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Presidential race starts year with hefty Trump lead
By Colby Etherton
Time is running out for GOP presidential candidates. Then again, is there ever enough time?Â
On January 15, 2024, the Iowa caucuses will officially kick off 2024’s election season. A week later, on Jan. 23, 2024, New Hampshire’s primary will be held. There are six candidates technically still in the running for the GOP nomination: former president Donald Trump, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Â
There have been four televised GOP debates, none of which former president Donald Trump has attended, and the GOP race is still more or less where it was from the beginning: with Trump set up for a steamroll. He leads the pack, despite being charged with 91 criminal counts ranging from obstruction of justice charges, charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, mishandling classified information and falsification of business records.Â
Despite Trump’s commanding lead over every GOP candidate, most have been tepid and have shied away from going on the offensive against him — with the exception of Christie and Hutchinson, the latter of which did not qualify for the past three GOP debates. Instead, the candidates on these debate stages have often taken potshots at each other. Theoretically, this is because they know that Trump’s insurmountable lead is so big that the best they can hope for is Trump’s legal woes taking a turn and impacting his ability to run for the presidency, opening up the door for another candidate. Or perhaps they’re posturing for a potential 2028 run.Â
According to a CBS News’ December polling on the Iowa caucuses, Trump was polling at 58 percent among Iowa voters, and 44 percent in New Hampshire. The margins are closer in New Hampshire as Haley polled at 29 percent, though still fifteen points behind him. But barring any legal news affecting the trajectory of the race, the Republican presidential race is looking like a foregone conclusion.Â
Though we’re heading for a rematch of President Biden and Trump, polling has routinely indicated that voters want different candidates in each party. Both are also quite unpopular nationally, with a December ABC News/Ipsos poll showing that 33 percent of voters viewing Biden favorably and 29 percent viewing Trump favorably. In the same way that Biden securing the presidency was in part attributed to a possible second Trump term motivating people to come out and vote for Biden even if they didn’t necessarily have the most favorable view of him, this election will likely come down to who can motivate more voters to come out to vote against, rather than for, one of the two candidates.Â
Elsewhere, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry against Biden on December 13, 2023. House Republicans allege that Biden benefitted personally from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings, though to date there is no concrete evidence suggesting that he did. While an impeachment inquiry is an investigation into potential wrongdoing, should the investigation progress into a formal impeachment vote (without any real evidence to back it up, and currently there is not), it would inevitably fail in a Democratic-led Senate.Â
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