Donald Trump faces a wide array of 2024 rivals, with each believing their varying styles and strategies can wrest the Republican Party from the former president’s populist grip.
Most obvious are the pugilists: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who regularly call out Trump’s character flaws, ideological inconsistencies and electoral losses.
Conversely, sunny-side conservatives—namely Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson—make subtle references to the coarseness he has injected into national politics and try to fly above the circus by jabbing more at President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Then there are the former aides, including former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, who back some Trump-era policies while sketching out major differences with their old boss on Russia’s war with Ukraine and the Jan. 6 attacks.
“The American people deserve to know that on that day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution,” Pence said during his Wednesday presidential campaign announcement in Iowa.
“Now, voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”
Other candidates choose to embrace every inch of the Make America Great Again movement, but assert the former president is past his prime.
“Donald Trump went as far as he was going to go,” tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced his presidential campaign in late February, told USA TODAY in an interview.
“If we want to take the ‘America First’ agenda to the next level, it’s going to require, yes, an outsider, but a new outsider with fresh legs. And I’ve got fresh legs.”
With the Republican field mostly set, what remains foggy is which of these contenders is best positioned to take down the bombastic former president, who has kept a decisive lead in every major poll.
As the primary pivots to town halls, early state stops and upcoming debate stages, the question remains who, if anyone, can beat Trump?
“To be successful, a non-Trump candidate will need to confront him and speak to the concerns of voters who are drawn to Trump but also be easily distinguishable from him on morals, ethics, behavior and comportment,” Republican strategist Liz Mair said.
“A successful non-Trump candidate will have to be able to walk and chew gum and not by taking a few steps, stopping to chew, then taking a few more steps, then stopping to chew.”
But unless there is a significant disruption in the coming weeks, Trump supporters remain boastful that his hold on the GOP remains too strong for a single rival to overthrow him.
“Essentially everything has to go wrong for Donald Trump and everything has to go right for Ron DeSantis or anybody else,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who endorsed Trump, said in an interview. “And in politics, that’s almost impossible. So it’s going be tough. There’s no doubt about. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it’s going to be very difficult.”
More challengers, the merrier for Trump
Coupled with Pence and Christie coming into the race, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has declared his candidacy, bringing the number of Trump challengers to nearly a dozen.
That’s a smaller field than in 2016, but the easy take is that Trump still hoards diehard supporters who remain loyal to him no matter who else joins the race. A January survey by NBC News, for instance, found 33% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said they supporters of Trump more than the GOP itself.
As more candidates enter, Trump’s allies see that as a benefit and have teased how it hurts DeSantis while mocking others.
“Mike Pence’s entrance into the race caps off another bad week for Ron DeSantis’ faltering campaign,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Make America Great Again Inc., said in a statement Wednesday. “But the question most GOP voters are asking themselves about Pence’s candidacy is ‘Why?’”
Conservative critics of Trump, such as former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, feel the same way. He said the widening field will make it harder for any single challenger to stop him.
“The more people in the race, the more it helps Trump,” he said to USA TODAY. “I’m not saying we should anoint someone or have a coronation, but people ought to make the right decision that what’s good for the party and good for the country is for us to figure out who’s got the best shot to take him out.”
But others downplay the size of the primary contest, arguing that unlike in 2016 many of the lesser-known candidates will either drop out before the Iowa caucuses or remain in the margins.
“It’s not the number who start,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “It’s the number who stay in.”
Trump 2.0 rivals
What matters more, GOP analysts say, is whether the non-Trump candidates go after each other, as many did seven years ago, rather than focusing their attacks on Trump himself.
That would be bad for someone like DeSantis, who is widely treated by the Trump campaign, its allies and the press as the main rival.
Mair said Florida’s governor is in the best position at the moment to defeat Trump because he has a fanbase, albeit smaller, that is equally diehard to Trump. She added how DeSantis also has a record of accomplishment in an executive role that can contrast with Trump on issues that appeal to conservatives.
“If DeSantis hadn’t actually decided to run, Trump would have had a much easier path,” Mair said.
Joining DeSatis on this front are candidates such as Ramaswamy, who has tailored his campaign as one that is a continuation of the former president’s policies but without the “vengeance and grievance” elements, a campaign spokesperson said.
“I’m speaking directly to the ‘America First’ base… I’m respecting them because in a certain sense, in a very real sense, I’m one of them,” Ramaswamy told USA TODAY.
But the question that plagues the multi-millionaire entrepreneur and any others looking to mimic Trump is why would a significant portion of the GOP electorate be sold on a replica when the original is in the race?
Attacks on Trump look to intensify as legal troubles rise
Unlike in 2016, Trump is politically weaker despite carrying a significant portion of the GOP.
Polling in the early states show Trump hovering in the low-to-mid-40s, which shows primary voters want someone other than him.
DeSantis has decided he will fight back, declaring to reporters in Iowa that: “I’m gonna counter-punch and I’m gonna fight back on it,” when asked about Trump and his allies’ attacks.
Many believe the biggest threat to Trump in taking the party’s nomination next year remains the former president himself, and his multiple legal troubles.
Outside of the unprecedented indictment by a New York grand jury for alleged hush money payments to a former adult film actress, GOP voters and candidates will have to decide how to play it if Trump is indicted again – and again – over three investigations involving efforts to overturn his loss to Biden in Georgia, his handling of classified information and his actions leading up to the insurrection of Jan, 6, 2021.
Pence, who defied Trump’s demands to help overturn the 2020 contest, opened up those wounds directly during his announcement in Iowa. He declared that his former boss was unfit for the presidency due to the attacks on the Capitol.
“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” he said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
Christie, who has telegraphed that he plans to attack Trump mercilessly during the primary, said the former president “undermined our democracy” with his repeated false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and attempts to overturn his loss.
“He undermined our democracy because he was angry we didn’t reelect him,” Christie said.
Other contenders who remain in the single digits, such as Scott, are spending big in Iowa while touting their vision for the country. The South Carolina senator has the infrastructure and donor support to make a credible run, but he has yet to slam Trump by name.
But during a May town hall even in New Hampshire, many believed Scott was alluding to Trump when he said: “The seeds of greatness, not the seeds of grievance, is our future.”
Republican strategists say Trump’s legal troubles as a sign of his lack of viability in a general election could eventually play out in other campaigns at various degrees from overt to subtle messaging that will weaken the former president and cast him as the least viable opponent against Biden.
“We are in a sea of uncertainty right now,” Ayers, the Republican pollster, said.
But for all the speculation, Trump remains firm the GOP belongs to him and that whoever looks to win the nomination must go through him as well.
“(The) old Republican Party is gone,” Trump said during an April donor conference in Nashville, Tenn. “And it is never coming back.”
Reporters Francesca Chambers and David Jackson contributed to this story.
