Horse race
The consensus among political elites holds that a large divided GOP presidential field would help former president Donald Trump. That view is likely wrong.
The common wisdom goes something like this: In 2016, Trump offered a vision that attracted a plurality of Republicans, but not a majority. The large number of major candidates—17 at one point—kept a clear opponent from emerging. Too many candidates stayed in the race for too long, allowing Trump to win a large majority of convention delegates with plurality victories.
There’s something to this view. Trump won all 50 of South Carolina’s delegates with less than a third of the vote as five candidates split the other two-thirds. He also won similarly lopsided delegate advantages with mere plurality victories in Super Tuesday contests in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
The fact that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Gov. John Kasich remained in the race in crucial primaries between Super Tuesday and March 15 also gave Trump huge delegate hauls from Florida, Missouri and Illinois despite winning less than 50 percent of the vote.
But this simplistic view overlooks that Trump really secured the nomination after the field winnowed down. Ted Cruz and Kasich secured early outsized delegate victories with pluralities of the vote in Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas. Cruz could have surged ahead of Trump as the race turned to the Northeast in early April. Instead, as some Republican candidates dropped out, Trump swept the field by winning all six April primaries with majorities of the vote.
When a voter’s first choice drops out, she or he always looks for the second-best choice. For most Republicans, Trump—not his rivals—was closer to their views than either Cruz or Kasich.
Trump’s 2016 strength was the polar opposite of what it is now. Today, he is the choice of the most-committed conservatives, but those voters were Cruz’s bastion two presidential cycles ago.
The experience of 2016 poses two lessons for 2024. First, an early large field does not automatically redound to Trump’s benefit. Too few delegates are at stake in the early races for him to build a lead with plurality victories. But it is crucial that candidates with no chance of winning drop out before Super Tuesday.
It’s also essential that the non-Trump candidate who emerges from 2024’s early contests is broadly acceptable to most Republican voters open to nominating someone other than the former president.
This poses challenges for each of Trump’s potential foes. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is flying high now because many MAGA-oriented voters like his brash persona. But that brashness rankles many of the more traditional Republicans, who remain a large force within the party even as they no longer control it.
If DeSantis leans too far toward Trumpian rhetoric and policy, these voters might decide there is not a dime’s bit of difference between him and Trump.
Republican elites should fret less about the number of candidates and worry more about their quality. The party’s voters will eventually settle on the person who comes closest to representing the party’s wide range of viewpoints.
If Trump’s opponents push someone who doesn’t do that, he will prevail no matter when the field shakes out.