The Polling Question That Will Define the GOP Presidential Primary
Discover more from Brain Candy
The Polling Question That Will Define the GOP Presidential Primary
Republicans care more about nominating someone who agrees with them on the issues than about nominating someone who can win.
Two quick notes ahead of today’s post:
First, I was looking back at my past few articles and realized that I hadn’t written about elections for a few weeks. The past several pieces were more opinion-ey and political. Those posts are interesting to research and fun to write, but I don’t want to drop the ball on the election analysis, either. So today’s post is a bit more analytical and hopefully a bit of a break from the contentious stuff.
Second, I’m still getting the hang of this whole blogging thing. So, if you have questions, comments, criticism, topic suggestions, lavish praise, etc. for me, please share it. You can just respond to this email or write in the comments with whatever’s on your mind.
On to the article…
In 2020, Democrats had a long list of presidential hopefuls to choose from. There was the Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, the populist progressive Elizabeth Warren, the political wunderkind Pete Buttigieg, and about two dozen others. But out of all these options, Democrats chose Joe Biden, the 70-something politician’s politician with two failed presidential campaigns under his belt and a distinct lack of ideological commitment or political vision.
The reason Democrats ended up nominating someone as conventional as Biden can be boiled down to a single factor: electability. In poll after poll, Democrats said that they cared more about nominating a candidate who could beat Trump than they did about nominating one who shared their opinion on policy:
And in poll after poll, the clear plurality of Democrats said that Biden was the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump even as they said that Sanders was the candidate they agreed with on policy:
When the rubber met the road, Democrats prioritized Biden’s electability over Sanders’ policies.
The obvious question this prompts is how Republicans feel as we approach the 2024 presidential primary. Do they care more about nominating a candidate who can beat Biden or nominating one who agrees with them on the issues? A recent CNN poll asked GOP voters this question:
By a nearly 20-point margin, Republicans say they care more about nominating a candidate who agrees with them on major issues than they do about nominating one who can beat Biden. This is a mirror image of what Democrats said in 2020, and it’s a dynamic that will make the upcoming GOP contest fundamentally different than the one three years ago.
How an “issues-first” primary will be different than an “electability-first” primary.
In a GOP primary where voters care more about issue alignment than electability, candidates will have no incentive to moderate in an attempt to show that they can appeal to independents and swing voters. Instead, successful candidates will have to run to the right to appeal to the base’s policy preferences. That means we’ll likely see the crop of GOP candidates lean into the nationalism, isolationism, and anti-leftism that’s taken over the GOP base in recent years.
Before seeing this polling tidbit, I was relatively bullish on some of the more moderate presidential hopefuls. I thought that the GOP might choose a candidate like Senator Tim Scott simply because he seemed more electable than Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. But now I’m reconsidering. In an environment where GOP voters care more about issues and ideology than electability, Scott and other traditional candidates like him (Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, etc.) don’t stand much of a chance. Instead, it seems inevitable that Republicans will pick a populist firebrand like Trump or DeSantis who’s a better temperamental and ideological fit for the moment.
Between those two frontrunners, however, it’s unclear which stands to benefit more from an “issues-first” primary. I can see a strong case for either.
Trump, for instance, can make the case that he’s responsible for the GOP’s turn towards a more aggressive form of national populism. Before him, the party was a mix of fiscal hawks, free traders, and military interventionists. Only when Trump ran in 2016 did the party pivot away from the politics of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. Moreover, Trump can point to the tangible right-wing victories he had as president: nominating two Supreme Court justices, getting tough on China, tax cuts, and so on.
DeSantis, for his part, can make the case that he’s smarter and more strategic than Trump. This means he’ll actually be able to implement a right-wing agenda instead of just tweeting about one. For GOP voters who want a tactical operator with experience pulling the levers of power to get right-wing things done, DeSantis has a compelling case. All he needs to do is point to his successes in Florida and say that he’ll do the same thing for the entire country if elected president.
Between them, I actually think that DeSantis has the upper hand if Republican primary voters really do end up prioritizing policy. My hesitation is that I think GOP voters may not actually care about the “issues” as much as polling indicates. My hunch is that they say they care about nominating a candidate who agrees with them on the issues when they really care about nominating a candidate who they like and who gives off a vibe of being very right-wing. If that’s the case, then I think Trump will have the upper hand.
To summarize: in 2020, Democrats’ first and only goal was to beat Donald Trump. They nominated Joe Biden because they thought he could win. In 2024, Republicans want a candidate who stands for the things they stand for. If you’re Trump or DeSantis, that’s a reason to celebrate. If you’re anybody else in the GOP field, that’s a big red flag and an incentive to run to the right.
Thanks for reading Brain Candy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. If you’re already signed up, there’s one main thing you can do to help me further: pledge future support in case I ever enable a paid subscription tier. I won’t turn that on without telling you (I promise!), and it’s really just a way to gauge the financial viability of doing this full-time.
— Seth
The Polling Question That Will Define the GOP Presidential Primary
Your analysis makes very good sense to me. In some sense we are seeing that as Trump's polling numbers go up with the "rumors" of indictment..."Protecting our Guy!"
"My hunch is that they say they care about nominating a candidate who agrees with them on the issues when they really care about nominating a candidate who they like and who gives off a vibe of being very right-wing."
I think you're spot-on there. For a wide majority of the GOP base, it's all about sentiment. They want someone who is always on the attack. And that's Trump.