In twelve to 13 months, the race for the Republican presidential nomination – and the race for the Democratic nomination, if there is one – will likely be over.
Forecasts that are so far ahead of such contests have a melancholy history. Just ask Rudy Giuliani or Jeb Bush how he felt when the balloon drop began after their welcome speeches.
Nevertheless, there is something to be said for what appears to be a competition between former President Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL). The history of primary election contests since they became the dominant means of selecting presidential candidates in 1972 provides some perspective.
In the early days, there were recurrent multi-candidate fights within the Democratic Party, resulting in surprise nominees such as George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, the Republican primaries featured one-on-one matchups between nationally known challengers – Gerald Ford vs. Ronald Reagan in 1976, George H. W. Bush vs. Bob Dole in 1988, and George W. Bush vs. John McCain in 2000 .
Since 2000, this pattern has usually been reversed. Democrats fought head-to-head races in 2008 and 2016, and quickly settled on one candidate among many in 2004 and 2020. Republicans, on the other hand, got into fights with multiple candidates in 2008, 2012 and 2016, with the field too gigantic to accommodate a single stage of the debate. .
This change reflects a change of sides. In the 1970s, Democrats held majorities in most state legislatures, had many more primary voters, and tended to set the rules and schedule. Now Republicans have more legislatures and a core electorate about as gigantic and boisterous. Next year, Democrats may renominate their incumbent president, as they did in 1996 and 2012, while Republicans will likely, despite former Gov. Nikki Haley’s (R-S.C.) announced candidacy, head into a two-candidate race.
Previous competitions suggest what this will look like. The 2008 and 2012 Republican multi-candidate races quickly came down to two-candidate battles. These pitted against candidates (McCain, Mitt Romney) who represented counties outside major metropolitan areas, where the GOP’s primary voters tend to be college graduates, against candidates (Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum) who represented counties outside major metropolitan areas, where the majority of Republican primary voters are not college graduates.
It was a prediction that few analysts (myself included) recognized about the divide between white college graduates and college graduates who voted similarly in the 2012 general election but responded markedly differently to Trump in 2016 and in every election since time.
However, the dominance of non-college white people in the Republican primary can be overstated. If McCain and Romney won by only narrow margins over Huckabee and Santorum in the Michigan and Ohio primaries, Trump won the nomination in 2016 with just 44% of the vote among 16 candidates.
In the 31 states that voted by April 5 this year, Trump had a significant lead of 4 or more points over the Sens’ total. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) in only five states (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio and Arizona). If you add votes for John Kasich, whose campaign managed by John Weaver appealed to Republican voters who don’t like Republican voters, the list narrows down to just Massachusetts and Mississippi.
All of this suggests that DeSantis could successfully compete with Trump in most primaries and amass enough delegates to counter Trump’s strength in states like New York and West Virginia where primaries are held later – similar to the delegate strength that Barack Obama amassed in February 2008 allowed him to survive the grueling four-month marathon with Hillary Clinton that followed.
This is consistent with the results of a multi-candidate poll. After November’s midterm elections showed fierce opposition to Trump-backed candidates, Trump’s lead over DeSantis dropped to 47% to 29% and now stands at 44% to 29%. This number is almost identical to the 45% of votes he received in all primaries and caucuses in 2016.
Interestingly, polls released last week by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies show DeSantis leading Trump in Iowa and even with him in New Hampshire, with Trump close to his 2016 performance in those states. DeSantis’ forceful performance could swing the field right away, or Haley in South Carolina shortly thereafter.
Political analysts sensitive to any change in opinion have noted that DeSantis’ numbers have dipped slightly in recent weeks. What may be more significant is the fact that the well-known Trump fails to attract the support of 56% of his party’s voters. And that Trump usually leads DeSantis in head-to-head polls.
Of course, nothing is certain yet. DeSantis hasn’t even announced he’ll run, the schedule for primaries and caucuses isn’t set yet, and there’s no guarantee that either Trump, 76, or Biden, 80, will be in good health next year. But history and current polling suggest that most voters who don’t want to choose either of these two almost always negatively viewed presidents may find a way to get their way.
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
