 unique donors, a pretty high bar for some of the lesser-known applicants.
Republican debaters must also pledge support for the eventual nominee, a tough request for candidates who fear a re-nomination from Trump. Trump also balked at the idea, just as he did in 2016.
Another flashback: Trump skipped a 2016 debate held just before the Iowa caucuses, and opponents made a big deal of his absence.
Trump also lost Iowa to Texas Senator Ted Cruz (and protested the outcome).
“It’s gonna get meaner”
Most opponents avoided attacking Trump over the indictments, echoing another aspect of 2016: Challengers tended to attack Trump rather than Trump, seeking to become the main alternative to him.
If they want to avoid a 2016-like outcome, opponents must confront the 2024 version of Trump on his record, his legal troubles, his struggles with independent voters and his chances in the general election against Biden.
“All of this means that at some point this contest is going to get nastier than it did in 2016,” said political scientist Lara Brown, author of “Jockeying for the American President: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants.”
Brown said the challengers had no choice but to take on Trump aggressively.
“At some point they have to,” she said, “if they want to win.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Can Trump win again? Why 2024 looks like 2016 – with key differences