December 22, 2022 07:00 AM
A crowded primary field will guarantee a Republican primary win for former President Donald Trump, his 2024 campaign operation believes, despite a string of recent national polls that show him trailing Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in a head-to-head matchup.
More than a half dozen Trumpworld advisers, former administration officials, and campaign operatives told the Washington Examiner that support for DeSantis will slowly erode as more Republicans declare for 2024. Three specifically likened a yet-to-be-announced DeSantis run to former Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s ill-fated 2016 bid. Back then, the two-term governor dropped out of the presidential race just months after entering the field as the odds-on favorite.
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Operatives believe Trump firmly carries a third of the Republican electorate. Though DeSantis currently matches or beats Trump head to head in many national polls, Trumpworld predicts the Florida governor will fizzle as former Vice President Mike Pence, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tim Scott (R-SC), former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and others all potentially jump into the race.
“The die-hard MAGA supporters won’t vote for anyone but Trump. Everyone else who gets in dilutes support for DeSantis,” one person stated. “Basically, we’re praying Nikki Haley runs.”
A number of polls taken over the past month back up those claims despite Trump’s disastrous campaign rollout.
Politico and Morning Consult conducted a poll between Nov. 18-20, the days immediately following Trump’s announcement, that showed Trump and DeSantis pulling 45% and 30% respectively, while Pence, Cruz, Haley, and six others notched single-digit support.
Morning Consult’s poll from mid-December also gave Trump a 15-point lead over DeSantis. That survey showed Trump now polling at 48%, DeSantis at 33%, and Pence, Cruz, Haley, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), Pompeo, Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), and Scott all clocking in at 3% or lower.
A Harvard-Harris poll from Dec. 13-15 gave Trump an even larger 23-point lead over DeSantis in a field that again saw Pence, Haley, Cruz, Pompeo, and Scott fight for scraps.
And as of Wednesday, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump leading DeSantis and the rest of the pack by a whopping 18.2 points.
MAGA world also claims that Trump maintains a major cash advantage over his budding rival. DeSantis pulled in an eye-popping $200 million for his 2022 reelection bid but spent more than half of it to secure his landslide victory over Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.
Trump operatives note that DeSantis’s biggest donor in the previous cycle was the Republican Governors Association, which pumped $20 million into the reelection effort over the past two years that will serve as a “onetime” infusion for a DeSantis 2024 run.
Meanwhile, Trump is betting on repeating his history of outpacing other Republicans with small-dollar donations. His own fundraising spiked in the month following his third campaign announcement, including $4.1 million in the two weeks after his Mar-a-Lago launch on Nov. 18. The former president has banked nearly $120 million for 2024, though Open Secrets reported after the midterm elections that he only had access to just over $13 million of that sum.
One Trumpworld figure predicted that should DeSantis enter the race in the spring of 2023, he’d be facing major funding problems by year’s end and drop his bid before primary votes are even cast.
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“Even the NFTs, which everybody in the media mocked, sold like hot cakes,” one former Trump adviser told the Washington Examiner, adding simply, “He’s still got it.”