Presidential primaries have always been a crucial period in the American electoral system for registered political party voters to come together and engage in vital discourse among themselves and the candidates. This eventually allows for the election of a nominee whose ideals best reflect the party platform, and who can unite the party together on key policy issues to create a winnable campaign. Key policy issues that concern all voters in the party are integral in the selection of the right candidate, which makes primaries all the more important for the American democratic system’s functioning and prioritizing of what issues are most important within the parties. However, the upcoming Republican Primary of 2024 seems to paint a more pessimistic nature of where the Republican party is headed. Even nearly four years after losing re-election, former President Donald Trump is leading in all the Republican primary polls, despite his absence from all three primary debates, demonstrating a huge challenge for his competing candidates.
Donald Trump’s success in 2016 was largely attributed to his ability to use populism to attract voters from all sorts of demographics, which allowed him to entrench himself as an icon within the party, especially after his unexpected win in 2016, which solidified his position in the Republican party as a symbol of the Make America Great Again movement. However, since the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s presence has proven more disastrous to the Republican party than beneficial, as it has split the party in the middle between anti-Trump Republicans and hard-line MAGA Republicans. This poses a challenge for any candidate in the primary, as the challenge of appealing to predetermined Trump supporters, moderate conservatives and potential young voters is not easy to fit into one unified, coherent party platform. As such, you have candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy, a populist figure who presents himself as a speaker of common sense but seems to lack every bit of nuance when discussing matters of foreign policy, as well as flip-flopping his tone and lexicon calculatingly on issues when it fits the audience he is speaking to. Trump’s success in using populist politics to mobilize the electorate in 2016 seems to be Ramaswamy’s playbook. Ramaswamy’s end-game might be hoping to become Vice President on Trump’s ticket, a sentiment the other primary candidates seem to share as well, but such populist rhetoric only furthers the divisions that are troubling Republicans today.
Since the results of the 2022 Midterm election, the Republican party has found itself more polarized than ever before. The very basic task of electing a new Republican house speaker, the third highest federal office in the United States of America, took a whopping four days and fifteen rounds of voting. The result? The removal of the very same speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by early October 2023. Such internal division on electing a speaker was never present in the Democrat’s caucus, even though they held the same slim-majority number of house seats in the last congress as their Republican colleagues held at the beginning of the current Congress. The internal divisions among Republicans are only furthered when there are seven Republicans who are not unified running against each other, opposing a leading contender that has already assumed an incumbent position. These divisions have also resulted in a near government shut-down in late September, which only makes it more imperative that the next Republican nominee can sensibly unite the party.
The sensitive issue of abortion rights and the proposed Republican candidate policies have allured more towards appeasing the populist pro-life right rather than providing pragmatic conservative solutions. Using anti-abortion populist rhetoric to create widely unpopular policies, such as federal abortion bans ranging from 6 weeks to 20 weeks sets an awkward precedent for the Republican Party’s platform; they ought to distance themselves from such rhetoric if they hope to attract the independent and younger voting demographic, two groups that cost them the widely speculated Red Wave that was predicted to sweep the 2022 midterm elections. Nicki Haley has reiterated a more pragmatic approach to the issue than the rest of the candidates, citing the 60 Senate votes required to pass a federal abortion ban is near impossible, therefore calling for more sensible bipartisan consensus on the issue. The unlikely nature of an abortion ban only makes the issue unnecessary in dividing the party. Trump’s flip-flop on the issue of an abortion ban has not caused him damage in the polls. Trump’s overwhelming lead in the polls has given him the privilege to flip-flop on key issues, unlike his Republican challengers, who are faced with the difficult task of reconciling divisive populist demands with pragmatic policies without flip-flopping.
Ron DeSantis’ state-wide 6-week abortion ban in his state of Florida has made him popular among the Republican electorate but may isolate him from independent voters if he does get elected as the nominee. DeSantis, who was once a popular figure in the Republican party and front-runner alternative for Donald Trump, has been the second leading candidate in the polls overall, behind Trump. However, his inability to reconcile his unpopular positions with the moderate wing of the Republican party and his Trump-like has only weakened his chances against Trump, who has labelled DeSantis a copycat.
Trump’s stronghold on a major segment of the Republican electorate has allowed him to directly impact his candidates with ease, whilst causing panic among candidates on how to best appease the Trump base whilst also running a winnable and sensible campaign; both of which DeSantis has failed to do. His presidential platform’s focus on the war against woke culture gives the impression he is not only condescending but out of touch with the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary Americans, who are more concerned about the economic insecurity in America and foreign policy rather than engaging in petty, futile culture wars. Furthermore, his reductive view and lack of nuance on foreign policy issues, including Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war has made him out to be inexperienced and ill-informed as a possible world leader, which as a result has caused Haley, an experienced former United States ambassador to the UN, to trail closer to him in recent polls.
Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican electorate has placed all Republican primary candidates in a difficult position of how far to support him and his tenure. Trump’s persistent lead of over 50% in polls has created a quandary among Republican candidates on whether or not to openly criticize him and his many controversies. In late October 2023, Mike Pence dropped out of the race, largely as a result of being unable to gain traction in the polls due to Trump’s long recurring negative comments against him and his refusal to certify the 2020 election for Trump. Mike Pence, along with Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson were the only three candidates to publicly criticize Trump for his indictment in June of 2023. Christie and Hutchinson are still in the race but hold a mere static fraction of the polls. Higher polling candidates, like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, have shied away from holding Trump accountable for his indictment charges, which is a huge disservice and dishonesty to the American people, as they have chosen to alienate their constitutional principles to appease the electorate.
As the primary debates carry on, and the pool of candidates gradually thins, the remaining Republican candidates must take a tougher stance on issues that are internally divisive, including the subject of Donald Trump. The inability of the top candidates to even condemn Trump’s indictment charges indicates the predicament that Republican nominees are facing, on whether to hold Trump accountable and risk losing key votes or to silently appease the MAGA electorate by enabling Trump and his controversies. The recent near-shutdown in September 2023 should be a wake-up call to all Republicans on the dangers they may face if such divisions are capitalized on for political gain rather than healed with brutal honesty and integrity. Neutralizing Trump’s influence is no easy task, especially considering he is the likely nominee, but that should not stop politicians like DeSantis and Haley from holding Trump and his populist base accountable and isolating their populist demands from the mainstream Republican platform.
Edited by Amina Kudrati-Plummer
Waleed is a fourth-year Political Science and History student. Being a Pakistani who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, his third-culture upbringing lends itself to where his areas of interest lie: international relations and politics in the Middle East and South Asia, with a specific interest in imperialism in the Global South.