The 2024 Republican Primary is not close. Polling shows that Trump has an almost 30 point lead over rival Ron DeSantis, which will most likely lead to Trump getting the Republican nomination for President in 2024. Mainstream Republicans like Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell don’t want this, as a Trump versus Biden matchup has already happened before, with Biden winning. But what if I told you these same mainstream Republicans are unknowingly causing Trump to win?
Despite the 2024 Republican Primary being essentially a 2-man race between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, it also has 8 other major candidates running, including prominent names such as Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served under Trump, Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and sitting senator of South Carolina Tim Scott. Each of them share two things in common. They all object to Trump, and they all have not shot at winning.
Now normally, this wouldn’t have been as big of a deal, because over the years, many candidates with absolutely no chance of winning have run, to no success. However, for a group of people who don’t want Trump to win the nomination, this is almost certainly a terrible strategy. See, Trump supporters will never waver from their commitment to Trump. Right now, a little over half of the Republican Party is firmly in the Trump corner, according to 538’s national polling averages. However, another candidate could make it a close race by taking the half of Republicans that are not firm Trump supporters. The thing is that all the anti Trump candidates are dividing that 50 percent up. For instance, Ron DeSantis, the only anti-Trump Republican who has any chance of winning, is polling at around 23 percent. So where did the other (around) 27 percent of votes go? Well, they went to smaller candidates like Pence, Christie, Haley, and Scott. This splits apart the vote shares of the anti Trump republicans, therefore giving Trump a relatively easy path to the nomination.
As you can see, right now Trump has a large lead in the Republican Primary, and it will likely continue to stay that way until other Republicans realize that splitting the anti Trump votes will do them no good, and start fully backing DeSantis. Until then, expect Trump to continue his firm lead, and ultimately win the nomination.