If you hoped or believed that the Republican Party was ready to move beyond Donald Trump in 2024, then you’re probably feeling pretty despondent about the state of the race. He’s won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, and not only that, he won them both by a hefty margin against quality candidates. To most outside observers, it’s understandable that the race appears to be completely over. We’re not quite there yet, despite what the media may want you to think.

Anyone who is labeling Trump the “presumptive nominee” at this stage is either ignorant or dishonest. That term has a real definition: It means that someone has enough delegates to mathematically clinch the nomination and hasn’t formally been nominated yet. In 2024, that number is 1,215; Trump has 32 delegates, while Nikki Haley has 17. As a percentage, Trump has about 52% of delegates so far, while Haley has about 28%, with the rest awarded to candidates who have suspended their campaigns.

Trump certainly has a hefty lead, and it’s fair to presume that he’ll win the nomination, but it’s far from over. For comparison, we’re at about the same point as entering the first half of the first game of the NFL season. Even after Super Tuesday on March 5, fewer than half the total delegates will have been awarded. We’ve got a ways to go.

The media has generally portrayed Trump’s first two victories as representative of his ironclad grip on the Republican Party, but that’s not quite accurate. While he was 30 points clear of his nearest competitor, Ron DeSantis, in Iowa, he only won with 51%; in New Hampshire, he only got 54% against Haley. Those are both clear victories, but not completely overwhelming. For the sake of comparison, President Biden won New Hampshire with 63.9% of the vote as an unofficial write-in candidate over Dean Phillips – that’s what a resounding victory really looks like. Without even trying, Biden got nearly two-thirds of the vote, while Trump barely got over 50% in two states.

All of that shows that there are far more Republicans ready to find a different candidate this time around than there are Democrats.

Although that might seem to be a given, it’s actually quite interesting; their approval and favorability ratings amongst their own party are similar: 83% of Democrats approve of the job Biden’s doing, while 78% of Republicans have a favorable impression of Trump. It will be interesting if this foreshadows the general election at all. Will some of those Republican voters who were ready to move beyond Trump end up voting for someone else or staying home in November? On the flip side, we mustn’t forget that nearly a third of New Hampshire Democrats and independents were willing to vote for a vanity candidate – albeit in a contest with absolutely nothing at stake.

Looking ahead on the Republican side, Nikki Haley has the opportunity to shake things up in her home state later this month. While South Carolina is more conservative than New Hampshire, it too has an open primary, allowing all voters to participate. It will be worth comparing the level of enthusiasm between the two parties again and to see whether the enthusiasm gap evident in New Hampshire recurs.

Interestingly, though, Haley doesn’t seem to be betting everything on her home state. Instead, she’s vowed to stay in the race through Super Tuesday regardless. That’s probably the right call, since, historically, presidential campaigns that have focused on winning one state haven’t panned out. It’s simply not a realistic approach, regardless of where your home state lays on the calendar. Presidential campaigns are national in the general election; it’s wise to employ that strategy during the primaries as well, meaning Haley was right to build her campaign for the long term. Then again, DeSantis was also vowing to fight on before dropping out. We’ll see how well those promises hold up.

Even if Trump is renominated, the results show that a wide swath of Republican voters are ready to move on. That’s good news for the party. It shows that future candidates will find it difficult to recreate Trump’s coalition, especially if several of them are trying to do it simultaneously. Indeed, future Republican presidential primaries are likely to return to the prior norm: whichever faction is most unified will emerge victorious. Trump’s legacy will not be the destruction of that model, but the introduction of a new, populist path that others will try to replicate.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel

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