Flake, Kasich face obstacles if they take on Trump
Mitt Romney’s recent diatribe against Donald Trump prompted speculation he might challenge the president in 2020. The former Massachusetts governor turned Utah senator quickly said, “I’m not running.”
However, two other prominent Republicans have refused to rule out challenging Trump: Jeff Flake, who retired from the Senate rather than buck pro-trump sentiment in the Arizona GOP, and John Kasich, who ended two terms as Ohio’s governor Monday.
Kasich has openly floated the prospect of challenging Trump in the GOP primaries or as an independent. “All options are on the table,” he said in recent interviews. Flake has been less explicit, saying “I haven’t ruled it out.”
But if Kasich’s — or Flake’s — principal goal is to deny Trump a second term, history provides some clues as to the option most likely to succeed.
Incumbent presidents who faced serious challenges for renomination are generally less likely to be re-elected, even if they win renomination. Both Jimmy Carter, challenged by Edward Kennedy in 1980, and George H.W. Bush, facing Pat Buchanan in 1992, defeated their party rivals. Neither won a second term.
On the other hand, independent candidacies are invariably unsuccessful in affecting the outcome: Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, John Anderson in 1980, George Wallace in 1968, Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace in 1948, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. All lost and, except for Roosevelt, had little effect on the end result.
Both routes pose significant challenges.
Primary challenge
A GOP primary challenger would face the reality that the Republican establishment remains solidly behind Trump. In fact, the president’s political advisers are already planning to merge his re-election campaign with the Republican National Committee, enabling the two to divide responsibility for winning his second term.
If Kasich wants to challenge Trump in the GOP primaries, his initial target would almost certainly be the first primary state of New Hampshire, bypassing the Iowa caucuses. That’s because he has more organized support there than in any other state outside Ohio. He finished a distant second to Trump in the 2016 primary, polling 16 percent to Trump’s 35 percent, and some of the state’s bestknown Republicans never backed Trump.
The rank-and-file is split. In a New Hampshire poll last summer, 4 in 10 Republicans said a primary challenge to Trump would be “a good thing,” while slightly more, 47 percent, said it would be a “bad thing.”
Of course, Buchanan proved in 1992 that a onestate challenge to a sitting president can’t take away the nomination though it did, in fact, illustrate the weaknesses that presaged Bush’s ultimate defeat.
Independent candidacy
An independent presidential candidacy is extremely difficult to pull off; getting on the ballot in enough states is very expensive and time-consuming, and only candidates who achieve a certain level of support in national polls can qualify for the televised debates.
Besides, the current political landscape makes an independent challenge even more problematic. Trump’s solid base assures him of at least 40 percent of the vote, leaving 60 percent for the Democratic nominee and an independent challenger.
Every additional vote one of them gets means less for the other anti-trump candidate. The closer they finish, the more likely Trump could win. Put another way, if Trump only gets 40 percent, he can’t win a two-way race. But if two opponents split the opposition vote, Trump’s chances improve.
Presidential races are complicated, since the goal is electoral votes, rather than popular votes. Trump got 3 million fewer popular votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016, but a majority of electoral votes. (In the three-way 1912 race, Democrat Woodrow Wilson got 42 percent of the popular vote, but more than 80 percent of electoral votes).
Some top GOP officials have talked of changing party rules to prevent a primary challenge to Trump. That’s probably impossible, but when the Republican National Committee meets Wednesday in Albuquerque, some sort of nonbinding endorsement may occur.
Meanwhile, no sooner had Kasich signed up with a talent agency and as a CNN political commentator than Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, fired off a tweet calling the former Ohio governor “the original swamp creature.”
So they’re taking the possibility of a 2020 challenge seriously.