Prevent nightmare (Part II)
In last week’s column I wrote about asking political scientists to use their expertise to identify scenarios whereby Joe Biden doesn’t become the Democratic nominee and Donald Trump the Republican.
It was agreed that the only way Biden wouldn’t win the Democratic nomination was if another prominent Democrat challenged him for it as soon as possible, with the figure most likely to play that role being former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who would serve as something of a stalking horse for more credible contenders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
We felt that Biden would likely withdraw from such a competitive primary and that VP Kamala Harris would eventually enter but at a disadvantage that would leave her not much better off than in 2020, resulting in a Newsom-Whitmer ticket that Democrats would vastly prefer to Biden-Harris.
In contrast, whereas the Democrats at least recognize they have a problem— getting stuck with Biden or Harris—Republicans seem to see their problem (Trump) as not so much a problem as a solution, in part because they apparently prioritize loyalty to Trump over winning elections.
Democrats are trying to work around Biden and Harris; Republicans are gluing themselves, at least for the time being and somewhat inexplicably and suicidally, to Trump.
As such, in assessing the Republican race, our discussants agreed that (1) Trump was likely to lose to any Democrat other than Harris; (2) the only chance for Republicans to stop Trump would be to quickly winnow their field and unite behind a single alternative; (3) given the fizzling out of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign (reminiscent of Scott Walker’s in 2016 and even John Connolly’s in 1980), the most likely Trump alternative was Nikki Haley; and (4) Haley would be favored over any possible Democratic nominee in a year when the big issues (economy/inflation, immigration, crime, etc.) favored Republicans.
The conventional wisdom—that the Republican race must quickly become binary in nature for there to be any chance to stop Trump, and that stopping Trump was necessary for Republican victory in November—was thus upheld. In addition, it was agreed that to winnow the field sufficiently quickly, Haley would have to finish a respectable second in both Iowa (where DeSantis appears to have invested heavily) and New Hampshire (where polls already show her in second).
This would set up a binary contest in a state, South Carolina, where, lest we forget, Haley was once a fairly popular governor.
Given that South Carolina might also be the most pro-military place in America, every Haley ad could highlight the revelations from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly that Trump despises wounded veterans, that he views them as “losers and suckers” because they sacrificed when there wasn’t “anything in it for them.”
Each of those ads could ask families with veterans whether they would want someone with such a view of military service as their commander-in-chief.
If Haley loses South Carolina, Trump becomes the presumptive nominee, on the grounds that if you can’t win your home state you can’t win others, but if she were to pull off the upset, it would transform the race and possibly bring into play what Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen calls her “ace in the hole”: the fact that a majority of GOP primaries are in states that either don’t require party registration or allow those registered as independents to vote in them.
In Olsen’s view, those independents, after a Haley upset in South Carolina that produced a genuinely competitive GOP primary, would have incentives to cast ballots for her out of desire to avoid another BidenTrump matchup and the possibility of a second Trump term.
One of our political analysts also made a point that struck home—that the fate of Biden and Trump are in some respects joined, in the sense that if Democrats failed to draw what they see as their weakest opponent (Trump), with consequently higher risk of losing, they would be more willing to jettison Biden, and that if Republicans failed to draw what they see as their weakest opponent (Biden or Harris), with consequently higher risk of losing, they would be more willing to jettison Trump.
The country could benefit from a general election in which the “blue state model” (Newsom-Whitmer) is pitted against the “red state model” (Haley, paired with Sen. Tim Scott or DeSantis).
And the Republican Party could especially benefit from a primary in which an heir of Ronald Reagan is pitted against the grotesque deformity of Reaganism that is Trump.
Trump would still, of course, contemplate going third party, but this is where a Haley promise of a presidential pardon might dissuade him and even encourage him to turn out his fans on her behalf in November.
The only problem: The Democratic nominee would likely secretly make the same pardon promise, only in their case to encourage that third-party bid and thereby guarantee Democratic victory.
And since Trump doesn’t care at all about the GOP, the ideological direction of the country, or who wins the presidency if he doesn’t, his desire to gain revenge on Haley would make him more likely to accept the Democrat offer.
Swell guy that he is.