Well, that didn’t take long. Then again, it was former President Donald Trump who decided to jumpstart the 2024 primary and open the floodgates early.
In response, several groups supporting other potential candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are answering the Trump announcement by putting some skin in the game and starting to push a campaign message in the early caucus state of Iowa. While Democrats haven’t decided if Iowa will be their starting point this year, the Republican National Committee hasn’t announced any intention to boot the Hawkey State from its “first in the nation” caucus status in 2024.
The DeSantis “bandwagon,” as Politico calls it, is starting to pick up some passengers with Trump’s early announcement now forcing some conservative PACs to pick a side and start aligning themselves:
The Ron DeSantis bandwagon is already rolling.
Next week, in an advertising campaign shared first with Nightly, a pro-DeSantis super PAC will begin airing TV ads in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
The ads, which began airing digitally today, follow a week in which the Florida governor’s star has risen — and Trump, following a bruising midterm, has lost his luster with many Republicans.
The ads were probably inevitable anyway as DeSantis has grown a fanbase among conservative circles. Being one of the lone voices for sanity during Covid and opening his state as quickly as possible after minimal lockdowns is something many Republican voters won’t soon forget. With Trump’s announcement earlier this week garnering tepid reviews among some, but praise from others, the door seems open for a healthy primary field taking shape next year.
While many GOP strategists think Trump is weaker than he was even just a month ago following the defeat of several of his hand-picked candidates last week, nobody is writing Trump off as the continued favorite for the nomination:
One Republican strategist close to Trump, when asked today if the former president was still the frontrunner for the nomination, said, “I don’t know.”
Following DeSantis’ lopsided reelection victory — and losses by Trump’s favored candidates across the map — other Republicans aren’t sure, either.
“I don’t think he’s the prohibitive favorite anymore,” said Bob Heckman, a Republican strategist who has worked on nine presidential campaigns. “I think there are a lot of people in the party and the movement who want to move on from Trump.”
Still, he said, “He’ll be a formidable candidate.”
According to polls, even with DeSantis surging recently, Trump is still the front-runner. That could change, of course, if the DeSantis bandwagon grows, but the Governor is biding his time until well into next year for a possible announcement.
In the meantime, Trump will be working hard to shore up his base and try to re-energize Republicans who may have supported him in the past to support him again in 2024. Voting among that sliver of the base is where the winner and loser of the primary will likely be found. Are there enough Trump voters from 2016 and 2020 who think it’s time for the party to crown someone else next year as the standard bearer?
In the end, it’s unlikely to be a Trump-DeSantis race as a handful of other names seem intent to join the field:
Just today, Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state who may run against Trump, was on Twitter calling for “more seriousness, less noise, and leaders who are looking forward, not staring in the rearview mirror claiming victimhood.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, who may also run, repeated his line that Republicans will have “better choices” in 2024, a sentiment echoed by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, also a potential candidate.
There are a few who will run regardless of what Trump does, but there are others who will defer to his candidacy knowing full well they won’t beat him and would probably end up ticking off the Trump base by challenging him.
The 2024 campaign season has begun even if we’re still counting votes from last week’s midterm election.
UPDATE
It’s worth pointing out that while a lot is happening behind the scenes, and some of it being done by PACs that are not controlled or directed by candidates, DeSantis called on the media to “chill out” with the “GOP civil war” talk:
Gov. DeSantis unloads on “GOP Civil War:”
"We just finished this election, ok? People just need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff, I mean seriously. We have this Georgia runoff coming, which is very important for Republicans to win."
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 16, 2022