Forget South Carolina: the 2024 Republican presidential primary will be crazy

All eyes can be on the Democratic primary in South Carolina tonight and the grudge match on Super Tuesday next Tuesday, but there is another contest below the surface. And this concerns an election that is still four years away.

The Democratic Party primary started with one of the largest fields ever recorded, with at least a dozen serious contenders throwing their hats in the ring to fight over the nomination. The Republican Party may very well experience a similar situation in 2024, when descendants of the Donald Trumps America First agenda will engage in face-to-face combat for a wider Republican audience for the very first time.

By the time the next GOP presidential primary gears up in the spring and summer of 2023, we could see three different Trump cabinet officials in the running, not to mention several lawmakers who see themselves as high-level surrogates for Trump. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are allpotential candidatesfor the main air combat of 2024 and each of them will compete for the coveted approval of Donald Trump. Of these three, Haley, Pence and Pompeo will likely get the best billing due to their service to the administration and their personal interactions with the President.

Haley didn't take long to catapult herself into the national spotlight.Two months laterresigning as US ambassador to the United Nations, she formed a political group called Stand for America, wrote a memoir and went from TV studio to TV studio to promote her book and keep her name in conversation. The former South Carolina governor and head of the Trump cabinet is a darling in Republican circles and continues to be a hot spot for GOP fundraisers across the country. HaleyMoney collectedthis month in Nashville, Tennessee for Bill Hagerty, the GOP's favorite in this fall race to succeed Senator Lamar Alexander's retirement. She wasa poster headat the last Trump-Pence 2020 fundraiser andis committedto serve as a fundraiser for the National Republican Committee of Congress. It is these types of speeches that not only provide the former ambassador with a platform to improve her skills as a money maker, but also the opportunity to build relationships with some of the donors, voters and stakeholders who will be helpful in any presidential race prospect.

Mike Pence is also studying the country on behalf of Trumps' administration program and re-election. As you would expect, the loyal vice president is trying his best to bond directly with Trump, whose approval rate among Republicans was93%this month. Pence isn't exactly a boisterous, arrogant and exciting politician on the stump like his boss, Trump and Pence couldn't be more different in style. But for the former governor of Indiana and a member of the Republican Congress, style is not as important as the headliner for Trump at large rallies,frolic in the citiesin the Midwest under the Trumpian banner, and honing his talents as a retail politician. In the event that Pence decides to run for president in 2024, if you have never had one, you can bet that he will exploit his perch as an unwavering asset of Trumps to demonstrate to Republican voters that he, and no one on the other hand, is the best thing for the Trumps movement. from Donald Trump himself.

Then there is Mike Pompeo, who never misses an opportunity to praise Trump wherever he is at any given time. Pompeo is one of the few cabinet officials to have managed to stay in the good graces of Trumps. The former congressman, CIA director and current secretary of state succeeded in deploying Trumpian tactics in public, being extremely combative with the Democrats on Capitol Hill as if they were enemies of the American Republic,make fun of John Kerryfor negotiating horrible deals and blaming Barack Obama for everything that is wrong with America. Pompeos' foreign policy advice can be far from reality and riddled with failure, causing more trouble in the United States than it solves. But that didn't affect his reputation in the administration or his relationship with Trump personally; indeed, Trump often compliments Pompeo in public for his work. Never stray from public remarks from presidents and bashing yourself as a yes-man can have his privileges the moment Pompeor returns to politics (which of course he never really left) .

The GOP 2024 primary has the potential to make this year's fight for the Democratic nomination like a soft ball.

Daniel DePetrisis a member of Defense Priorities, a foreign policy organization focused on promoting a great, realistic strategy for ensuring American security and prosperity.