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Donald Trump Could Light the GOP on Fire

Donald Trump. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Donald Trump. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

If Donald Trump Loses the  2024 GOP Nomination, He Could Burn Down the GOP – The fight for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 could well be brutal. More brutal than 2016, even, depending on whether Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announces his intention to take on President Joe Biden

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Polls suggest that DeSantis is truly in with a shot of taking the nomination, even going up against the former president – but should DeSantis or any candidate other than Donald Trump win, the GOP could be left with a problem on its hands.

Following Trump’s takeover of the party in 2016, and after eight years of the former president dominating the headlines and dictating the policy agenda for much of the conservative movement, it’s hard to know just how much support the GOP could lose in 2024 if Trump isn’t the nominee.

What If Donald Trump Doesn’t Get the Nomination?

If Trump cannot secure the 2024 nomination, it won’t necessarily mean that Republican primary voters are turned off by his vision or his character.

While many will likely be displeased with the former president’s lackluster campaign so far and a number of poor decisions made in recent months, including inviting Kanye West and his white nationalist colleagues to Mar-a-Lago, Republicans may simply realize that Trump is just not as electable as he was in 2016.

Donald Trump won the first time off the back of his “what do you have to lose?” message, along with his inspiring vision for the future, but could lose in 2024 based solely on Republican primary voters’ concern over the theatrics and controversy that come with a Trump presidency. If Republicans choose DeSantis, they’ll choose him because he’s a skilled communicator, less unpredictable, and more of a traditional politician in every sense. As a bonus, he embodies Trump’s politics and message. 

That being said, the GOP could be at risk of losing voters if it rejects Trump entirely. 

It’s true to say that not all Trump 2016 voters were Republicans – Trump awoke a section of the voting public previously known as “Reagan Democrats,” but it’s also fair to say that he benefitted greatly from the unpopularity of the Democratic nominee.

At the same time, though, Trump seems to be losing support himself – making the situation for the GOP more complex.

In 2020, Trump lost several states he flipped in 2016, suggesting some of the voters he initially won over had lost faith in his ability to lead or were simply tired of the drama – even if much of that drama was caused by the Democrats’ four-year-long collective meltdown. 

Former Attorney General William Barr said in March last year that Trump lost the 2020 election because he “alienated independent and Republican voters in the suburbs” – and by 2024, he could lose even more.

According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, almost half of Republican primary voters may be looking for someone other than Trump to run in 2024. 64% of Republican primary voters under 35 said they would vote against Trump, while 65% of voters with a college degree said the same. 

Trump, therefore, is at risk of losing support – but so is the Republican Party if it abandons him completely.

2024 must, therefore, combine the best of Trump and the best of skilled orators and politicians like DeSantis. That may simply be a matter of nominating DeSantis, but for the plan to work, he may need the support of Trump too. 

Without Trump’s eventual backing, DeSantis could struggle to secure the backing of Trump’s base in the general election. Trump’s most diehard supporters will find themselves choosing between turning out and voting for the least worst candidate – even if that candidate embodies virtually all of their values – or protesting Trump’s loss and staying at home on election day.

That could be a huge problem for the GOP but could still be overcome by a wildly popular nominee who is capable of winning over the independents that Trump lost, and then some.

Will Trump Run Third Party?

In December, the former president seemed to suggest that a third-party campaign wasn’t off the cards if he doesn’t win the GOP nomination. In a Truth Social post, Trump shared an article titled “The Coming Split” by Dan Gelernter. The piece focuses heavily on the possibility of a third-party run, and Gelernter argues that even though Trump couldn’t win if he went ahead with it, he’d still vote for him.

“Do I think Trump can win as a third-party candidate? No,” he wrote. “Would I vote for him as a third-party candidate? Yes. Because I’m not interested in propping up this corrupt [GOP] gravy-train any longer.” “Do I think Trump can win as a third-party candidate? No,” Gelernter wrote. 

“Would I vote for him as a third-party candidate? Yes. Because I’m not interested in propping up this corrupt [GOP] gravy-train any longer.”

Gelernter likely isn’t the only Republican thinking this way, and Trump knows it. But Trump also knows that winning as a third-party candidate is impossible. He admitted it himself in 2000 when he appeared on The Today Show with Matt Lauer to announce his withdrawal from the race. At the time, Trump was running to be Reform Party candidate for president, but told Lauer that he believed he could only pick up 20% of the vote in the general election if he didn’t drop out. 

Trump knows he’d lose, but he also knows that a third-party run – with his popularity – could severely split the Republican vote and hand a victory to the Democrats. 

If Trump doesn’t take the Republican nomination in 2024, then, he’ll be left asking himself who he hates more; the Republicans or the Democrats.

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

Written By

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive's Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

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