Jonathan Bernstein
A lot of pundits remain certain that all roads still lead to Donald Trump being the Republican candidate.
But polling following the first debate among Republican presidential hopefuls shows plenty of uncertainty.
Let’s start with the debate polling from FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/IPSOS. Three candidates stood out as the winners according to those who watched the event, with 29% selecting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as having the best performance, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy at 26%, and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley at 15%.
The key finding in the survey, however, was that each of the eight candidates gained in a critical question: whether debate-watchers would “consider” voting for them in upcoming primaries and caucuses. It’s a good question because the debate to some extent simulates the effects of a campaign. The first event in Iowa is still months away, and most Americans won’t be voting — or exposed to heavy advertising and campaigning -- until February and March. With the exception of Trump and perhaps former Vice President Mike Pence, most candidates are not yet familiar to most voters.
Some of the increases were marginal — former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s improvement to 9.4% from 8.5% on that question hardly makes him a threat. But immediately after the debate, 50% of those polled said they would consider supporting Haley, compared to 30% who said they would before the event. And those who said they would support DeSantis increased from 63% to just over two-thirds, a smaller but perhaps even more consequential increase. Meanwhile, all three candidates the pollsters asked about who weren’t on stage saw their support drop, including Trump, who lost about 5 percentage points and fell below DeSantis on that measure.
Yvette Walker: Ramaswamy hit a nerve on Americans’ declining faith at GOP debate
That’s not all. As political scientist Meredith Conroy pointed out, “Candidates willing to go after Trump last night (Haley, Christie, Pence) didn't get punished.” Indeed, not only did all three expand the group willing to consider voting for them, but their net favorable ratings all went up. Christie and Pence still remain underwater by that measure, and Haley’s criticism was limited to Trump’s electability. But if the candidates conclude they can gain support from attacking the former president, it may increase their willingness to do so.
No candidate has held as large a polling lead as Trump has and failed to win the nomination. But that’s a less impressive statistic than it seems.
For one thing, few candidates have held such big early leads for open nominations — excluding incumbents running for reelection— during the 50 years of the open nomination system. We can also be sure that at least some of Trump’s large lead is air that he’ll lose once voters get to know other candidates.
The key thing to know about voters and nomination politics is what Nate Silver said: “Most primary voters like multiple candidates, and that makes multi-candidate primaries intrinsically volatile.”
Pundits who marvel at how many Republican voters still like Trump despite the long list of reasons not to are getting it backward. We should expect most of a party’s voters to like most of the party’s politicians. What’s important about Trump is that many Republicans don’t like him, and some evidence suggests being indicted has eaten away at his support.
But Republicans don’t actually have to dislike Trump for him to lose the nomination. They just have to like another candidate better. Evidence from the debate suggests that once campaigning begins in earnest, they’ll find other candidates that they like.
And don’t worry too much about several candidates splitting the anti-Trump vote. That effect was real but overrated in 2016, and we’re already seeing signs that winnowing may work normally in this cycle. Republicans have already effectively narrowed the candidate field to eight Trump opponents by excluding others from the first debate, and may squeeze one or two more out after raising the threshold for qualifying for the September debate. More will likely follow. And if they don’t formally drop out, it’s hard to see how candidates polling at 1% or less will matter.
Trump is absolutely the most likely to win the nomination. But it’s too early to be sure, and everything about this is unprecedented.
