 "2024 Republican nomination: Trump vs ‘White Knight’ Kemp, DeSantis and Trumpism")
The contours of the impending Republican battle for securing the party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election are dramatically changing. There’s Brian Kemp, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump vs Trumpism. First, Georgia’s governor. Amid the Trumpian chaos and extremism, the riven Republican Party has a new beacon of hope in Kemp if he decides to run for the Oval Office. Kemp was focussed “on real-world solutions that put hard-working people first” during the 2022 Midterms gubernatorial campaign unmindful of the savagery unleashed against him by Donald Trump, who repeatedly slammed him as “a turncoat and coward” for refusing to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Kemp’s metamorphosis in four years is astounding. In the 2018 governorship election campaign, he was a far more conservative gun-toting and anti-immigrant candidate. One advertisement had him surrounded by guns, a shotgun in his lap and a youth named Jake, who apparently wanted to date one of his three teenage daughters. “… Here’s the thing: If you want to date one of my daughters, you better have respect for women & a healthy appreciation for the 2nd Amendment,” Kemp says in the ad, which he tweeted later.
Forward to 2022. Kemp was an extremely accessible candidate with whom Georgians could have a beer, was in tune with their economic needs, didn’t shut the Peach State’s businesses and schools during the pandemic, proposed a $1 billion refund to taxpayers, dug heels against abortion and offered his Medicaid by countering the Affordable Care Act. Around 1,400 km away in Michigan, Kemp’s party peer Tudor Dixon had been propped up by Trump after proving her fealty to his ‘Big Lie’ of a “stolen and rigged 2020 election”. Kemp won decisively and Dixon lost—and so did several gubernatorial candidates endorsed by Trump, such as Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Lee Zeldin in New York, Dan Cox in Maryland and Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts, and a bunch of Senate and House contenders backed by the 45th president. Kemp’s shrewdest tactics were not backing Trump’s unsubstantiated 2020 election claims and ignoring his vicious attacks—and they could well resonate with distraught Republicans licking their wounds and eyeing the White House. Trump supported only those candidates who helped built his wobbling facade of election lies. But it had been two years since the realty tycoon had rammed his “Stop the Steal” engine into the GOP and Republican voters and it was fast losing steam. Despite skyrocketing inflation and Joe Biden’s low ratings favouring them, several Trump-backed far-right candidates were defeated. On the other hand, a non-dramatic and realistic Kemp found that he and moderate Republicans and independents were on the same wavelength: economy, inflation and managing household expenses.
For instance, a Pew Research Centre survey of 5,098 Americans last October showed that 79 per cent of voters thought the economy was a very important issue in the Midterms. Similarly, a survey conducted by NORC, University of Chicago, among 94,293 voters for the Associated Press showed that around 80 per cent felt that the economy was in bad shape. The Pew survey also showed that 70 per cent of the respondents thought that the “future of democracy in the country” was very important while democracy was the primary concern of 44 per cent of voters in the NORC polling. Kemp emphasised the point in his victory speech. “This election proves that when Republicans stay focussed on real-world solutions that put hard-working people first, we can win now—but also in the future, y’all.”
Kemp displayed calmness and dignity in the face of Trump’s savage attacks—he refused to be drawn into a fight with Trump. “I wasn’t worried about beating Donald Trump,” he told CNN. The governor had bounced back from December 2020, when his approval rating had fallen from 86 per cent to 77 per cent among Georgia Republicans and from 52 per cent to 46 per cent among voters overall since Election Day due to Trump’s incessant assaults, according to Morning Consult Political Intelligence’s daily tracker. Kemp win could be the GOP 2024 blueprint A new ‘torchbearer’ for the Republicans had emerged; a candidate who sided with the law when pressured to break it and showed independence without compromising his conservative values. “I was doing what I told [Georgians] I would do. I was following the law and the Constitution. To me, that’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than any other political figure in our country, including a president,” he told NBC News in an interview. Kemp showed that the GOP could romp home without embracing Trumpism as several Republicans realised that Trump’s vice-like grip on the party had cost them the Senate and resulted only in a slim House majority. The governor’s win could be a blueprint for the GOP, especially for probable contenders like DeSantis and former Veep Mike Pence, in the swing states—and he is already being noticed. His political adviser Cody Hall feels that if the party is “focussed on winning, I think a lot of folks will be calling governor Kemp and wanting his advice”.
David Kochel, a Republican strategist and presidential campaign veteran, told CNN that Kemp “didn’t need Trump but he took care to make sure Trump partisans felt like they could be a part of the Kemp coalition”. Georgia’s veteran Republican operative Eric Tanenblatt seconded Kochel. “I think that was smart; it paid off. I think people respect him for that.” Republican political consultant Brian Robinson felt that Kemp’s stance had “given him a gravitas you can’t buy”. Kemp has neither hinted at running for the White House nor denied it. He told Fox News that he hasn’t “ruled in or out anything”. Moreover, he told CNN that he sees a “path” for the GOP to win the presidency in 2024 referring to his victory. “If we didn’t hold the governor’s race in the 2022 Midterms, there’s no path for a Republican to win the presidency in ’24.” Several Georgian and national Republicans told USA TODAY that Kemp would be a possible presidential candidate. “He’s earned a national voice and a national presence in our party,” his friend and Georgian Republican Party’s former chairman John Watson said. Former Georgia congressional candidate John Cowan felt that Kemp’s win is a “swing back towards the Constitution-first type of Republican over the America-first Republican”. Republicans celebrated DeSantis’s victory in a state that is already red and where Democrats are weak. But Georgia, which was narrowly won by Biden in 2020, is a swing state. “If Mr. Kemp got the nomination, you could paint Georgia red. He’d almost certainly carry North Carolina and maybe even Virginia. He’s the type of Republican to which Pennsylvanians have traditionally warmed. He’s bland and pragmatic enough to appeal to Wisconsin and Minnesota residents,” columnist Scott Westcott wrote in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Trump faces DeSantis hurdle Second, Florida Republican governor DeSantis, who won the re-election in the Midterms with a wide margin, could be Trump’s main challenger if Kemp doesn’t contest. A Morning Consult poll in November showed that DeSantis, considered a saner version of Trump, is gradually becoming popular with his popularity rising 18 per cent in August, 19 per cent in September, 24 per cent in October and 26 per cent in November. Besides, 60 per cent of suburban GOP voters support him. In an October ABC News/Ipsos survey, 72 per cent of registered Republicans said that DeSantis should have a greater influence in the party’s direction as against 64 per cent for Trump. Increasing number of Republican megadonors are supporting DeSantis and other possible contestants and abandoning Trump. New York-based businessman Andy Sabin, who donated $55,000 to PAC Friends of Ron DeSantis, told CNBC that he’s not “going to give (Trump) a f—ing nickel”. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, who donated more than $100 million in the Midterms, is backing DeSantis. Trumpism, cases and waning popularity: Independent run? Third factor in the race is Trump vs Trumpism—Victor Frankenstein facing his own monster—the raft of legal cases and his declining popularity, which has triggered speculation of him contesting independently. That Trumpism has outgrown Trump was blatantly evident when his old pal and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was re-elected after a gruelling 15 rounds. A bloc of 20 ultraconservative Republicans revolted against him and finally nodded after winning a string of concessions despite Trump’s endorsement. “Endorsements don’t matter to me,” rebel South Carolina representative Ralph Norman told NBC News.” The Midterms jolt alienated several GOP members from him and the GOP’s extremist wing refuses to kowtow to its former master. Trump has also become a financial burden for the Republican National Committee (RNC). In March 2022, a financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that the RNC paid $350,000 that month to law firms representing him. His PAC Save America paid $7 million to lawyers since he left office, The Washington Post reported last October. Trump is facing multiple federal and state investigations and lawsuits. The Department of Justice (DoJ) could pursue him on four counts, including an alleged bid to obstruct the transfer of power, following the 6 January House report. Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the DoJ’s criminal probes into the discovery of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The Atlanta special grand jury investigating Trump following his call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes to overturn the election results has completed its work. The DoJ is also probing the ‘plot’ by his allies to replace presidential electors from seven states with fake ones. The list of cases is long. Trump’s popularity is falling as well. The Morning Consult poll found that 48 per cent of potential Republican primary voters backed Trump as against 57 per cent in August, 52 per cent in September and 49 per cent in October. According to a November NBC News poll, around 62 per cent of Republicans identified themselves more as GOP supporters than as his backers as against 50 per cent in August. Considering these problems and his waning popularity, the GOP might junk Trump and he could contest as an Independent. Law lecturer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has written extensively about Trump, believes that he could run as an independent if the GOP jettisons him. Johnston believes that the Dems would win the White House again if Trump fights independently. In an interview with TVNZ 1, he said, “What the Republicans have to worry about is that Trump—if he decides to run as an Independent—would guarantee the Democrats will win the White House in 2024 because it would split the Republican vote.”
Trump has “no chance” of securing the nomination because Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has “abandoned him”, Johnston said referring to the November 10, 2022, New York Post cover mocking Trump. “But his [Trump] ego demands it and he believes that only he should be president; no one else is qualified. Donald needs attention and believes he’s a ‘demagod’; he has suggested that he is a god. His ego needs will overwhelm everything else. His has a desperate need for approval.” Trump announcing his candidacy “720 days before the election is a pre-emptive move”, Johnston said. “He knows that he would be indicted soon [in the Mar-a-Lago case]. Once he is indicted, he would say that indictment is just to keep him from being president. He is the greatest con artist in the world and he knows how to defeat law enforcement.” In fact, way back in 2000, Trump formed a panel to explore the idea of seeking nomination by the centrist Ross Perot-founded Reform Party. And in January 2021, he considered launching the Patriot Party after several Republicans slammed him for the insurrection, the WSJ reported. In December-end, Trump shared an article written by Dan Gelernter in the right-wing journal American Greatness on Truth Social that compared his third-party bid in theory to that of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, which split the Republican vote and resulted in William Howard Taft’s defeat. Gelernter too believes that the Dems would win the 2024 election if he runs independently as the anti-Trump vote would be divided. “Talk to Republican voters anywhere outside the Beltway, and it is obvious that he [Trump] is admired and even loved by those who consider themselves ‘ordinary’ Americans,” he wrote. The writer is a freelance journalist with two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .