Donald Trump did not win in 2016 because the establishment "split the field" | #209 - February 15, 2023
Trump may be in a stronger position for 2024 than popularly believed. (That does not mean he is the automatic winner.)
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Ambassador to the UN under Donald Trump, formally announced Tuesday morning that she will be challenging her old boss for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. That makes for an officially contested primary, with other candidates, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, likely to join the race in the coming months.
The big question is whether any of them can muster enough support to dethrone the party’s current presumptive leader. The polls indicate DeSantis has a good shot, but survey results right now are unusually noisy. That means they are likely to be even less predictive than usual.
But let’s assume the polls are nevertheless convincing to DeSantis and he jumps into the race. Conventional wisdom about the 2016 primary has analysts stipulating that dividing the anti-Trump vote will allow him to win the primary again with plurality support, as he did last time around. After all, he only won 45% of the popular…
