Despite the dominance of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, it still makes sense to look at the Republican primary as a three-way race.The G.O.P. Establishment Doesn’t Need to Surrender Yet
BY RYAN LIZZA
When Donald Trump announced his campaign for President last summer, the Republican establishment treated him, a longtime liberal showman, as a joke. He became less funny when he shot up in the polls, but, for months, he was still considered a classic bubble candidate whose support would eventually pop. But now, this week, there’s some evidence that the establishment is finally beginning to accommodate itself to Trump. TheTimes reported yesterday that Bob Dole, the former Senate Majority Leader and the Party’s 1996 Presidential nominee, said that he’s “got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.” Today has the Washington Postformer mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York Representative Peter King on the record siding with Trump over Ted Cruz, who is intensely disliked by many Republicans who have worked with him in Congress, where he championed the government shutdown in 2013 and has excoriated his own Senate leadership. “If it came down to Trump or Cruz, there is no question I’d vote for Trump,” Giuliani said. “As a party, we’d have a better chance of winning with him, and I think a lot of Republicans look at it that way.”
King told the newspaper, “Cruz isn’t a good guy, and he’d be impossible as President. People don’t trust him. And regardless of what your concern is with Trump, he’s pragmatic enough to get something done. I also don’t see malice in Trump like I see with Cruz.”
The quotes from Dole, Giuliani, and King—three moderates—do seem to represent a slight shift. It’s the first time prominent Republicans have indicated that they could accommodate themselves to a Trump nomination and Presidency. Still, Trump has not yet received the endorsement of even one Republican governor, U.S. senator, or U.S. representative. And most of the pro-Trump sentiment reported this week is driven by hatred of Cruz rather than any affection for Trump. The Post’s headline—“GOP Establishment Warms to Trump”—seems overstated and premature. “GOP Establishment Still Cool on Cruz” might have been more accurate.
The accommodation, to the extent that it’s even happening, also seems premature. It is true that Trump is in a commanding position. In the average of the latest polls, he has a slight lead over Cruz in Iowa, and he is far ahead of his competitors in New Hampshire and South Carolina. It is possible that Trump will sweep the early states and turn into an unstoppable force.
But the establishment need not surrender before the battle has really even begun. Republicans still have one more shot before handing over the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan to Trump or to Cruz. Despite the dominance of those two candidates, and the repeatedly thwarted efforts of the other candidates to take them down, it still makes sense to look at the Republican primary as a three-way race. The non-Trump/Cruz vote in the early states is substantial: forty-five per cent in Iowa, fifty-eight per cent in New Hampshire, forty-nine per cent in South Carolina. About half the Republican electorate wants someone besides Trump or Cruz.
The problem, of course, is that, through the pre-primary season, that enormous bloc of voters has been hopelessly divided. But that will soon change. The early primary states usually don’t pick the winner. What they tend to do is winnow the field to the final group of contestants. That’s why Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie are all attacking one another right now rather than the two front-runners. Those four more moderate candidates are in a death match, the result of which will likely be that one of them makes it out of New Hampshire as a viable alternative to Cruz and Trump.
Rubio’s campaign, which seemed promising in the late fall, seems to have stalled, but he still appears to have the best shot at making the final cut if he can take third place in Iowa, take second place in New Hampshire, and then win South Carolina, a strategy his campaign is reportedly calling “3-2-1.” But it’s also not too late for Kasich, Bush, or Christie to benefit from a surge in New Hampshire and earn the establishment’s backing.
The point is that there remains a market for a mainstream conservative. We just don’t yet know who it will be. And, once we do, the establishment will have one last chance to save its Party.
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