James Johnson is co-founder of JL Partners. He was the Senior Opinion Research and Strategy Adviser to the Prime Minister 2016 – 2019.
The Indian poet Muhammad Iqbal said that “the ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something”. On that logic, the contenders in the Republican presidential primary race are as blinded as one can be.
For the last several grueling months Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie have travelled thousands of miles, shaken hundreds of hands, and delivered scores of the same stump speech to try and wrest the Republican nomination from frontrunner Donald Trump.
Yet the net result of all the sweat, tears and air miles is a split field that is most likely to benefit Trump rather than dethrone him.
As things stand, he is in the ascendancy in all three early voting states: Iowa (January 15), New Hampshire (January 23) and South Carolina (February 24). If the imperative was to beat Trump, the logical route for the candidates would have looked quite different.
They would have had their moment in the sun, perhaps at the debates, but then gotten out in time to rally behind someone to take on Trump in a one-to-one contest. Mike Pence understood this and pulled out back in October.
For the others, the ego Iqbal spoke about has overruled logic. Beyond what they have had to tell themselves to keep going, I would be surprised if deep down any of them really thought they could win.
A less glamorous but rational logic would be to run for president to get a cabinet position from the eventual winner or become their vice-presidential pick, but candidates in the race now are not aiming for that (Haley, DeSantis, and Christie because they have been too critical of Trump, Ramaswamy because he is not the kind of person who settles for second-best).
Instead, they just keep going, set on a dream of the White House that becomes ever more distant (and Trump-looking) the longer they all stay in.
Some might say this is the point of a primary process: let the best competitor to Trump be chosen by the voting public. But Trump’s leads are smallest in these early states. If he wins them, he will go into Super Tuesday (March 5) and mop up in the fifteen states that vote that day, sending delegates off to the Republican National Convention in July who will pick the eventual nominee.
Beating Trump requires his opponents to coalesce now rather than later. But they have not and won’t. So where are we?
Iowa is first up in two weeks’ time. Registered Republicans turn up to schools, churches and community centres across the state and caucus – basically, it means moving to a corner of the room depending on which candidate you are supporting. The number of people in each corner are then counted and delegates are allocated accordingly.
It is a very physical display, even more so as there is a viability threshold in most precincts which means that if a candidate does not have enough people in their corner, others can persuade them to join their candidate’s own. (Such a two-stage and unpredictable process is also why you should be sceptical of Iowa polls in advance.)
It is DeSantis who is in the best position to take on Trump in Iowa. He has consistently polled in second and the Florida governor has an exceptional ground game in the state, with a substantial number of pledges. But the Trump campaign talks of having the caucus process nailed and – though an upset is possible – it is likely that the former president carries the state.
Eight days later we are in New Hampshire for a more conventional primary with regular ballot voting. One twist: independents can vote too. That increases the unpredictability but, with an unsanctioned Democrat primary on the same day (more on that later), some may choose to vote in the Democrat primary rather than the Republican one.
Trump won this state in 2016, but would be vulnerable to a united challenge. Currently his main opposition is split between Haley and Christie. A week ago I might not have mentioned Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, but a blunder by Haley (in which she failed to name slavery as the cause of the civil war) may have given him an opening. He has poured money into the state, but his extremely anti-Trump position makes him odious to many Republican voters.
Nevada is technically next, but an epic bust-up has diminished its importance. Arguments over process have led to two different contests being scheduled this time round, a primary on February 6 and a caucus on February 8. Haley is on the primary ballot but most of the other contenders – including Trump – are not, while she is not on the caucus list.
Then we come to South Carolina. As Haley’s home state, it will be her last-ditch attempt to try and assert herself as the best competition to Trump. It votes in a primary on 24 February.
A few things to be aware of. One is the total unpredictability of the primaries and their dependency on each other. It is little use looking at South Carolina polling before New Hampshire takes place, or even New Hampshire polling before Iowa. Momentum is everything and if a candidate has a strong showing in one state, it changes the rest of the race.
Next, there was much reporting of whether Trump will appear on primary ballots over Christmas, after Colorado announced it would remove him from theirs. Maine has since followed suit.
Though it has implications for generating support for Trump and the American political discourse, do not fuss too much over it as a point of process. The Supreme Court will almost certainly rule against those states, and they will thus end up having Trump on the ballot.
Thirdly, if you thought election-denying was just a Trump escapade, think again. Ramaswamy, heading for a dire showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, has already warned of “election interference” by the “mainstream media” in the upcoming “RIGGED” contests.
Again, ego has overruled logic: if he had any sense, he would drop out now, endorse Trump, and become a MAGA darling. Instead we are set for his electoral embarrassment, and a tantrum over voting to boot.
Finally, there is a Democrat primary process happening too. Though Biden has no serious opponents he has two candidates, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, standing against him.
New Hampshire is of interest here. Because the Biden campaign insisted on South Carolina taking place first (a better state for him), New Hampshire are now running an unsanctioned Democratic primary which Biden is not a candidate in on January 23. The president will be a write-in candidate but not officially on the ballot.
If Biden performs particularly badly, that may generate some buzz about his candidacy. But any moves against Biden are likely to come later, at the Democratic National Convention, or be self-imposed by a late decision by him and his wife.
Is there any chance of a surprise? I’ve put some spread betting money on DeSantis in Iowa and Christie in New Hampshire. They are very under-priced due to Trump’s dominance and Haley’s surge; if you believe that Trump’s support might be a little weaker than it looks, and Haley has been hurt by her slavery comments, it might be a value bet.
But that is spread betting profit advice, not a prediction. The most likely outcome is that the smaller egos maul each other in the bearpit while Trump, sat ascendant in Mar-A-Lago, sweeps the contest.
Whether he then makes it to November, withstanding the three trials and one hundred criminal counts he will face in the meantime, is a question for another column.