It’s often said that military leaders “fight the last war”: They assume their current enemy is just like the previous one so they misjudge their foe and lose.
These GOP leaders don’t realize that Trump has changed over the past eight years — and so have his opponents. They’re wading into a completely new race, yet they’re still preparing themselves for 2016.
Trump 2016 and Trump 2024 couldn’t be more different
Trump’s 2016 campaign was an insurgency. He found his base by blasting his message through cable TV. He shunned the establishment and flouted conservative doctrine. And he seemed to love being hated by much of his party. Trump’s 2024 campaign is, at least by comparison, traditional.
He hasn’t held a big arena rally yet and he’s not dominating the cable airwaves like he did at the peak of the 2016 primary.
Instead, he’s hosting small events in early primary states and courting the state and local establishments — just like a more typical front-runner would.
Trump announces South Carolina leadership team which includes Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC. pic.twitter.com/KOk1P2TyQ8
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) January 30, 2023
He’s no longer running against conservative dogma. Polls show that Americans on average moved from seeing him as “slightly conservative” to “somewhat conservative” in the space of his four years in the White House.
Where voters placed Trump,
Hillary Clinton and Biden on a
scale from extremely liberal to
extremely conservative
Extremely
liberal
Extremely
conservative
Moderate
2016
Clinton
Trump
Trump
Biden
2020
Note: Points are determined by translating
ideology to seven point scale and calculating
a weighted average of where voters place
each candidate
Source: American National Election Studies polls,
Alan Abramowitz, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
Where voters placed Trump, Clinton and
Biden on a scale from extremely liberal
to extremely conservative
Slightly
cons.
Extremely
cons.
Extremely
liberal
Slightly
liberal
Liberal
Moderate
Cons.
2016
Trump
Clinton
Trump
Biden
2020
Note: Points are determined by translating ideology to
seven point scale and calculating a weighted average of
where voters place each candidate
Source: American National Election Studies polls, Alan
Abramowitz, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
Where voters placed Trump, Hillary Clinton and Biden on a scale
from extremely liberal to extremely conservative
Extremely
liberal
Slightly
liberal
Slightly
conservative
Extremely
conservative
Liberal
Moderate
Conservative
2016
Clinton
Trump
Biden
Trump
2020
Note: Points are determined by translating ideology to seven point scale and calculating
a weighted average of where voters place each candidate
Source: American National Election Studies polls, Alan Abramowitz, Sabato’s Crystal Ball
And he’s no longer a highly divisive figure within the GOP. He registers just under 50 percent in the national primary polls, but his favorability rating is above 70 percent. His plurality coalition could easily grow into a majority.
Put simply, Trump is no longer an outsider who needs to throw elbows, rely on a thin plurality or hope his opposition stays divided. He’s a former president — the ultimate party insider — with a path to an outright majority.
Trump’s opponents are more prepared and less divided
Trump might be a stronger candidate than he was eight years ago — but he faces tougher competition, too.
As I’ve written previously, Trump is no longer ideologically unique within the GOP. Potential competitors, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence, match Trump’s hard-line position on immigration and share his enthusiasm for the culture wars. Trump will have to defend himself as other conservative populists try to eat into his base.
And, at this early phase, Trump-skeptical voters are more willing to unite than they were in 2016.
In February 2015 — granted, that was before the primary season opened and campaigning began in earnest — no candidate claimed more than 20 percent in national polls. “Undecided” led the pack. By contrast, DeSantis already has 31 percent in the national polls — more than any of Trump’s prior foes amassed in the early going.
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It’s unclear what will happen if DeSantis falters. But anti-Trump voters have already proved they’re more capable of coalescing now than they were in 2016.
Fighting the next war
None of this data proves that the Republican elite are wrong. Normal Republican candidates might, again, splinter the vote and allow Trump to win the nomination with a plurality of the primary votes.
But there are so many other possibilities. And there are numerous differences between 2016 and 2024. Trump is running a different kind of race. His competitors have learned from him — and are stronger for it. And, at least at this early point, GOP voters aren’t processing this election the same way.
Until top Republicans can see that, they’ll keep expecting 2016 to repeat itself — unable to see that they might be heading into a new kind of war.