Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
First, over at FHQ Plus...
- California Republicans have a problem with their allocation rules (and it may cost them delegates next year), Missouri legislators snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on the presidential primary bill in the Show-Me state and more. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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For an established politician, Donald Trump is almost uniquely adept at having it both ways. No, not on everything, but as a rare defeated former president to return for a third try at a nomination in the post-reform era, it would be easy, if not natural, to assume such a candidate would be considered "the establishment." And in many ways the former president is just that, the establishment. After all, at the moment he has a commanding lead in the current 2024 polling, does not lack for resources and has so far lapped the field in endorsements, both in quantity and quality.
Still, this is not 2019 when the Republican Party was in lockstep behind the president as he set out to defend the White House. Republicans responding to surveys are looking around at and supporting alternatives and big money donors within the Republican Party network are doing the same. And while Trump has high-profile endorsements, elites and elected officials are not all with the president. So, on the one hand, Trump can both demonstrate that he is the establishment of a sort, but also that there are potential cracks in the armor, that this is not 2019. He can lay claim to endorsements from, for example, one fifth of the Republican caucus in the Senate, but that also means that the remaining 80 percent are not yet on board.
And that is an important distinction at this point in the 2024 invisible primary. Trump can suggest that he is the establishment -- that he is inevitable -- but at the same time run against a party that is not behind him in the same way that it was in 2019-20. That is a valuable mixed signal to be able to send to Republican primary voters and it has an impact on those elites and elected officials who are not yet aligned with the former president (or anyone else).
The result is this melange of endorsements, non-endorsements, unendorsements and pre-endorsements. Trump's endorsements are clear enough. But Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) became an early unendorsement of the former president on Thursday, May 11. Young did not jump to one of the Trump alternatives. Instead, he just made clear he was not behind Trump for 2024. And Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SC) hinted at reservoir of support in the Senate for Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). No, it was not a pre-endorsement, per se, but that story also is not new. Rounds was very careful with his wording, saying that "[a] lot of us that are holding back on looking at anybody else until Tim makes up his mind." But it was suggestive of a potential change when and if the junior South Carolina senator enters the race.
However, that says a lot. The careful wording, the praise but non-endorsement. Trump may have the bulk of the high-profile endorsements at this time, but he does not have all of them. Most are still sitting on the sidelines. And the question moving forward is whether they stay that way. Given Trump's current position in the race and standing as a former president, 2024 is less likely to be a situation like 2016 when a number of Republican elites did not throw their support behind any candidate until after the primaries or caucuses in their states. The pressures and incentives will be different. Trump can make the inevitability case, but can also publicly other those who may dissent by opting for other candidates. And as long as it stays like that, Trump can straddle the line, boasting to be an establishment of his own while simultaneously running against the "other" Republican establishment who opposes him.
But how long can that persist? Just as the burgeoning field of 2024 candidates could not be frozen forever, neither likely can endorsements, well, non-endorsements.
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Elsewhere in the endorsement primary. Ahead of his trip to first-in-the-nation Iowa this weekend (travel primary), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reeled in a pair of important state legislative endorsements from the Hawkeye state. Both Senate President Amy Sinclair and Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl threw their support behind the nascent DeSantis presidential effort.
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And in the staff primary. Bloomberg's Christian Hall has the latest on Tim Scott's efforts:
The Republican senator from South Carolina has tapped Targeted Victory, a consultancy, to aid the campaign’s fundraising, and brought on board three advisers: Jon Downs, Trent Wisecup and Annie Kelly Kuhle from FP1 Strategies. That firm will serve as the campaign’s political advertising firm, the person familiar said.
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On this date...
...in 1988, President Ronald Reagan endorsed Vice President George H.W. Bush for president a few weeks after Bush had secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination (and when it was apparent that all other candidates were out).
...in 1992, President Bush and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton handily won primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia.
...in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden won the Nebraska primary on his way to the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
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