'Self-cannibalizing': How GOP candidates are creating the 'best-case-scenario' for Trump

17 December 2023

Five Republican candidates still believe they have a shot at beating ex-President Donald Trump to secure the 2024 GOP nomination. Experts are insisting the candidates should rally behind one candidate they think could potentially take down the MAGA hopeful.

With the Iowa caucuses less than one month away, a Sunday, December 17 Politico report indicates that goal is becoming harder and harder to achieve.

Per the report, "In Iowa, new polling shows Trump not only maintaining his enormous lead in the first caucus state, but expanding on it — stretching his support to 51 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. And in New Hampshire, Republicans desperate for someone other than Trump were further dividing the field."

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As evidenced during the event, Politico reports, "Trump is feeding off his detractors' disarray. After his rivals spent the week crisscrossing the state in a pre-holiday blitz, speaking to a few hundred voters at a time, the former president drew thousands of supporters to the Democratic stronghold of Durham for his first New Hampshire arena rally of the cycle."

The former president called his opponents "the sellouts," and suggested they "are lagging far behind us in the Republican primary, at record levels," criticizing New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu's endorsement Nikki Haley, "calling the Granite State governor a 'spoiled brat' who is supporting 'someone who can't win.'"

The MAGA hopeful said, "Whatever happened to the 'surge'? Whatever happened to the 'bounce'? With Nikki, they talk about the surge. With DeSanctimonious, they talk about the bounce. They've been talking about it for the last six months. And the only one that had a surge, and the only one that had a bounce, is Trump."

Politico notes, "Trump's opponents aren't just failing to coalesce around one candidate — they're actively making it harder to do so, with lower-polling candidates giving no indication they'll step aside before voting begins."

Sandra Batchedeer, a New Hampshire Independent voter who supported Trump in 2020, told the news outlet, "There's too many" candidates. "The field needs to get very narrowed down so that it doesn't get so divided."

Additionally, Politico notes, the former president's campaign "is openly delighting in its rivals' self-cannibalizing," as spokesperson Steven Cheung said, "It's like watching two JV teams tripping over each other set to the theme of Benny Hill playing in the background."

However, Politico reports, "The problem for anti-Trump Republicans this time is not only that the field is similarly divided, but Trump's lead in all four early states is drastically higher."

Noting when Sununu endorsed Haley earlier this week, "he became the third of three early-state governors to endorse a different candidate," Politico reports, "For Haley, it was great news, just as Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds had publicly backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster had gone in for Trump. But for Republicans yearning to move on from the former president, it was a disaster — capping one of the worst weeks yet in the movement to block Trump from the nomination."

Prominent New Hampshire donor and GOP activist Phil Taub told Politico, "If you're Trump, that's the best-case scenario. Everybody just wants it to be Trump versus one candidate. But as long as they are splitting up all the votes, Trump doesn't even have to get 50 percent."

Politico's full report is here.

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