CORRECTION (Aug. 28, 2023, 11:00 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the last time two presidents were on a general election ballot. The last time was 1912.
During Donald Trump’s first presidential run and time in office, there was a recurrent meme that was applied to him: “#nothingmatters.” No matter what Trump did or said, no matter how offensive, controversial or hypocritical his public statements, none of it affected how Republican voters viewed him, and none of it brought any consequences for him.
For 2024, it’s increasingly clear that “#nothingmatters” needs to return — though for a slightly different reason. This is a campaign in which, literally, nothing matters.
If Trump is the nominee, it would create a political dynamic that the U.S. has not seen in more than 130 years.
A major part of the reason is that if Trump is the nominee, it would create a political dynamic that the U.S. has not seen in more than 110 years: two presidents on a general election ballot. The traditional arc of a presidential campaign, in which at least one candidate introduces themselves to the American people, will not be applicable in 2024. The trajectory of the race is clear, and there’s little indication that it’s going to change.
Take, for example, the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate. I could spend the rest of this column dissecting each of the candidates and their debate performances. But, ultimately, who cares? There’s little reason to believe that what took place in Milwaukee this week will matter at all. The only Republican candidate who does matter is Trump, and he wasn’t there Wednesday night.
It’s hard to blame him for his absence. When polls show you with a 40-point lead over your nearest competitor, what’s the point of attending a debate where you’d likely be attacked or could utter a gaffe (though with Trump, it’s hard to imagine what that could possibly be)? By staying away, Trump makes his competitors look irrelevant — which, let’s face it, they are.
Watching the eight candidates tussle Wednesday night was like watching eight people argue over who’s in charge of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Someone might emerge victorious, but ultimately their fates are the same (meanwhile, Trump already ignored the edict of “women and children only” and hopped on a lifeboat).
Barring some unforeseen circumstance, Trump will almost certainly be the 2024 Republican nominee for president. Since he announced his candidacy last year, every indication has been that Trump remains the preferred choice of most Republican voters. Four criminal indictments have not dimmed his chances. Indeed, his latest arrest, in Georgia, has become yet another tool for Trump to extract fundraising dollars from his besotted supporters.
In 2024, the number of truly persuadable voters will likely be quite small.
Part of the problem for the GOP’s presidential wannabes is that Trump is, for all intents and purposes, an incumbent president. I don’t mean that’s the case because so many of his supporters wrongly believe he won the election in 2020. It’s that Trump is a known quantity. When he announced recently that he wouldn’t show up to any of the primary debates, he noted that “the public knows who I am.” For once, he’s right.
Voters long ago made up their minds about Trump: About 40% think he’s great, and the rest of the country can’t stand him. In a general election, his numbers will be a bit higher because there are Republicans who don’t like Trump but can’t imagine voting for a Democrat. But there won’t be a broad swath of the electorate giving him a new look. Perhaps if Trump adopted Richard Nixon’s strategy from the 1968 election, and portrayed himself in a new light, things would be different. But that’s not who Trump is, and voters who formed an opinion about him years ago will likely be given little reason to change their minds.
Even in a typical presidential election, party and partisan identification means most Americans know who they will vote for well ahead of Election Day. But in 2024, voters will have years of receipts on both Trump and President Joe Biden, which means the number of truly persuadable voters will likely be quite small.
This reality will push both candidates to focus on mobilizing their core supporters. It’s precisely why Trump is leaning into his numerous criminal indictments: It’s a sure way to fire up his base and maintain their support. Since anti-Trump animus is so strong among Democrats, Biden will have every incentive to go scorched-earth on his predecessor about the dangers of another Trump term. Indeed, considering Biden’s less-than-stellar approval numbers, the more that he can make the 2024 election a referendum on Trump, the better it will be for him politically.
So does this mean that nothing will move the political needle between now and November 2024? It’s obviously impossible to say for sure, but with two presidents on the ballot — and no indication that even a criminal conviction for Trump would lessen his support among GOP voters — the dynamics of this race seem abundantly clear.
Barring the aforementioned unforeseen circumstance, Trump will win the 2024 GOP nomination, face off against Biden in the general election — and likely lose. And nothing that happens before November 2024 will matter.
