The 2024 Republican Primaries and the Back Road to the White House

The next presidential election will be held on November 5, 2024. With the next election fast approaching, the Republican presidential primary is in full swing.

Former president Donald Trump is running for reelection, attempting to be the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms (after Grover Cleveland).

Currently running against him are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

These candidates were initially joined by Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Doug Burgum, and Asa Hutchinson. However, all of these candidates have dropped out of the race for the White House.

So far, there have been three Republican debates. Trump has been noticeably absent from all three of them. His absence is not without reason.

Before the first primary debate, Trump was polling at over 50% while the candidate in second place, DeSantis, was only polling at about 15%. As of now, Trump is polling at about 60%, and DeSantis, still in second place, is polling at about 13%.

If the polls are correct, Trump does not need to debate to win the Republican primary. He has four times the support of his most competitive rival. By going to the debates, Trump would only be subjecting himself to attack and risking a negative reaction by the public to his opinions on policy.

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 15, 2022. – Donald Trump pulled the trigger on a third White House run on November 15, setting the stage for a bruising Republican nomination battle after a poor midterm election showing by his hand-picked candidates weakened his grip on the party. Trump filed his official candidacy papers with the US election authority moments before he was due to publicly announce his candidacy. (Photo by ALON SKUY / AFP) (Photo by ALON SKUY/AFP via Getty Images) (AFP via Getty Images)

Looming over Republican candidates is the Iowa caucus, which will mark the beginning of this year’s Republican primary election on January 15, 2024.

Because Trump is polling so high compared to his Republican rivals and the primary election is so soon, it would seem to make sense for the other candidates to attack Trump any chance they got in order to pull support away from him.

However, this has not been the case. Some candidates have attacked Trump during the debates. Most notably Chris Christie criticized Trump for his current legal issues and for missing the debates. He even called him “Donald Duck” for “ducking” the second debate.

Despite Christie’s attacks, the other candidates have not been as aggressive with attacking Trump. Haley commented about how the national debt piled up during Trump’s leadership during the third debate, but has  otherwise generally refrained from attacking Trump.

Ramaswamy has made very few negative comments about Trump, praising much of the work he did as president. During the first debate, Ramaswamy even claimed that Trump was the “best president of the 21st century.”

One reason that most of the candidates, specifically Ramaswamy, have been so kind to Trump on the debate stage despite him being their biggest competition is that they know that they need to attract enough Trump voters to defeat Trump and do not want to alienate these potential supporters. However, they also know that they are likely to lose to Trump anyway.

While DeSantis is polling at about 13%, Haley is polling at 10%, Ramaswamy is polling at 5%, and Christie is only polling at about 3%. The bid for the White House for these candidates is virtually hopeless.

It would be a much more achievable for them to try to become Trump’s running mate. Relentlessly criticizing him on national television is not a terrific way to achieve that goal. Although the spot may not go to Christie, Ramaswamy is putting himself in position to be selected by Trump.

By making themselves known on the debate floor and rejecting chances to criticize the former president, many of the Repub    lican nominees are setting themselves up to become Trump’s running mate.

While it will be extremely interesting to watch how the Republican presidential candidates continue to run their campaigns, it will be even more interesting to see who Trump picks as his running mate in the likely event that he wins the Republican primary.