With Donald Trump still mired in legal trouble, the race to lead GOP is heating up
The race to become the Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2024 remains wide open less than a year out from the first primary.
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The Democrats’ candidate appears to be in the bag, after Joe Biden announced his re-election bid. But with Donald Trump’s legal woes impacting his campaign, and several other tipped Republican contenders yet to declare, who Biden will battle for the White House remains unclear.
The contest for the GOP nomination has brought a “set of historic firsts”, said Politico. No previous race has featured “a criminally indicted former president seeking an Oval Office comeback, a vice president who refused to go along with a plot to steal the last election, the most politically accomplished woman ever to run as a Republican – and an already popular governor waiting in the wings”.
While Trump is favourite to win, fluctuating odds reflect the rocky road that he and his rivals must travel before the party picks its nominees for president and vice president at the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee in July next year.
Donald Trump – 1/2*
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The former president is still idolised by his loyal base of supporters and the favourite with bookmakers, but his standing among Republican insiders as the presumptive nominee in 2024 is less assured than it once was.
“Some Republican leaders blame Trump and the way he alienates more moderate, suburban voters for the party’s disappointing performances when they lost the House in 2018, the Senate and White House in 2020 and fell short of expectations in 2022, even though they flipped the House,” said CNN.
It remains to be seen if this view is shared among Trump’s long-time base and reservations among party insiders have not stopped the former president from declaring early his intention to run in 2024 to “make America great and glorious again”.
Ron DeSantis – 11/4
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Florida’s governor has yet to declare his intention to stand in 2024 although most political commentators expect him to do so next month.
“His support skews more toward Republicans with college degrees, who make more money and live in cities and suburbs, as opposed to Trump’s more blue-collar, rural appeal,” said NPR.
A culture warrior and staunch critic of “wokeism”, DeSantis has advocated for harsher immigration measures and against LGBT rights. He has a “multilayered appeal”, said The Hill, supported by his pushback against mask and vaccine mandates and his advocacy of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis also has the personal ingredients required of a would-be president. Not only does he boast the necessary charisma and telegenic family, he promises generational change. At 44, he would be similar in age to John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they ran for the White House, a sharp contrast from the 76-year-old Trump or 80-year-old Joe Biden.
Nikki Haley – 20/1
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The only other major candidate apart from Trump to have officially declared their intention to run in 2024 is Nikki Haley.
The former governor of South Carolina, who later served as US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, has been described by The New York Times as “playing a shrewd and careful game” in the eyes of Republicans: she has appeared to distance herself from Trump and yet continued “to embrace him at the same time”. After the Capitol attack in 2021, Haley said she was “disgusted” with her former boss, but has “been trying to get back in his good graces” since then, the paper added.
Tim Scott – 25/1
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Tim Scott “grew up from poverty with a single mother to become the first African-American senator to represent a Southern state since 1881”, said The Economist. Hardly anyone in the party “has a bad word to say about the South Carolina senator”, who “did not shy away from criticising Mr Trump for his racist remarks, but never broke decisively with him (voting twice against impeachment)”. Nevertheless he is a “long shot for the Republican nomination”.
Despite Scott’s “inspirational backstory, authentic likability, and message of hope”, agreed Matt Lewis at The Daily Beast, “the general consensus is that he has an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning the Republican nomination”. Nevertheless, the odds on Scott have shortened in recent weeks, putting him in fourth place.
Mike Pence – 40/1
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Former vice president Mike Pence, who served as Indiana governor before Trump selected him as his running mate in 2016, is yet to announce his candidacy but it is predicted to run.
Bloomberg pointed out that “every vice president from 1953 on has run for president except for three: Spiro Agnew (“who resigned from office in a plea-bargain deal”), Nelson Rockefeller (who “died... before the next presidential election”) and Dick Cheney (“who had health issues, among other things”).
The 63-year-old evangelical Christian was once one of Trump’s most loyal supporters but the pair’s relationship waned in the days leading up to the 6 January Capitol attack and its aftermath.
*Odds from Paddy Power
