'Turnout disaster': GOP insiders fear voters 'will take their ball and go home' if Trump loses the nomination

14 August 2023

Former President Donald Trump, according to polling, is the frontrunner in the crowded 2024 Republican presidential primary field. But party insiders are beginning to worry that Trump falling short "could spell a voter turnout disaster" come Election Day,The Hill's Alexander Bolton explains.

"GOP strategists say there's growing concern that if Trump is not the nominee, many of his core supporters, who are estimated to make up 25 percent to 35 percent of the party base, 'will take their ball and go home,'" increasing the odds that President Joe Biden secures a second term, Bolton writes.

"A Pew Research Center analysis of the 2022 midterm election published last month found that higher turnout among Trump voters last year was a key factor behind Republicans winning control of the House," Bolton continues. "The analysis found that 71 percent of voters who backed Trump participated in the midterm election, compared to 67 percent of voters who supported Biden."

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Republican strategist Matt Dole, for instance, told Bolton that "the conventional wisdom is there’s concern that if Trump's not the nominee, his coalition will take their ball and go home."

"Folks are interested in how that plays out, and so I think right now, they would be happy if Trump's the nominee — in Ohio, it's not true across the country — because then his coalition will turn out in November," Bolton added.

Similarly, ex-Senate aide Brian Darling said that if Trump is "not the nominee, it will hurt turnout" because "he's got a unique coalition. He brings a lot of nontraditional voters to the Republican Party, and it will be difficult to win a state like Ohio" and neighboring Midwestern states "if you lose all those Trump voters or make them disaffected voters, and they don't show up."

Darling observed that "the only way he loses" is "if he's prevented from being on the ballot," which Bolton points out as a possibility "if federal and local criminal prosecutions derail Trump's path."

Bolton also notes that "Trump is fueling concerns about a split Republican electorate in 2024 by refusing to sign a Republican National Committee loyalty pledge."

Ohio-based GOP strategist Bob Clegg predicted to Bolton "two scenarios, either Trump's the nominee and we just go with it and whatever, or Trump's not the nominee and then we have a nominee that Trump's going to be trashing."

Clegg, however, still believes that Trump is "going to be the nominee" because "ever since Trump came down that escalator in 2015, the face of politics in the United States has charged dramatically, and we're still in that."

The conundrum deepens in United States Senate and House of Representatives districts that Republicans hope to keep or flip.

"With controversial issues like abortion in the suburbs, Republicans have to make up for it in rural parts of the state, and without Trump on the ballot, rural parts of the state just didn't turn out at the same rate," one unnamed strategist recalled of the 2022 midterms. He stressed to Bolton that "for Republicans, the only hope is that when Trump is on the ballot in 2024 … he will turn out rural voters at a rate that overwhelms that phenomenon. It's certainly possible."

Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos further assessed that "conservatively, it looks like 4 out of 10" Republican voters are planning to cast ballots for Trump.

"The Trump voters, even from our polling, have pretty much said: 'It's Trump or bust,'" Paleologos said. "There's a percentage of voters who won't even vote Republican if he doesn't get the nomination."

Bolton's full report is available at this link.

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