CNN
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With Wednesday’s CNN town hall behind him, former President Donald Trump remains the prohibitive GOP front-runner for the 2024 nomination and a man this week found liable in a civil case for sexual assault and defamation former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
While we don’t yet know what effect this verdict will have on the race for the Republican nomination, Trump built his big electoral lead with this civil trial in the news and after being indicted earlier this spring in a case separate criminal case related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. (Trump has denied all wrongdoing.)
Trump’s lead in polls among Republican voters and in the endorsements of elected officials at this stage is among the strongest for a non-incumbent in the modern era of presidential primaries.
Trump is polling, on average, north of 50% in national polls of likely Republican primary voters. His closest potential challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to launch a campaign, is winning just north of 20 percent of the GOP primary vote on average. No other potential Republican nominee is in double digits.
There are very few candidates, from either party, in non-incumbent races who were near or north of 50% in national primary polls this early. Those select few include Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, and Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of these candidates won their party’s nominations, and none of these races were especially quarrelsome.
Interestingly, all the legal controversies surrounding Trump have not hurt him in the polls. At the start of the year, Trump was winning just over 40% of the vote, on average, and was only about 10 points ahead of DeSantis. Trump’s lead is now tripled, close to 30 points, on average.
The advantages DeSantis once had have been similarly eroded. For example, in New Hampshire, where Wednesday’s town hall was held, DeSantis was up 12 points on Trump earlier this year, he has reported. University of New Hampshire survey. Trump has now opened up a 20-point lead in the latest UNH survey among likely voters in the Republican primaries.
Of course, if it was just the polls where Trump was ahead, that might be one thing. Polls are not always predictive, and there could be some underlying dynamics that could change that. But the other big factor working in Trump’s favor is that many elected Republicans are behind him.
Trump has the support of more than 60 Republican governors and members of Congress. None of the Republicans running or thinking of running are even close to double digits in endorsements of elected officials at this level.
The importance of endorsements should not be underestimated. The party apparatus that coalesces behind a candidate can often be key to changing a race. On the Democratic side in 2020, for example, Joe Biden was lifted when his former rivals endorsed him before Super Tuesday.
The failure of the GOP establishment to support a single Trump alternative in 2016 was part of the reason he was able to win the nomination. Republican elected officials were divided on who they wanted to be the nominee, and Trump was able to take advantage of that divided field.
This time, that establishment option of meeting with a candidate other than Trump is not available to the same degree. Since 1980, anyone who had a similar ratio of endorsements to Trump at that point in the nominating process has won their party’s nomination.
The 1980 Democratic presidential primaries may give us a clue. It remains the only time in modern history that a non-incumbent (Senator Ted Kennedy) polled north of 45% at this point and did not become his party’s nominee.
Kennedy’s bid was overtaken by events on the ground. Specifically, then-President Jimmy Carter rallied to win the Democratic nomination after the start of the Iran hostage crisis. A clear lead for Kennedy basically turned into a big lead for Carter overnight.
The crucial difference here is that there is no incumbent in the Republican race in 2024. Still, there are many potential events involving Trump.
We don’t know how Republicans will react to his loss in the civil court, which Trump has said he will appeal. We don’t know what will happen if he is convicted in a possible criminal trial related to the hush money payments. (After being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records in that case, he’s trying to move it to federal court.) We don’t know what will happen if he’s indicted in other cases involving the country. to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his conduct before the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and his handling of classified documents.
Perhaps the biggest unknown is how Republican voters will react if DeSantis actually enters the race. Voters may look at him differently if and when he actually starts campaigning.
For now, however, Trump is still far ahead. It will take something big to knock him off the top of the Republican polls.
This story has been updated.
