As of this writing, only one state’s caucuses have been held, and no primaries have yet been conducted. But it’s almost a foregone conclusion that Donald Trump and Joe Biden will once again be their respective parties’ presidential nominees. Each candidate has vulnerabilities, but it’s probable they’ll not be sufficiently serious to prevent their respective renominations. Whether they’ll hurt either candidate’s re-election bids once nominated is a different matter.
For months polls have shown Trump to be the likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee, and the Iowa caucus results bear out the polls’ accuracy, at insofar as their predictions of the Iowa outcome are concerned. Neither Nikki Haley nor Ron DeSantis came close to matching Trump. DeSantis has now ended his presidential campaign. Haley hopes a win or at least a strong showing in the upcoming New Hampshire primary will jolt her campaign and give her the momentum to overcome Trump. But her hopes are probably in vain.
Most polls show Trump winning the New Hampshire primary and even if, by some miracle, Haley were to win, history is against further successes that could let her win the nomination. Historically, the Republican who begins the primary season with the most money wins the nomination. Even if a challenger—such as John McCain in 2000—wins the New Hampshire primary, he will nevertheless run out of funds before the end of the primary season and his better-funded establishment opponent—George W. Bush in 2000– will continue to rack up victories—and delegates. Haley’s defeat by Trump is not 100% inevitable, but there is little in the history of the Republican nomination process to offer her even a hint of success.
Trump is the frontrunner now and therefore the almost inevitable GOP presidential nominee.
But Trump may find at least one pitfall on his path to the White House that probably won’t hurt his quest for the GOP nomination yet may nonetheless hurt his chances for victory in the general election: The possibility of being convicted of one or more of the crimes for which he’s been indicted.
As noted in previous columns, nothing done to Trump to date seems to have hurt him with his Republican supporters. Indeed, the impeachments, the indictments, and even the findings of liability for libel in civil cases have apparently strengthened his position in the GOP among those who will decide his nomination. But as discussed last week, a conviction may be the one line which, if crossed, will turn off Trump voters—not all of them, of course, but enough to reduce his election chances. We’ll see.
Much the same can be said of Biden’s renomination prospects. No sitting president seeking renomination has been rejected by his party since 1884 when President Chester Alan Arthur’s half-hearted bid was defeated by James G. Blaine. Since then, incumbent presidents of both parties have been able to win renomination, no matter how strong the campaigns waged by their challengers proved to be. In Biden’s case, neither Congressman Dean Phillips nor self-help writer Marianne Williamson has gained any appreciable traction so far. And even if state Democratic party organizations allow the names of Phillips or Williamson to be put on Democratic primary ballots, neither seems to have the money or organizational resources to mount an effective challenge. Biden will have no trouble dispatching his rivals.
But the big danger is that at least one of his challengers, while not winning any primaries outright, may nonetheless start racking up large enough percentages of votes to nonetheless embarrass him and force him to spend resources on primaries which will then reduce what he can use in the general election campaign. If no president can be defeated for renomination, few presidents who encounter robust primary challenges win re-election. Biden may find himself going down the path of William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush, all of whom survived primary challenges only to lose general elections.
So expect a rematch between Trump and Biden. But each candidate, once renominated, may find unexpected pitfalls on the path back to the White House, and for one of the candidates, the pitfalls could prove fatal. After all, both Trump and Biden can, and probably will, be renominated, but only one can actually win the White House.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present). He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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