How do you explain the stampede of Republicans suddenly jumping into the GOP presidential primaries? The answer is that they see a chance to be the next Donald Trump.
They certainly don’t think they can defeat former President Trump, who retains a mammoth lead in the polls. But if Trump exits the race, Republican voters say they want a Trump-like candidate.
A CBS News poll released this month of likely GOP primary voters found they want to vote for someone who will “challenge woke ideas” (85 percent), “oppose any gun restrictions” (66 percent), “say Trump won the 2020 election” (61 percent) and make “liberals angry” (57 percent).
The clear message is that GOP primary voters still love Trump’s act.
Republicans rushing into the primaries are hearing the same message. But their thoughts are racing ahead to the idea that several major legal cases against Trump are gaining momentum. And they are betting that the candidate currently running second to Trump — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — is already so damaged by a lackluster campaign launch and weeks of bad press that he can be beaten.
But a big problem remains for Republicans leaping in to fight, best explained by comedian Bill Maher. He recently joked that Republican primary voters have no interest in seeing a “tribute band” — meaning Trump imitators — when the “real band,” Trump, is still playing.
And Trump is still in the race, with his biggest lead ever in the polls.
A Morning Consult survey released this month found Trump in the lead with 60 percent of GOP primary voters and DeSantis a distant second with 19 percent.
Jumping into this race makes no sense if all the new candidates are making a Trump victory more likely by dividing up the anti-Trump vote. It makes sense only if they anticipate Trump falling out of the race, in which case they need to sell themselves in advance as the closest replica — the best “tribute band,” to use Maher’s analogy.
They are competing to offer the best imitation of Trump, in case Trump goes down.
That’s the real thinking at play as DeSantis officially entered the race last week, as well as Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate.
That same hardball thinking is driving others closer to launching their own campaigns — Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, for example, and North Dakota Governor Don Burgum. Also itching to get into the race now are former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
And then, of course, there are the early entrants — Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchison, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
That’s a lot of people signing up for what is currently a longshot mission to stop Trump from winning the nomination.
But note that these candidates have no big policy differences with Trump. And except for Christie and Hutchinson, they have all painstakingly avoided anything that could be construed as criticism of the former president. That deference indicates that if Trump remains in the race, most of them are content to run for Trump’s vice-presidential slot.
That’s why all these candidates getting into the GOP primaries was not in the stars a month ago. Until now, fear of Trump’s attacks, bullying and name-calling would have been enough to keep most Republicans silent.
They all know that the people who ran against Trump in 2016 GOP primaries are now stuck with demeaning nicknames for rest of their lives — “Lyin Ted” Cruz, “Low Energy Jeb” Bush, “Little Marco” Rubio. The fear of becoming victim to the next career-ending social media post from Trump has kept most current Republican elected officeholders from ever criticizing Trump’s bad behavior, even during the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
But today, the political calculations inside the GOP are quickly shifting. For proof, look to senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.). They broke ground last week by turning on Trump.
“We need to come up with an alternative,” Cornyn told reporters. “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by and what’s the most important thing to me is we have a candidate who can actually win.”
“If past [is] prologue, that means President Trump is going to have a hard time in those swing states, which means that he cannot win a general election,” Cassidy said.
DeSantis has also recently taken a more aggressive stand with Trump, suggesting that he sees a wounded Trump possibly not making it to the first primary contest in Iowa.
DeSantis was quoted in the New York Times as saying there are only three “credible” candidates for president in 2024 — himself, Trump and President Biden — and only two (DeSantis and Biden) who could win the general in November.
The sudden rush of candidates in the GOP primary will generate stories about attacks and counterattacks among the candidates. But don’t be deceived. The real contest is to see who can mimic Trump by successfully delivering more red meat of fear — fear of the truth about the 2020 election, fear of immigrants and fear of change.
Even if he is not at the head of the ticket, this is still Trump’s party of fear and grievance.
Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.