Will Republicans be conservative or entrepreneurial with their nominee?

Even disregarding candidate personalities and policies, Republicans’ presidential nomination offers dramatically divergent directions. Republicans must choose between either a high floor and a low ceiling or a low floor and a high ceiling.  

The first is the conservative choice, offering a high nomination probability but lower general election odds. The second is the entrepreneurial choice, offering a lower (low) nomination probability but higher general election odds.  

Over the next seven months, conservatives must decide which course to take.  

Of course, Donald Trump is the Republicans’ high floor and low ceiling choice. His base support is strong — most would say overwhelming — but his potential to expand beyond that base in the general election appears limited.  

Trump’s Republican rivals are the party’s low floor and high ceiling choices. Their base support is small, only former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now break double digits, and it is spread across several candidates. Yet both Haley and DeSantis appear to have the potential to expand Trump’s base in the general election. 

A Fox News poll released Oct. 12 provides the evidence. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans support Trump as their party’s nominee. To put that in context, Biden did not garner that level of support among Democrats until he had already won his party’s 2020 nomination. Today, it is roughly his level of Democrat support as an incumbent.

Such support is staggering, especially for an incumbent president who was defeated in the last election. Usually, parties quickly kick to the curb their defeated presidents. No one talked about Carter running in 1984 or Bush running in 1996. And with someone as well-known as Trump, his level of party support seems unlikely to change. 

Among Trump’s rivals, his two closest are DeSantis and Haley. DeSantis polls at 13 percent (unchanged from September), and Haley’s support stands at 10 percent (double her September level). 

So much for the candidates’ floors, now look at their ceilings.

The Fox poll crosstabs show Trump trailing Biden by a single point: 48 percent to 49 percent. Trump leads Biden among independents 48 percent to 40 percent; he loses 6 percent of Republicans and holds 5 percent of Democrats.

The same poll shows DeSantis leading Biden 49-47 percent. DeSantis leads Biden 46-41 percent among independents; he loses 4 percent of Republicans and wins 7 percent of Democrats. 

Finally, the poll shows Haley leading Biden 49-45 percent. Haley leads Biden 47-38 percent among independents; she loses 3 percent of Republicans and wins 9 percent of Democrats.  

Trump’s general election ceiling appears limited. According to the Fox News poll, he trails Biden 48 percent to 49 percent. That result puts Trump slightly above the 46.9 percent of the popular vote percentage he won in 2020; while versus Trump, Biden is polling 2.3 percentage points below his 2020 popular vote percentage.

Trump’s Republican rivals’ ceiling appears higher. DeSantis is currently 2 percentage points higher than Trump’s 2020 popular vote margin, and he holds Biden 4.3 percentage points below Biden’s 2020 popular vote margin. Haley is also currently 2 percentage points above Trump’s 2020 popular vote percentage, and she holds Biden 6.3 percentage points below his popular vote margin. 

Of course, the Fox poll is just a snapshot in time with results well inside its margin of error (+/-4.5%). The question then becomes: How likely are these pictures to change?

For Trump, things will likely change very little. On politics’ center stage for the better part of the last eight years, there are few more known quantities in American politics — if not American political history. Opinions about him, positive or negative, are therefore unlikely to shift. 

For Trump’s Republican rivals, a considerable amount could change. Comparatively unknown, public exposure will certainly affect public opinion: Witness Haley’s doubled support in just a month. 

In short, people don’t know what they don’t know, so their viewpoint is largely fluid. But they do know what they do know, so their viewpoint is largely fixed.

Of course, what happens to Biden could affect the entire Republican field. But what happens to Biden will likely be bad — it is hard to see the economy miraculously rising, a major foreign policy win that benefits him to a meaningful degree or a cessation of America’s border crisis. If so, it will likely be a rising tide that lifts all the Republican boats. 

And that likely benefits Trump most: After all, winning the White House is more a qualitative than a quantitative threshold — you either win or you don’t, and any imagined “style points” (like so-called “mandates”) are largely in the eye of the beholders and the proclaimers. 

Where victory’s quantitative element could have an impact is 2024’s down-ballot races: Senate and House contests. A candidate who could broaden Republicans’ base could also pull some voters to support other Republican candidates. Is such a bank-shot likely enough for Republican voters to attempt it when they decide on their party’s nominee? 

What Republicans must ask themselves over the next seven months is whether they want Trump with his higher floor and lower ceiling or his rivals with their lower floors and higher ceilings. Will they be conservative or entrepreneurial?

J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.