GOP subplot for 2024 begins to take shape
Haley, Pence lead potential field of future
WASHINGTON — Republicans this week are focused squarely on their convention’s star, President Donald Trump, and securing his reelection in November. But there’s also plenty of angling for what — or who — comes next.
Beyond the speeches, the spin and the stagecraft, the Republican National Convention is casting light on the early maneuvering that is already underway to determine the future of the party after Trump and who will emerge as its 2024 nominee.
“There’s a lot happening behind the scenes already,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant, who worked for the 2016 campaign of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Still, he said the contest won’t begin in earnest until after November, when the electorate decides whether Trump will go down in history as a one-term fluke or the founder of a new Republican Party.
The convention lineup includes a long list of potential future candidates, most notably Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, who spoke Monday night, and
Vice President Mike Pence, who will speak Wednesday.
Also allotted time slots: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Donald Trump Jr.
Many are expecting a 2024 repeat of 2016, which drew a massive field of senators, governors and former party officials — along with a reality TV star few took seriously at the time.
This time, “Mike Pence and Nikki Haley are, by far, the two greatest fan favorites out there,” says Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin and himself a 2016 candidate. “There’s others out there, but nobody else is even close in that stratosphere.”
If Trump loses, it could open the door to critics like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate who voiced alarm at Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and recently wrote a book and launched a new national advocacy group promoting “bipartisan, common-sense solutions.”
On the other end of the spectrum is Pence, who has spent years serving as Trump’s most loyal solider. His allies are keenly aware that the former Indiana governor’s political future will hinge on whether
Trump wins in November, and they have been laserfocused on that goal.
Pence has embarked on an aggressive campaign schedule that has included 73 trips to more than two dozen states since October. And he has been holding calls with conservative groups like the Susan B. Anthony List and Heritage Foundation, in addition to sitting for a whopping 152 regional interviews.
If Trump does win in November, it is unclear how another four years would affect Pence’s standing and whether he has the charisma or star power to
carry the president’s base on his own. One donor has quipped that Pence carries all of Trump’s baggage without carrying many of Trump’s supporters.
Pence in a Fox News interview sidestepped a question about whether he’s weighing a 2024 White House run.
“All my focus is getting this president reelected for four more years,” he said.
At the same time, buzz has been growing about Haley, the rare official who managed to emerge from the Trump administration with her reputation intact and arguably lifted. Since
her departure, she has been trying to keep a careful balance, maintaining some independence from the president while not directly drawing his ire.
In her speech Monday night, Haley gave an unabashed endorsement of the president while spending time introducing herself to viewers.
“I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small Southern town,” she said. “My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a black and white world.”