Quick Takes: The State of the Race

Christie's out—and Haley and DeSantis could be their own worst enemies

Republican presidential candidates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley participate in the CNN Republican Presidential Primary Debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University on January 10, 2024 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This is going to be a rare short-and-sweet post from me. After my magnum opus on “Our Gramscian Moment” the other day, my neighborhood in the Philadelphia suburbs lost power in a severe winter storm with an estimated restoration time of 11pm on Friday, 72 hours later. My family and I have decamped to a hotel. I’m grateful we have the resources to do that rather than sit in a powerless, 50-something-degree house. But it’s not an ideal setting in which to craft one of my patented 1,500-word-plus-word posts. Especially when I’m also prepping to begin teaching next week. (Because of these challenges, I also won’t be able to offer an audio version of this post.)

So here are some stray thoughts on where we are on the proverbial eve of the Iowa Caucus, which is held on Monday.

One Cheer for Christie

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has bowed out of the race. Good for him. I bet a decent portion of my readership really loved Christie’s campaign because he was the only consistent Trump Truth Teller in the race. That view is pretty widespread at The Bulwark and other bastions of Never Trump sentiment. I have a lot of Never Trump friends. I respect and agree with them on a lot. But they are almost all people who were contented Republicans right up until Trump did well in the 2016 primaries. I broke decisively from the GOP long before that, and even before then had never been a gung-ho Republican. (I was a conservative-leaning intellectual, which isn’t quite the same thing.) That has certain consequences.

Among them is this: The Never Trumpers are still pissed, and I think at a certain level they still can’t quite believe what has happened to their old party, friends, colleagues, and their own pre-Trump careers. That gives their punditry an edge of betrayal and righteous anger that I don’t bring to my efforts at political analysis and commentary. One consequence of Never Trump betrayal and anger is that those folks really like hearing people say out loud that Trump sucks and is terribly dangerous. That makes them really love and admire figures like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and, well, the 2023-24 version of Chris Christie.

Part of me gets it. I admire Cheney and respect that she was willing to torch her own career to play a high-profile role on the January 6 Committee. I admire Romney even more for speaking out against Trump all the way back in early March 2016. That was when it was reasonable to assume it might have made a real difference. But of course it didn’t. At all. The primary effect of Romney’s speech denouncing the implausible frontrunner for the GOP nomination that year was to make him (Romney) a figure reviled by most Republican voters not living in Utah.

As Christie’s standing in the national polls on the day he dropped out makes clear (3.2 percent), there is next to no Republican constituency for a campaign singularly focused on attacking Trump. And that makes sense. Why? Because he was president for four years! The country lived through it. We saw and heard it with our own eyes and ears. All of it, on down through January 6 and beyond. You either loved it or hated it. I think it’s safe to say there’s is not a single human being in the United States whose opinion of Donald Trump was changed by listening to Chris Christie piously spell out over and over again how terrible Donald Trump is.

The audience for that message was entirely: (1) Democrats, who already agreed with every word; and (2) Never Trump former Republicans, who also already agreed with every word and are still furious that this horrible human being took over their party, either kicking them to the curb or sending them fleeing for the nearest exit. What both groups share is that they viscerally despise Trump and love to hear people talk about how terrible he is.

And that’s fine. Christie’s campaign wasn’t doing any harm—but it also wasn’t doing any good. When his campaign would have begun doing harm was the moment voting began, because he’d be taking votes away from other candidates with very small (but still measurable) chances to overtake Trump in the primaries. This was especially true in New Hampshire, where Christie was polling much better than anywhere else, because Granite State Republicans are a breed apart—and because the state allows “unaffiliated” voters to cast ballots in the Republican primary. That’s why it’s a good thing Christie bowed out when he did—and why I’m giving his otherwise politically pointless campaign a single cheer.

(Haley v. DeSantis) v. Trump

I’ll have more to say about Nikki Haley’s campaign (here or at another outlet) after the Iowa caucuses. For now I’ll just say that Wednesday night’s debate between her and Ron DeSantis only reinforced my view that neither of them are going to pose a serious challenge to Trump.

That’s very much the conventional wisdom. Most analysis tries to explain it by emphasizing Trump’s Svengali-like hold over Republican voters. Beyond that, pundits highlight how out-of-step Haley is with her party’s Trumpian turn, and talk about DeSantis’ weirdly awkward way of comporting himself at public events, especially when facing a hostile press or political opponent.

There’s truth in all of that. But something I’d like to add is that both Haley and DeSantis are politicians through and through. Both memorize and rely on “clever,”focus-group-tested and consultant-refined attack lines and then overuse them. They speak in polished slogans. They skirt difficult questions and return repeatedly to overly rehearsed and prepped statements their staffs have drilled into them during hours of debate prep. In a word, they sound like professionals. Which means they also sound inauthentic—like people contorting themselves into saying what they think voters want to hear.

Say what you will about Trump, but he doesn't sound like that. He usually sounds, instead, like a maniac and an imbecile. And like he doesn’t give two shits about anybody’s opinion. And like he’s making everything up on the fly, which can oddly sound like he’s speaking from the heart. Like he’s just a guy who cares passionately for his country’s well being, thinks all the people in positions of power and authority are doing a terrible job of it, and believes he alone can fix it (to re-coin a phrase).

In a word, Trump sounds more authentic than any professional politician. I suspect this is an under-appreciated factor in his dogged support among Republican voters, who appear to prefer it to any professional politician—even one, like DeSantis, who impresses them in many other policy-related ways.

What will this mean for the remainder of the primaries? Just that both Haley and DeSantis are facing what may well be an impossible task in striving to win votes—not just fighting Trump but themselves.

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I’m afraid that’s it from me for now. I’ll do my best to get two posts up here next week, though given the difficulties of this week and the start of the semester, I can only promise something about the results of the Iowa caucuses, which I’ll aim to publish on Tuesday (the day after) if I can manage it.