Conservative and liberal political analysts are increasingly anticipating a presidential election rematch between former President Donald Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden in November, after President Trump’s 30-point Iowa Caucus victory and the rapid winnowing of the Republican primary field.
President Trump won the Iowa Caucus with 51 percent of the vote, against 21 percent for his next closest competitor, Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.
The former president marked a historic performance in Iowa, being the first Republican candidate to win more than 50 percent of the votes in a caucus with multiple contenders. He also won 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties, losing only Johnson County, and by a single vote.
President Trump’s Iowa Caucus performance set off a shift in the primary field.
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race on the night of the Iowa results and threw his support behind President Trump. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who had also vied for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out in November, also threw his support behind the frontrunner last week, and on Sunday, Mr. DeSantis dropped out of the race and threw his support behind President Trump, despite taking second place in Iowa.
The reshuffling has turned the 2024 Republican primary contest into a two-person race between the 45th president and his former ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
DeSantis Had No Path Forward: Republican Strategist
Though Mr. DeSantis took second place in Iowa, North Star Opinion Research founder and president Whit Ayres said the Florida governor’s decision to exit the race was likely because he had no path forward after Iowa.
Mr. Ayres, whose firm provides strategic guidance to Republican candidates for office, said Mr. DeSantis had few bright spots left to look forward to on the primary map following Iowa.
“He had nothing going on in New Hampshire, which is the next state. It is a full four-and-a-half weeks from New Hampshire to South Carolina. And he really didn’t have much going on in South Carolina either,” Mr. Ayres told NTD News.
The Republican political strategist said most political campaigns likely end due to lack of funding, and Mr. DeSantis likely would have struggled to keep funding his 2024 campaign if potential donors didn’t see a path forward for him.
“When you don’t have a reasonable path to the nomination, you can’t raise any more money,” Mr. Ayres explained.
Undeclared Voters Could Keep Haley Going in New Hampshire
Though she came in third in Iowa by about 32 points, Ms. Haley has seen more promising polling numbers ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
President Trump leads the latest RealClearPolitics polling average for the New Hampshire primary 54.3 percent to Ms. Haley’s 36.8 percent. The current RCP average gives Mr. DeSantis 7.5 percent in the state, though he has already thrown his support behind President Trump.
One voting block that could be key to Ms. Haley’s chances in New Hampshire are undeclared voters. While registered Democrats and Republicans must vote for their respective parties in New Hampshire, undeclared voters may choose to vote in any primary of their choice. These primary rules could prove helpful to Ms. Haley’s odds in the state, if they enable enough unaffiliated voters to cast ballots on her behalf.
“If the undeclared proportion of the electorate is, say, 45 percent or more, Nikki Haley could make it very close,” Mr. Ayres. “If not, then I think Donald Trump wins it by double digits.”
While he expects President Trump to win the Tuesday primary, Mr. Ayres said if Ms. Haley can outperform the polls, it could keep her primary bid going beyond New Hampshire.
“If she can come within single digits of Donald Trump, especially if Donald Trump is below 50 percent, then that will give her some momentum going into South Carolina,” he said. “She needs to give South Carolina voters a reason to believe that they’re not throwing their vote away if they support it. But a lot of what determines that is going to be affected tomorrow by the margin by which Donald Trump wins or, in a real upset, if Nikki Haley could actually beat him.”
If President Trump wins handily in New Hampshire, Mr. Ayres said it’s conceivable “that the GOP nomination is effectively over and the country is well down the road to a Trump–Biden rematch.”
Biden’s New Hampshire Primary Stakes
President Biden currently leads the Democratic presidential primary field, but he is facing some party challengers going into his re-election bid and may also be looking for a strong showing in New Hampshire to lock in his party’s nomination.
The Democratic Party had wanted their first primary of the 2024 cycle to be in South Carolina, but New Hampshire has long held its status as the state that holds the first set of primaries of every election, and state laws call for New Hampshire to preserve that first-in-the-nation status.
Democratic Party officials argued holding the first primary in South Carolina would have better demonstrated the party’s diversity, but New Hampshire’s Republican-led state government declined to yield its first-in-the-nation status for this purpose.
“There was a real push in the Democratic Party, given that the poor voters, the black and brown voters, gay voters, women voters, young voters, that the real manifestation of that diversity and inclusion starts in South Carolina, no knock to New Hampshire,” said A. Scott Bolden, an attorney and former chairman of the D.C. Democratic Party.
For incumbent presidential candidates, primary races are normally treated as a formality. But, President Biden’s failure to formally register for the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday could put an air of uncertainty into the Democratic contest.
According to 538’s latest polling average, President Biden currently leads his next closest primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), by double digits in New Hampshire. But the margin in polls this month is as wide as 62 points and as narrow as 22 points.
One advantage Mr. Phillips could have going into the New Hampshire primary is that his name will appear on the ballot, while Mr. Biden’s name won’t. New Hampshire primary voters wishing to support the sitting U.S. president will instead have to write in his name.
“[President Biden] opens himself up to some risks, if either he doesn’t win, or how well he runs against the other two Democratic candidates that are on the ballot there,” Mr. Bolden told NTD News.
Following the Democratic Party’s dispute with New Hampshire, Tuesday’s ballot results won’t be directly tied to the Democratic Party primary contest, but the results could put some momentum behind President Biden’s challengers.
To shore up his support and put an end to primary challenges, President Biden’s supporters in New Hampshire have taken steps to spread the word about his write-in campaign to win the state primary. Mr. Bolden said despite the disadvantages of a write-in campaign, he still expects President Biden will win in New Hampshire, but the question is by how much.
“If it’s close, [the other Democratic primary challengers will] certainly make an issue of it, the media will make an issue of it, and it’ll be eyebrow-raising,” Mr. Bolden said. “If it’s not close, it’s just another news story that’s caught up in all the other political news.”
Biden’s 2024 Message
Looking ahead to the general election, Mr. Bolden said his fellow Democrats will need to win over voters with their messaging on the economy.
Mr. Bolden predicted President Biden will hold an advantage in some regards, though he said both President Trump and President Biden are widely unpopular.
“I think young people and independents and even moderate Republicans will not want to go back to the chaos with Donald Trump. And they’ll choose age and experience despite how much they don’t like either one of these candidates,” he told NTD News.
Mr. Bolden did raise for Democrats border security and the economy. The Biden administration is currently in deliberations with congressional Republicans, who are seeking stricter border policies and enforcement efforts in exchange for approving a supplemental funding request the president submitted this fall, to allocate more than $100 billion to bolster U.S. support for Ukraine, Israel, and various Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships.
On the economy, Mr. Bolden said President Biden has a viable record of accomplishments to run on, but voters currently don’t hold favorable outlooks on several economic issues.
“Americans have to start feeling better about gas prices and tabletop issues. Right now, we’re telling them that the economy is good with low unemployment, as well as the stock market and wages being up and inflation going south in the right direction, but until Americans feel it, you know, you’re just kind of talking to the wall,” Mr. Bolden said. “And so you got to talk to people. You’ve got to become more likable about it. And they’ve got to start feeling it.”
Mr. Bolden said if Americans don’t start to feel better about these economic issues before the election then the Democrats “have really got a challenge on their hands.”
Reuters contributed to this article.
