A Restrained Donald Machine?
In my most recent search for a blog topic, RealClearPolitics (RCP) proved the most useful. If you are unfamiliar with RCP, it is a combination of “daily editorial curation” and “original reporting” that “presents balanced, non-partisan analysis that empowers our readers to stay informed” in the staff’s own words. On RCP’s homepage, there are countless links to articles, studies and polls. If you want to quickly see what’s important in politics and current events, I highly recommend it.
Thanks to RCP, I found an article entitled “Winning at the Rules Game” by political analyst and journalist Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Cook Political Report. The following line stood out to me:
“In the gauzy, ‘West Wing’ TV version of politics, campaigns are won with compelling speeches, dazzling debate performances and perfectly crafted campaign ads. In reality, campaigns are won by grit, endurance and attention to detail. And luck. To win the nomination for president, a campaign must be able to chart a path to the number of delegates needed to win. Period.”
Although I have a political science degree and am somewhat well-versed in the minutiae of politics (mostly for the U.S.’s system), I succumb to the West Wing version of politics. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the most visible aspects of a campaign: speeches, debates, ads, etc. are the most impactful, especially in an era of social media, the Internet and instant communication.
However, much of the work isn’t gauzy or TV worthy. For instance, in order to capture state delegates for a presidential nomination, much political machinery, maneuvering and grinding is needed that doesn’t lend itself to an iconic moment or moments. Not all states award their delegates in the same manner, and the process is complicated for everyone except the most versed.
What’s even more interesting is that former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is Ms. Walter’s main object of study. One could call Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign the ‘West Wing on steroids” in which Mr. Trump used insults, debates, ads and media manipulation to win the Republican nomination. Fresh off his TV show The Apprentice, Mr. Trump went for a campaign of moments rather than behind the scenes maneuvering.
Ms. Walter references a Brookings Institute study that reveals 80% of Mr. Trump’s delegates in 2016 came from states that used “some sort of winner-takes-all rule.” He won 46% and 39% of the vote in the Florida and Tennessee party primaries, but took home 100% and 57% of the respective state’s delegates. Back then, Mr. Trump and his associates weren’t targeting or even aware of all the state delegate rules, but they still benefited from them.
Now, his 2024 campaign is culling favor with individual state actors, building relationships across the country. This was mostly absent from 2016, and in 2020, Mr. Trump was the incumbent, so he didn’t need to focus on individual states as much. Now, with greater knowledge of the primary system, his 2024 campaign is culling favor with individual state actors, building relationships across the country.
The Trump campaign wants multiple GOP candidates non named Ron DeSantis to run and dilute the field, so that the 2024 Republican presidential primaries could be a repeat of 2016.
While his campaign is more sophisticated and detail oriented, Mr. Trump himself is delivering more of the same. At CPAC this past weekend, the former president guaranteed in his keynote speech (thank you again, RCP!) that the USA would devolve into a ‘filthy communist nightmare’ if President Biden were re-elected, could ‘very easily’ prevent a third world war and ‘very quickly’ end the conflict in Ukraine.
Just because Mr. Trump will continue being bombastic and unrestrained in public, don’t think his campaign is doing the same behind the scenes. If Republican actors and voters want to prevent his nomination, they need to examine the unsexy nuts and bolts of campaigning, not the attention grabbing headlines.
It’s a basic truth, but one worth repeating.