Republican Primary 2024: Analysis of Ten Candidates and Trump’s Dominance

And ten. Wednesday, June 7, Mike Pence entered in turn in the race for the Republican primary. In his campaign launch video, the former vice-president of Donald Trump launched: “God is not done with America yet! For the time being, his candidacy, like that of the eight other declared applicants, is above all likely to do Donald Trump’s business. America is probably not done with the former American president.

Ten candidates for nomination

More than a year from the Republican Convention, there are already 10 applicants on the starting line. Facing Donald Trump, the main challenger today is the governor of Florida, re-elected very largely in 2022, Ron DeSantis, whose differences with the former American president are not obvious. Rival but also heir (in 2018, Donald Trump hailed him as a “very brilliant leader”), “he does Trump without Trump” summarizes the specialist in the United States André Kaspi. Anti-woke, very conservative without sharing the excesses of Donald Trump, he is now threatened with prosecution after having moved migrants by plane from Florida to California, Democratic land.

The differences in temperament are clearer with his ex-vice-president Mike Pence, who had already distinguished himself from Trump by recognizing, in 2021, the result of the ballot boxes during the last American presidential election. “Discreet, he does not move the crowds, but enjoys support among fundamentalist Christians,” explains André Kaspi. On the other hand, it is difficult for him to completely detach himself from the balance sheet of the Trump years: “When you have been vice-president and you present yourself, that means that you are defending the mandate that you have exercised. »

Republican voters will be spoiled for choice since two other candidates made themselves known this week: Chris Christie, ex-governor of New Jersey, and Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota. They joined a swarm of already declared ambitions: Nikki Haley, diplomat and former governor of South Carolina, Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, Senator Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. But nothing ensures that they will still all be there for the Republican Nomination Convention for the presidential election, which is to be held in July 2024 in Milwaukee. ” We are in a period where candidates declare themselves and disappear,” explains André Kaspi, who nevertheless draws a first conclusion from this multiplication of applicants: “the more candidates there are, the more it favors Trump. Diversity is a weakness for all candidates except him. »

Donald Trump’s saucepans: advantage or disadvantage?

Result: the former American president is more than ever a favorite and crushes his competitors in the polls, having more than 30 points difference with his first challenger Ron DeSantis. He may have been impeached twice by the House of Representatives, be weighted with numerous legal proceedings, Donald Trump remains extremely popular among conservatives.

The legal troubles of the billionaire are however numerous. On March 30, he was charged over a series of pre-2016 payments that were intended to cover up embarrassing cases. The most publicized of them, the Stormy Daniels affair (named after the pornographic actress who allegedly received $130,000 from the former president), was revealed in 2018 by the Wall Street Journal. Problem: this payment was recorded as a legal fee for the Trump Organization when it could be considered a campaign fee. In addition to these cases, Donald Trump was the subject of a parliamentary inquiry which, late last year, claimed to have “overwhelming evidence” showing that the former president had “orchestrated and supervised” the operations aimed at to overturn the result of the last presidential election.

For André Kaspi, “his last impeachment in New York helped boost his popularity among Republicans. For his supporters, if he is so often attacked, it is because he represents a threat to the opposing camp. Donald Trump has also presented himself as the victim of a political trial and his teams have even launched fundraisers on this theme. If these cases don’t overwhelm Trump on the side of his followers at all, it’s a different story if you look at the perspective of Americans as a whole. “He’s a personality cumbersome, who makes a lot of noise, who has business on his hands” enumerates André Kaspi, before summarizing: “For Americans in general, Trump is a character that we love or hate, but who occupies the front of the scene. »

Last case to date and not least, the federal indictment which Donald Trump faces for concealment of documents. He is accused of having kept boxes of documents, some of which are classified as “secret-defense”, after leaving the presidency of the United States. « The corrupt Biden administration has informed my lawyers that I have been indicted, presumably in the bogus case of the boxes, ”Lambasted Donald Trump on his Truth Social network, announcing the news, already intoning the verse of the political trial. This indictment is a first and it is a much more serious matter than the previous ones, but that does not prevent him from presenting his candidacy for the supreme election. In a forum in Le Monde, the lawyer and specialist of the United States Anne Deysine also stresses that a trial remains very unlikely at the federal level because at this level“the Minister of Justice has the last word and may decide to dismiss the case for reasons of political expediency”.

Towards a Trump Biden return match?

In any case, the Republican camp is not coming to this election in a position of strength, a sign that it has not been able to use Joe Biden’s mandate to its advantage. « The Republican camp had high hopes for the legislative elections in 2022,” recalls André Kaspi. “The hopes have been disappointed, they are in the majority but by very little in the House of Representatives and have not obtained a majority in the Senate. They are in an uncertain or even weak position. At the time, many had called for a critical assessment of the strategy of the conservative camp, very dominated by the positions of Donald Trump, an extremely divisive tutelary figure.

Despite this, the billionaire is now in pole position to represent his camp. It can be said that the prospect of a Trump Biden return match does not arouse any enthusiasm among Americans for the time being.

Historian, specialist in the United States, André Kaspi recently published My American Chronicles (Ed. de l’Observatoire, January 2023).