The Republican Party is likely to soon find itself in a familiar position: a crowded field of presidential candidates with Donald Trump at the front of the pack. As was the case in 2016, this is not where the party will want to be. Now, as then, there are real questions about Trump’s ability to win a general election. And now, as then, there is no consensus either within the party or within the (likely) field of competitors about who is the best bet to unseat Trump.
One thing that’s changed, of course, is that Trump has spent nearly eight years tending to a fervent base of support, a base that still yields him the support of at least 2 in 5 potential Republican primary voters in very, very, very, very, very early polling. Another thing that has changed is that he has shown very clearly that he’s willing to try to turn that base against any perceived opponent, regardless of party.
In 2016, this was less clear. It seemed probable that Trump would stumble in some way and someone could sneak by him, vacuuming up his support as had happened so often before after candidates stumbled in the primary. The calculus now is different: Potential candidates want to both run against Trump and, generally, avoid irritating his base, in case they might start looking for a new hero. And that’s meant the emergence of a continuum of approaches to Trump — as of now, the only declared 2024 candidate — ranging from unflagging support to outright hostility.
So let us review those approaches and consider the possible presidential candidates who are deploying them.
One of the better ways to become president is to first be vice president. Two of our past six presidents were first vice presidents — and that doesn’t include Al Gore’s popular-vote victory in 2000. So a big chunk of the jockeying to be vice president is always done with an eye at eventual promotion. So we see some of the early 2024 jostling include the same machination.
There’s South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, for example, who has more than once attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in recent months, DeSantis being generally understood to be Trump’s most robust competition at the moment. When the New York Times suggested that Noem was distancing herself from Trump, she went on Newsmax to reject the idea and to cast the Times as “liars.” And it may be paying off; a Daily Beast article on potential vice-presidential picks being discussed down at Mar-a-Lago included Noem.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was not on the Daily Beast list, but he was included in Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s look at the state of Trumpworld. Scott, too, has positioned himself as a feasible second-in-command, telling Fox News early last year that “everybody wants to be on President Trump’s bandwagon, without any question.”
But things change fast in a presidential race, and positioning oneself as a viable VP doesn’t exclude seeking the presidency yourself. Scott, for example, was one of several politicians to place an ad in a brochure targeting Republicans in Iowa. It’s also not the case that running for president prevents you from being tapped as vice president, as the current holders of both of those offices can attest.
One thing that Scott hasn’t done is spend much time attacking Trump. He wrote a book (of course) in which he told a story about challenging Trump’s views on race — but the denouement of the story was that Trump listened to his points of view and the two worked on a policy solution together. Other potential 2024 candidates are taking a slightly different path, at times demonstrating fealty to Trump and at others offering some pointed criticism, often depending on audience.
Consider former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump before 2016, then served in his administration, then blasted him for inspiring the Capitol riot, then suggested that he would have kept Russia from invading Ukraine. In recent days she’s been in the news for attacking former secretary of state Mike Pompeo whose book (see below) offers criticisms of Trump and his administration — an attack-the-opponent approach comparable to Noem and DeSantis.
Haley’s repeatedly tried to both be of Trumpworld and apart from it in a challenging way. But she’s by now fairly adept at it. For example, she chose to endorse a candidate for the House who was opposed by Trump — but offered her endorsement first, making it less obvious she was opposing the former president. (Bonus: Her candidate won.)
We can also fit Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) into this bucket. His interactions with Trump are legendarily uneven, landing him the not-useful title of second-most popular Republican in 2016. Since, he’s generally sided with Trump and played to Trump’s base, though he does offer critiques of the “I don’t agree with his tweets” variety. Like Haley, it’s easy to see him as a Trump ally until such time as the carefully maintained space between them creates an opportunity for movement.
Other potential 2024 candidates take a different tack in their criticism.
Pompeo is a good example here. His new book includes a number of lukewarm revelations about the Trump presidency, including that Trump told him not to be critical of China as the coronavirus pandemic emerged. This is useful because it establishes Pompeo as “right” on China in a way that Trump has tried to adopt.
But it is also specific to Trump’s presidency more than it is to Trump himself. Pompeo has been much more shy about challenging Trump directly than other Republicans. When Trump hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Pompeo’s response was a vague reference to antisemitism — the sort of thing that was meant as a wink to Trump opponents but was meant to be camouflaged for Trump supporters. Pompeo wants not to be the guy who says Trump is bad, just that the Trump presidency could have been better.
The challenge he faces is that he’s competing for that space against the obvious king of that domain: former vice president Mike Pence. The past two years have been fascinating to watch in the way it’s fascinating to watch a cat try to get its head unstuck from a tissue box. Sure, Trump shrugged when people wanted to hang Pence, but the administration did some good stuff!
Pence, too, had a book in which he tried to navigate these particular rapids, but most of the interviews came down to questions about whether he really didn’t care that Trump threw him to the wolves. Pence’s responses have usually been something like “it wasn’t ideal, but.”
There is a group of potential candidates who have been far more critical, often incessantly. This is the pool of potential candidates who see a path to the nomination (or at least past Trump) by being openly and directly hostile to him and his presidency. This is the terrain of former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, of former national security adviser John Bolton, of former New Jersey and current New Hampshire governors Chris Christie and Chris Sununu.
We barely need to articulate examples here; because direct criticism of Trump is so rare for Republicans, their attacks get a lot of attention. (They certainly didn’t hurt when Christie was trying to sell his book.) Whether this is a viable way to consolidate support among an electorate that twice made Trump their nominee remains to be seen.
Now we come to DeSantis — and, for that matter, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Each has an advantage that many of the other possible 2024 contenders don’t: They have elected executive positions from which they can make their case to the GOP electorate.
DeSantis, of course, has been very energetic about this, using his position as a way to differentiate himself from Trump without deigning to mention Trump by name. The former president, seeing poll numbers that show DeSantis at his heels, has been eager to engage the Florida governor in a fight. When DeSantis endorsed a Senate candidate in Colorado opposed by Trump, the former president quickly lashed out. (This was the brief “Ron DeSanctimonious” era.) That faded.
Youngkin’s approach is a bit different. He won election in blue-state Virginia thanks both to a favorable 2021 climate and a successful effort to blend a broadly moderate persona with specific appeals to the hard-right voting bloc. Trump’s tried to engage him in battle as well; Youngkin has brushed it off.
So far, this approach has worked well for DeSantis, who occupies a space that was unfilled in 2016: joining Trump in a two-person top tier. It’s early and things can change — but a sitting governor can set a political agenda in a way that outside candidates can’t that seems useful in the moment.
That things can change is an important consideration here, of course. These categories are not hard-and-fast, nor are their representative examples. Noem could suddenly pivot to a hard Trump opponent; DeSantis could start making a play for Trump’s approval. We shall see.
For now, though, a number of potential candidates are making very different bets on what will work in 2024. Only one of them will prove right — and it may well be Trump.