Republican kingmakers are failing to coalesce around a Trump alternative, where have I heard this one before?
- New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is reportedly set to endorse Nikki Haley.
- His backing would split the key endorsements by early state governors.
Two early state Republican governors had a prime opportunity to steer their party's presidential race. Both are now likely to go in opposite directions, underscoring yet again the GOP establishment's struggles to thwart former President Donald Trump.
According to WMUR, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu will endorse former UN ambassador Nikki Haley tonight, lending the political brand of one of the Granite State's most powerful political families to a last-chance bid to foil the former president.
The endorsement itself isn't surprising. Sununu has been harshly critical of Trump. Before the primary truly began, Sununu also took a few shots at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has pushed for Sununu's backing, but Christie's unpopularity with Republican voters writ large leaves little runway for a comeback campaign.
Still, Sununu's decision puts him at odds with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who previously endorsed DeSantis and has been stumping for him across the state that will kick off the entire primary process in just a matter of weeks.
At face value, it could make sense to elevate different Trump alternatives in different states. Polling averages show DeSantis slightly ahead of Haley in Iowa. Alternatively, she is well ahead of DeSantis, who is in third in New Hampshire. Neither candidate is anywhere close to Trump.
If this sounds familiar though, it's because a divide and conquer approach doomed attempts to beat Trump in the 2016 presidential primary. Based on the most recent GOP debate, it's not hard to see how the same thing could happen this time.
"They were just too self-interested, too unwilling to bend — each of them convinced that they could be the guy if the other one would just drop out," journalist McKay Coopins wrote in "Romney: A Reckoning," his biography of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.
Romney was convinced that if he could just get Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to agree to be Sen. Ted Cruz's vice president they could broker a stop-Trump alliance. But alas, you know how the story ends.
"With each passing day of inaction, Trump gained more votes, more delegates, and more momentum," Coppins wrote.
There's been much written about traditional Republicans standing up to Trump. During the height of his presidency, Saturday Night Live even did a spoof movie trailer about the to-be-determined hero. Some, including Romney, clearly did try. But the former president has repeatedly found ways to single out and excommunicate the interlopers from the GOP — just look at House Republicans who voted to impeach him after the January 6 Capitol riot. As for the rest of the party, many made a Faustian bargain to accept that Trump was more popular with their base than they were, as journalist Mark Leibovich devoted an entire book to exploring.
The hope for Republicans opposed to Trump was that this time would be different.
This time the competing primary foes would train their ire on the former president. It was always going to be difficult to pull off such a strategy given Trump's popularity. Yet, except Christie, many of the other major hopefuls have pulled their punches. Perhaps, now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's visit to Mar-a-Lago not long after January 6 made this all inevitable anyway.
There's also the question of if either leader could have truly changed the race. Then-House Majority Whip James Clyburn springboarded Joe Biden to the White House, but few endorsements pack a similar weight.
What is clear is that whether out of genuine differences, ego, or just plain survival, the efforts to topple Trump have failed. And he's now once again on an apparent glide path to the nomination.