Vivek Ramaswamy urged the crowd to end the primary right here. Doug Burgum told them to think of safety and prosperity. Tim Scott posed a series of questions that culminated with: “How many y’all want me to stop talking so you can hear from your next president, Donald J Trump?”
As the three failed US presidential candidates turned endorsers stood alongside Trump on stage in Laconia, New Hampshire, on Monday, the crowd chanted “Four more years!” and the message to Republicans was clear: join us now or be cast into the political wilderness.
The show of unity exemplified the breakneck speed with which elected officials, rightwing media and megadonors are consolidating around Trump as their seemingly inevitable nominee in 2024. Trump told the rally: “Now is the time for the Republican party to come together. We have to unify … We’re all in the same team, 100% focused on [Joe] Biden and beating him in November.”
Buoyed by a record win in last week’s Iowa caucuses and the exit of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, Trump heads into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary election with only one opponent standing in his way: Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN. If the former president wins convincingly, as opinion polls suggest, Haley will face renewed pressure to end the anti-Trump resistance.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington DC, said: “The two-thirds of the party that’s Maga-friendly has largely coalesced around Trump, and is continuing to do so. It would take a miracle for Haley to even make it a race at this point. Miracles happen, but you don’t predict them.”
He added: “Anyone who wants to remain viable in today’s Republican party will either fall into line publicly, or be quiet in not falling into line. And that’s what you will see among the donor class.”
It is a striking contrast from the 2016 primary season, when multiple candidates continued to battle Trump into May. It is also very different mood music from a year ago when, in the wake of disappointing midterm elections, there were rumblings of discontent in the Republican party and a desire to turn the page.
The shift was evident in the donor class. Club For Growth, an anti-tax group, and Americans For Prosperity, founded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, poured millions of dollars into an effort to stop Trump. Last May, for example, Club For Growth released a golf-themed ad attacking him over his plan for social security. Americans for Prosperity endorsed Haley and by December had spent $4m to boost her.
But just as in 2016, when Jeb Bush was the establishment choice, the primary has demonstrated that money is no substitute for having the right candidate at the right time. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina received backing from high-profile donors but was outshone in debates, and never gained traction in the polls. He withdrew and endorsed Trump.
As DeSantis’s profile soared, he enjoyed an influx of cash, only to burn it through it rapidly with over-hiring, staff shakeups and frequent “resets”. Last November Robert Bigelow, one of DeSantis’s most prominent funders, announced that he was switching allegiance to Trump. By some estimates, DeSantis and an allied Super Pac spent at least $53m in Iowa – a return of roughly $2,262 per vote as he lost by nearly 30 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Trump proved more resilient that expected. He weaponised a series of criminal indictments and court appearances to rally his base and raise funds. Polls showed him beating Biden in a hypothetical match-up, undercutting the electability argument. As a former president and reality TV star, he enjoyed the kind of celebrity that money can’t buy.
Olsen said: “Money has always been an overrated feature of politics. Money helps when it’s delivering a message that resonates. What the big money in the Republican party has been doing for the last decade or more has been getting behind candidates whose message does not resonate.”
The Trump campaign has relished the failure of big-money groups trying to tear him down. Speaking from Charleston, South Carolina, the Trump fundraiser Ed McMullen said: “One of the great stories of this primary cycle is that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent against Donald Trump have only fuelled the support for him.
“People don’t want oligarchs in the United States determining who the president’s gonna be. They are absolutely turning to the president, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in negative TV ads.”
McMullen, a former ambassador to Switzerland who was at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last week, claims that dozens of DeSantis and Haley donors have been calling him since the Iowa caucuses, wanting to back Trump instead.
“The fact that Iowa happened to be so strong for the president sent a pretty strong shockwaves throughout the little town of Davos, where many business leaders intentionally sought me out to find ways that they could be engaged and support the president and get on board,” he said.
Not all of Haley’s donors are buckling. Along with Americans for Prosperity, they include Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and Stanley Druckenmiller, a hedge fund billionaire who will co-host a fundraiser for her on 30 January.
But some speak of being pressured to abandon Haley and come into the fold. Fred Zeidman, a longtime Haley fundraiser from Texas, told Reuters: “I get calls all the time.”
He summed up what Trump’s allies tell him: “We’re going to win. You’re going to lose. Don’t you want to be on the right team?”
Those calls are likely to intensify if Trump wins big on Tuesday night. Having realised which way the wind was blowing, hesitant Republicans are rushing to get back in his good graces. It would be no surprise if a procession of senators, representatives, governors and former cabinet officials, along with donors, make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago in Florida to pledge allegiance.
Ed Rogers, a veteran of several national campaigns, said: “I would not have guessed this would happen a year ago. But for the last two or three months it’s been clear that none of the other campaigns were going to beat the Trump campaign.”
“The only thing that’s gonna keep Trump from being the Republican nominee is for him to step on a banana peel or some act-of-God lightning strike.”
