Donald Trump is far ahead in the Republican presidential primary ballot test and up since the Alvin Bragg indictment. Yet the Republican primary field is growing, with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) joining the fray Monday and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and former Vice President Mike Pence gearing up to announce. Given Trump’s numbers, this makes no sense.
In fact, the growing field makes sense only if Trump gets out. Could it be that insiders think Trump’s legal problems are about to snowball?
The entry of Scott and Pence seems like a victory of hope over common sense (not to mention a nice payday for their consultants). Polling for Pence is terrible. Pence hasn’t sniffed double digits since last summer and is mired at roughly 6 percent. Scott’s is even worse, with just 4 percent in the ABC News/Post poll and zero to 2 percent elsewhere. Meanwhile, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is stuck in neutral, at 5 percent in the Quinnipiac poll when she announced and a RealClearPolitics average of 4.3 percent now.
Only entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been moving up, from nothing to 3.5 percent. His aggressive, mostly-issue campaign has turned him from a nobody to a somebody. If that was his goal, then his money has been well spent. Still, he is nowhere near competing for the nomination.
The campaigns and putative campaigns of candidates not named DeSantis are also curious. Nobody is going after Trump, at least not hard, and not much after DeSantis. Down 40 to 50 points, none of them can wait much longer to knock down Trump. A fight with the frontrunner is a sure ticket to publicity and makes you a serious candidate. Alternately, you could take aim at DeSantis and do a squeeze play with Trump, taking on the former president later. But nobody seems to be doing that. If Haley, Scott and Pence are afraid to go on the attack, then they don’t belong in politics.
The dirty secret of presidential party nominating contests is that plenty of candidates know they can’t win but are really running for vice president (it worked for Kamala Harris). But that is not looking like a fruitful path either. For one thing, Trump is not the kind of person who forgives his opponents — although Ramaswamy is looking a bit like a Trump stalking horse with the possible hiring of Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign chief. Once Haley proposed a presidential senility test for candidates over 75, that likely took her off the Trump list. Pence is an absolute no-go. Scott could have a chance.
Besides, why would anyone with a future want to be on the ticket with Trump as his VP/valet/whipping boy? For some like Ramaswamy or Kari Lake or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), being Trump’s VP pick would be a huge step up. For Haley, Scott or even DeSantis, it would be death — either four-plus years of subservience and no guarantee of the 2028 nomination or getting all the blame for a loss. That’s a bad deal, no matter how you cut it.
So, if the Republican field outside DeSantis is hopelessly behind (and unwilling to do anything about it) and the VP nomination looks either unattainable or a poisoned chalice, what’s the point of running? They can’t all be deluded.
The only logical conclusion is they are betting Trump won’t be around much longer.
Let’s be clear: Trump has no intention of dropping out. He will fight and scratch, say and do anything. There seem to be no limits to what he will do to promote himself, no matter the future damage to his own candidacy or the Republican Party. There is no evidence he is considering quitting in any way. But that decision might be taken away from him. If he thinks he is staring at defeat, he is likely to find some way to drop out.
And that leads to his legal problems. Even though the indictment by the New York County district attorney has been panned by legal experts and reeks of political opportunism, Bragg broke the barrier of charging Trump. That alone makes indictments easier for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Unlike the Bragg indictment over a several-years-old case of dubious merit, the potential charges in Georgia look much more substantive and are certainly newer and directly connected with election interference. The DOJ probe could yield a large array of charges pertaining to the events of Jan. 6 and handling of classified materials.
While only a felony conviction is going to stop Trump, the civil cases against the former president are not helping. His loss in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit was no boost to his candidacy. His intemperate comments after may result in another suit. The New York State attorney general is warming up for an October trial that accused Trump and the Trump Organization of financial misconduct.
The no-hopers-for-now could well be betting that this avalanche of legal woes will cause Trump’s numbers to tumble and the frontrunner to drop out. But given Trump’s obstinacy and America’s slow-motion judicial system, a Trump polling collapse or withdrawal may come too late for the laggards.
Team Trump has always assumed that a big field would help him by chopping up the Trump-skeptical vote. And that is the case at face value. But the expansion of the field in spite of Trump’s big polling lead should give them cause for concern.
Ernest Hemingway once described bankruptcy as happening “gradually, then suddenly.” Donald Trump’s run for president could be headed for just that kind of bankruptcy.
Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.