by Erick-Woods Erickson
DeSantis is out. He has thrown his support behind Donald Trump. Nikki Haley will attempt a Hail Mary in New Hampshire.
I will have more to say on DeSantis’s campaign later, but the beginning and end is ultimately this — most Republican voters did not want a Trump-like candidate. They want Trump.
There are problems the Republicans will have to deal with moving forward. The 2024 race will be close. The voters who voted in 2020 are most likely to vote in 2024, and even now, they have a preference for Joe Biden. Winning among “registered voters” is different from winning among likely voters. Donald Trump is a gift to Joe Biden’s turnout efforts.
I assume Haley will not pull an upset in New Hampshire despite the Governor of New Hampshire backing her. Republicans and Democrats are both hell-bent on a rematch from 2020.
For a lot of Americans — actually a majority according to the polling that has thus far in this cycle been accurate — that is not a race they want and they may sit home. Republicans can take nothing for granted. 2024 may be a low turnout election and no voter can be taken for granted.
In 2022, Kari Lake, three days before the election, publicly said she did not want McCain voters supporting her. They took her at her word. She lost. 2024 cannot afford such hubris.
Trump will have to find a way to unite the party. A portion of the party will not want to unite. A portion of Trump’s own supporters will not care about unity, instead demanding a bending of knees and a show of loyalty. Even after DeSantis’s withdrawal, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and nutjob Laura Loomer continued to attack him. The vitriol between the supporters of the candidates is not going away quickly. It must to win.
The reality is that Republicans will rally more around defeating Joe Biden than showing loyalty to Donald Trump.
A big question on the right will be about authentic evangelicals who regularly go to church, not the self-described ones who never darken the door of a church. If they do conclude this nation has become a nation full of moral degeneracy, they may decide choosing between two moral degenerates will not actually advance the kingdom and stay home.
But, concurrently, a lot of non-white Democrats may decide voting for an 80 year old white man backed by the Affulent White Female Urban Liberals (AWFULs) is not a situation they want to be a part of. So core constituencies of each stay home and let the rest fight it out.
A third party will not win in America. But a third party in 2024 may do better than Ross Perot in 1992. I suspect a lot of Americans would cast a third party vote hoping to wake up the two major parties.
Buckle up. We are in for a wild ride, even wilder if Haley is successful tomorrow, but wild until November.
