Trailing Trump, DeSantis still carries burdens that brought down former favorites – WABE

It may seem strange to describe a presidential candidate as a frontrunner when a rival candidate is ahead of him by more than 2 to 1.

But that’s what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faces in the 2024 election cycle. He’s a decided underdog of former President Donald Trump in all recent polls. Yet he is just as clearly the primary alternative to Trump, should Republicans need him or decide they want one.

In the unique circumstances of the 2024 presidential cycle, that makes DeSantis a sort of frontrunner, de facto because the gap between him and his closest competitor in the GOP is almost as wide as the gap between him and Trump.

If his current ranking in the polls makes him the first choice of only one in four Republicans, he is still the second choice of half of the party. The other declared candidates Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy are still presenting themselves widely. And Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, yet to be declared in the race, has an evangelical supporter base but has shown little to no upside potential.

But being clearly the party’s plan B right now may not be good news for DeSantis. It also makes him the A target for Trump and for all the other candidates. Also-rans will attempt to attract attention by attacking it. Few if any will want to risk tangling with Trump, but will any of them be afraid of a smash with DeSantis? The latter may sound like a ticket to greater exposure on cable and social media.

And speaking of the media, the particular attention that journalists have given to favorites in the past has proven fatal to many. DeSantis already has a strained relationship with many mainstream media outlets, who will pounce on any DeSantis missteps. We got a glimpse of it in the glee that greeted his abortive announcement of his candidacy on Elon Musk’s Twitter launch pad.

Examples of old pioneers litter the landscape

We don’t have to go far back in election history to find examples of frontrunners and other highly rated candidates who never lived up to their first billing.

Perhaps the most egregious case in recent cycles is that of Jeb Bush, another Florida governor who used his record in that office to bolster his credentials for the national office.

Bush, who some considered more talented than his brother (George W.) or their father (George HW), had been out of power since 2007 but was still seen as the presumed frontrunner when he announced in 2015 and has raised its first $100 million almost overnight.

Yet at the start of the campaign, Jeb Bush seemed oddly uneasy and out of breath. He didn’t know how to handle Trump in televised debates, like no one else did.

“Donald, you can’t insult your way to the presidency. It’s not going to happen,” he said at the time, even as Trump made it clear.

During the long preschool months of 2015, Bush fell in the polls as Trump rose. And when voting began in Iowa in February 2016, Bush finished sixth, just ahead of former tech executive Carly Fiorina. Eight days later, Bush was fourth in New Hampshire and it was over. He officially ended his campaign on February 20.

Almost as stunning was the run of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 Republican primaries. When Arizona Senator John McCain ran into campaign trouble in 2007, Giuliani, “America’s Mayor after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has established itself as a precursor. It didn’t hurt that so many major media outlets were headquartered in Manhattan.

At a fundraising event for the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus in October 2007, the speaker of the evening called for a show of hands to support the various Republican presidential candidates. There were hands up for McCain, also a few for former governors Mitt Romney and Mike Romney. But when it came to Giuliani, there were too many hands to count. It was a forest of hands.

At the time, there was almost as much speculation that the Democratic nominee in 2008 would be New York Senator Hillary Clinton. She topped the national poll for most of 2007 in a field of eight. But in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, 2008, she finished third well behind the winner, Barack Obama. Clinton made a comeback in the New Hampshire primary and won most of the 10 most populous state primaries that year, but Obama won more states and more delegates.

Clinton would return to presidential politics eight years later, seeming inevitable enough that only a few other candidates entered the slates against her, however briefly. But one of those few, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, gave Clinton a real contest. His campaign rallies rivaled Trump’s populist fervor, and Sanders arrived at the national convention with nearly 40% of the delegates. Whether Sanders weakened Clinton as a candidate or exposed her vulnerability, this was another case of a frontrunner struggling to finish.

“The Scream” and the dream

There were also a number of other presidential candidates who may not have been favorites but who at least looked competitive before voting began. These would include Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont who in 2003 was the first major candidate to organize and campaign extensively on the Internet.

He rose steadily in the polls and garnered a wave of popular support in the Iowa caucuses that year, but finished third there. His concession speech that night ended with a raspy roar that became known as “Dean’s Scream”, and he fell to second place in the New Hampshire primary soon after. He later served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

In November 1991, polls in New Hampshire showed the leading Democratic candidate for 1992 to be New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who was 20 points ahead of the pack. Cuomo gave a rousing keynote speech at the national convention in 1984 and was re-elected governor in 1986 by more than 30 points.

But the problem was that Cuomo wasn’t actually racing. He waited for the filing deadline just before Christmas that year, then backed off again. National party officials begged him to come forward and a repechage movement began. But he closed it.

Party officials had also beleaguered Cuomo four years earlier to run in the 1988 cycle, when the party’s early front-runner left the race 10 months before the Iowa caucuses. That early frontrunner, former Colorado senator Gary Hart, resigned when confronted with newspaper reports about an extramarital affair. (It was an episode detailed in Jason Reitman’s 2018 film “The Frontrunner” starring Hugh Jackman.)

Astronauts and other big names have not been spared

Hart had been the runner-up in 1984 in a large group of Democrats who wanted a chance to face incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan. The early leader of fundraising and polling this cycle was Senator John Glenn of Ohio, a military hero and one of America’s first astronauts.

Glenn had the kind of moderate-profile observers who observers believed would fare better against Reagan, and he sounded better against the incumbent. Glenn had opened offices across the country and was running television ads in Iowa ahead of caucuses there. But when caucus night arrived, Glenn finished fifth. Unable to recover in New Hampshire, he was out of the race in mid-March.

In the early 1980s, before that decade became known as the Reagan age, incumbent President Jimmy Carter entered his re-election year worried first and foremost about a challenger in his own party. That challenger was Ted Kennedy, still in the first half of his nearly 47-year career as a Massachusetts senator. Brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and also of slain presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, the younger of the brothers had himself been considered a favorite for the party’s nomination in 1972 before a young woman from his staff drowned in a car he had left a bridge in 1969.

Kennedy returned to serve with distinction in the Senate, declining to run for president in 1972 or 1976 before deciding to challenge Carter for the 1980 nomination. of 52 American hostages there, Kennedy’s offer faded and Carter was relatively easily renamed.

In that same cycle, former Texas Governor and Treasury Secretary John Connally started the pre-primary season as a heavy favorite among Republican donors and activists. But his Imperial Air didn’t sell well in Iowa, where it earned just 9% and finished far behind George HW Bush, who won Iowa that year, and Reagan. But it would be Reagan who beat Connally and Bush in the New Hampshire primary, going on to dominate the remaining primaries and the nation’s politics for the rest of the decade.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To learn more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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