Florida Governor Ron DeSantis remains in the race and is nationally Trump’s closest competition. However, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has overtaken DeSantis in critical primary states, including two of the first three contests.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has also said he is sticking around despite polling under 3% nationally. Political outsider Vivek Ramaswamy is polling around 5% nationally and says he still has a path to victory. Meanwhile, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson are both still running despite polling under 1% nationally.
But that doesn’t mean Trump has the nomination wrapped up. He still needs to win the primaries and the first three states in particular are known for upending primary campaigns and flipping the political landscape.
The Republican primary will kick off on January 15 with the Iowa Caucus, then on January 23, New Hampshire will hold its primary, followed by Nevada on February 8.
No Republican has won the party’s nomination without winning at least one of those states since the party started holding primaries or caucuses in every state and Washington DC in 1976 and no candidate who won all three has lost.
The states have a history of knocking down presumptive nominees as well, as happened in 2004 when Democratic frontrunner Howard Dean (VT) unexpectedly lost Iowa and then gave his infamous “Dean Scream” campaign speech that received mass ridicule. Dean’s campaign would never recover and then-Senator John Kerry (MA) became the nominee, eventually losing to President George W. Bush.
Iowa
With a large lead, Trump is expected to win Iowa, despite his loss to Ted Cruz there in 2016. But if another candidate performs better than expected, it could provide momentum going into New Hampshire and change the race there, breaking Trump’s aura of invincibility.
While DeSantis remains in second place, Haley has been climbing rapidly, seemingly peeling voters primarily from Trump; in October Haley was polling around 10% while Trump commanded 49%.
Despite polling under 5% Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has expressed optimism about his chances in the state, saying that they believe he can win the state.
The state looks to be most critical to DeSantis because he is polling very poorly in New Hampshire. He’ll need to prove that he is the most viable challenger to Trump if he wants a shot at changing the landscape in New Hampshire and beyond.
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is notoriously difficult to predict, especially for the Republican nomination. The state has a unique makeup of voters, including a relatively large percentage of libertarian-leaning Republicans. That has resulted in the state becoming critical for dark horse candidates to build momentum, with its voters often bucking the trend of the party.
New Hampshire’s 22 delegates are also distributed proportionately to candidates receiving more than 10% of the vote, allowing strong contenders to make headway in the primary without winning the state.
Things went from bad to worse for DeSantis in New Hampshire over the past two weeks. He had already lost his grip on the number two position as far back as August, but starting on November 13, the day after South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott dropped out of the race, he saw an additional drop of 3 points while his opponents seemingly picked up Scott’s voters. He now sits below Christie and only 1 point above Ramaswamy.
It has been quite the fall from this April, when DeSantis was the clear runner-up in the state, polling more than 20% for most of the month.
If Haley performs well and receives enough campaign delegates to portray her performance in the state as essentially a tie, then she would enter her home state of South Carolina with significant momentum.
South Carolina
Having served in the state, Haley is the strongest contender to Trump in the field, though whichever candidate performed best against Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire will likely have the best chance.
This was the state where Joe Biden won his first primary on his way to the White House, which led US Media to call it “the biggest, fastest and most unexpected comeback in modern political history.”
Hyperbole aside, it was a historic comeback and that is what Haley and the other contenders will be trying to emulate in South Carolina.
Typically, the first states largely set the stage for Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states will hold their primary contests. The first three states (along with Michigan, Idaho, Missouri, District of Columbia and North Dakota which also vote before Super Tuesday) are usually when the weaker candidates drop out and Super Tuesday and beyond serve as the battleground for the real contenders.
But with Trump’s massive lead, that likely won’t be the case this year. If anyone is going to beat Trump, history shows they need to win one of the first three states, and then coalesce behind that candidate before Trump’s momentum feels inevitable and donors start drying up.
Otherwise, and with the Democratic party seemingly refusing to run a primary this election cycle, America will get the election rematch seemingly no one wants.