CNN
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Do you know who is in third place in the 2024 Republican presidential race? This may seem like an odd question given that the two leading candidates, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are the only ones who average more than 5% nationally.
The answer, however, is former Vice President Mike Pence and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, both tied at just 4%.
More troubling for Haley, who is participating in a CNN town hall Sunday evening, and other candidates outside the top two is the apparent nationalization of the GOP primary process this year. We’re seeing this reflected in state polls, including early voting and the home states of declared candidates — all overwhelmingly showing a significant lead for Trump.
Presidential primaries, unlike general elections, do not take place on the same day. They are sequential, with enormous importance in first-voting states. That’s why you see Republican candidates in Iowa (for their caucuses) and New Hampshire (for the nation’s first primary).
In recent years, national poll leaders at this point in the primary season who would lose their party nominations did so in part because they lost the Iowa caucuses. This happened to the two candidates with the largest national advantages: Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Clinton, each in 2008.
Both were clearly in trouble in Iowa at this point in the cycle. In fact, neither led their side’s contests Des Moines Register Surveys of May 2007.
This year, we’re not seeing a disconnect between the national and early state polls, at least not yet. The top two candidates in publicly released Iowa and New Hampshire polls have been Trump and DeSantis. A University of New Hampshire survey taken in mid-April, for example, had Trump at 42% and DeSantis at 22%. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is expected to announce his 2024 plans this week, came in third with 12 percent.
Let’s focus more closely on this Sununu data point. A few years agoI pointed out that one of the best ways to predict whether a candidate leading the national and early state polls might surprise people is by examining how they fared in their home states.
At this point in the 2016 cycle, Senator Bernie Sanders was already leading the Vermont Democratic primary, despite Hillary Clinton’s significant national lead. On the other hand, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s lack of electoral strength in his home state made me write him off as a candidate.
Home state polls are a crucial early indicator of a candidate’s strength. Voters there know these candidates better. If you can’t break out where voters already know you, how can you break out in states where voters are just getting to know you?
Sununu doesn’t have to worry about name recognition in the Granite State. The same goes for Haley in South Carolina, where she was previously governor. South Carolina is also the third state on the 2024 GOP nominating calendar, after Iowa and New Hampshire.
The most recent South Carolina poll that meets CNN’s publication standards put Trump ahead. The Winthrop University Survey, completed in early April, had Trump at 41 percent, DeSantis at 20 percent and Haley at 18 percent. His colleague from South Carolina, Sen. Tim Scott, came in at 7%. The most recent data suggests that Haley has slipped slightly and Scott has moved up in the weeks since, although Trump is still well ahead.
It is very possible that Trump will hold on to his lead and knock Haley out of the race with a victory in the South Carolina primary. Remember, he did something similar in 2016, when he ended Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential bid by beating him in Florida.
Of course, you can spot where Trump is vulnerable, if you look hard enough.
For example, in Florida, DeSantis and Trump have been trading advantages in the polls this year.
And you could argue that these early state polls generally suggest that Trump is a bit weaker than the national numbers might indicate. On average, it’s polling in the low-40s in early states versus the mid-50s nationally. In other words, the majority of voters in early states are going for someone other than Trump, which is not true nationally.
Can you imagine how devastating it would be for Trump to lose New Hampshire or South Carolina, or both? It would poke a big hole in the idea that his nomination is inevitable.
For now, however, this scenario seems like a fantasy. Trump may be showing some weakness in early voting states, but not to the same degree as the national favorites who lost in years past.
Trump can be beaten. It will be very hard.
