A look at the race for the Republican presidential nomination in the US.

After a trifecta of announcements this week, the group of candidates for the presidential candidacy of the Republican Party in 2024 it is practically complete. Although some delayed candidates could be added later, at the moment there are at least 10 known Republicans officially seeking their party’s nomination.

And with the announcement phase of the internal campaign nearing completion, several of those top contenders will gather this weekend in North Carolina to begin a more aggressive selection phase.

There is a long way to go before the Republican national convention in Milwaukee in mid-2024, when Republican delegates from across the United States will nominate President Joe Biden’s rival. No doubt there will be surprises and reversals of fortune, but right now all the Republican candidates are trailing former President Donald Trump, the undisputed favorite of a packed primary. This is a look at the state of the Republican race.

That’s a lot of candidates after all

Trump launched his campaign nearly seven months ago with the intention of scaring off potential opponents. He didn’t work for him.

For now, the former president competes with at least nine important personalities. They are former Vice President Mike Pence and four governors or former governors: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. There is also Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of South Carolina; United States Senator for South Carolina Tim Scott; biotech businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and conservative radio host Larry Elder, who lost a California gubernatorial race.

Although long, the list for 2024 could have been much longer. The primaries for 2016 had 17 candidates that required two scenarios in the debates. Several Republicans who had paved the way to run ended up canceling their plans.

This is the case of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu; former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

Other prominent party members are still considering running, including former Energy Secretary Rick Perry; the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, and the governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin.

It’s Trump and the rest

Let no one be in any doubt: Trump is by far the favorite and it is a matter of whether Trump loses. The former president dominates early polls despite his massive legal problems, his lies about the 2020 election that led to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and doubts among Republican establishment that he is capable of winning the general election. . However, Trump dominates a significant sector of the Republican base, which is currently not enthusiastic about any alternative.

On paper, DeSantis is Trump’s strongest rival, but the Florida governor has yet to chart a clear path to victory. DeSantis tries to be more Trumpist than Trump, being more intransigent on immigration, abortion and other divisive issues in the country, while he adopts the former president’s combative style and ways.

Meanwhile, the Trump team is elated that there are so many rivals, creating a math problem that benefits them. It looks like a repeat of 2016, when Trump won the New Hampshire primary with just 35% of the votes because the other pre-candidates shared the rest of the votes among all of them.

Trump’s Republican detractors have warned of precisely this same dynamic over the past year, but for now they seem unable to prevent it.

There is no clear strategy to bring down Trump

Math aside, Trump’s rivals have yet to come up with a clear strategy for taking him down. Which doesn’t mean they’re not already trying.

Pence told Iowa voters this week that Trump “He asked me to choose between him and the Constitution”a reference to the then-president’s repeated — and false — contention that his vice president had the authority to overturn the 2020 election result. Pence called Trump’s words “reckless” and said the former president endangered his family.

DeSantis, like others, has hurled much indirect criticism at Trump, mainly that he has been unable to win a second term and that under his leadership the party has acquired a “loser culture”. DeSantis’s team also believes it has a chance of moving ahead of Trump to the right on conservative priorities like immigration and abortion.

When asked this week in Arizona about Trump’s lead in the polls, DeSantis brushed it off. “One does not carry out a survey with a year to spare, and affirm that this is how the result of the election will be”answered.

Christie might be Trump’s most outspoken critic on the campaign trail, even though he has not held public office in more than five years. “My intention is to defeat Donald Trump”the former New Jersey governor told voters in New Hampshire this week. “I’ll tell you why: I want to win, and I don’t want him to win (…) There is a lane to the Republican candidacy and he is ahead.”

Anti-Trump strategies will continue to evolve this weekend in North Carolina.

a heterogeneous set

The 2024 slate matches the 2016 slate for the most racially diverse in the party’s long history.

At least four non-white candidates are running for president this year: Scott and Elder are black, while Haley and Ramaswamy have Indian roots. For Haley and Scott in particular, race plays a key role in their message to voters, though all four deny the existence of systemic racism in the country and generally oppose federal policies designed to help people based on color of race. your skin.

Republican leaders hope this diversity will help the party continue its modest gains among black and Latino electorates. These two sectors continue to overwhelmingly support the Democrats, but even small cracks in the Democratic coalition could be significant in 2024.

There is only one woman among the applicants, but there is a strong variety of ages. Trump is the oldest, at 76, while Ramaswamy is the youngest, at 37. DeSantis is 44, while Haley and Scott are past 50. The rest are in their 60s or 70s.

conservative politics

With rare exceptions, Republicans have embraced hard-line right-wing policies on abortion, immigration, gun violence and LGBTQ rights.

All are opposed to a greater or lesser extent to the right to abortion, although there are differences in the degree of opposition and in their rhetoric. Pence and Scott have openly supported a national abortion ban, while Trump and DeSantis have so far avoided taking a strong position on a federal veto. That said, DeSantis enacted a Florida law months ago that prohibits abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, one of the most restrictive policies in the country.

All the contenders also oppose introducing new limits on gun ownership, including a ban on assault weapons. Most attribute the nation’s gun violence epidemic to mental health issues. DeSantis signed a new law this year that allows Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

The hopefuls have also followed the party’s recent interest in the LGBTQ community.

In recent weeks, Haley has mocked transgender women in her campaign, referring to them as the wrong gender. Trump and DeSantis have deplored gender-affirming surgeries on minors, calling them child abuse. And Scott was a co-initiator in the Senate of a bill that would defund elementary or middle schools that change a student’s pronouns without first getting parental consent.

Instead, there seems to be some disagreement about Social Security and retiree health care: Medicare.

As a lawmaker, DeSantis voted in favor of a resolution that would have raised the age for Medicare and Social Security to 70. Since he has been governor of Florida, he seems to have left that position, but Trump has taken advantage of the previous position of his rival to present himself as the defender of those social benefits.

uncertainty looms

The primary scenario may already be pretty much set, but surprises in the coming months are all but guaranteed.

The biggest factor could be Trump’s legal troubles. The former president already faces 34 counts of falsifying corporate documentation, related to payments to silence women during the 2016 campaign and conceal allegations that Trump had extramarital affairs. Federal prosecutors also have grand jury trials underway in Washington and Florida as part of their investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents. And prosecutors in Georgia are investigating whether Trump broke the law by trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

At the same time, DeSantis is still making his debut in national politics. Rivals from both parties are digging into his past for any hint of damaging information. His fellow Republicans openly question his social skills and he has no qualms about clashing with the press during spontaneous campaign events.

On the other hand, there is great uncertainty surrounding the upcoming discussions, which are expected to start at the end of August. Trump, who has a wide lead in early polls, has raised the possibility of missing the debates. DeSantis has lashed out at traditional media that would play a role in organizing the televised events. And it’s unclear whether the lowest-flying hopefuls could pass the relatively modest thresholds in polling and fundraising to get a seat in the debates.

Source: AP