{"id":11613,"date":"2023-11-14T14:46:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T14:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/14\/with-9-weeks-to-go-until-the-first-votes-trump-remains-commanding-front-runner-as-gop-field-keeps-shrinking\/"},"modified":"2023-11-14T14:46:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T14:46:27","slug":"with-9-weeks-to-go-until-the-first-votes-trump-remains-commanding-front-runner-as-gop-field-keeps-shrinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/14\/with-9-weeks-to-go-until-the-first-votes-trump-remains-commanding-front-runner-as-gop-field-keeps-shrinking\/","title":{"rendered":"With 9 weeks to go until the first votes, Trump remains commanding front-runner as GOP field keeps shrinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a slimmer field, but it\u2019s the same story, as former President Donald Trump remains the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination with nine weeks to go until the first votes are cast.<\/p>\n

Sen. Tim Scott\u2019s suspension of his White House campaign on Sunday came two weeks after former Vice President Mike Pence departed the 2024 GOP race. And four lesser known candidates who failed to make the debate stage have also dropped out, as a Republican field that once included over a dozen contenders keeps shrinking.<\/p>\n

With the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses \u2013 which lead off the Republican presidential nomination calendar \u2013 fast approaching,\u00a0Trump retains dominating double-digit leads over his nomination rivals in the latest surveys in the early voting states, and holds even larger massive advantages in national polls.<\/p>\n

The over-arching question going forward is if the smaller field of candidates will allow one of the remaining contenders to make it a competitive race against Trump as the primary calendar progresses.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing\u2019s changed. Trump\u2019s still ahead. And right now he\u2019s on the trajectory to win,\u2019 longtime Republican consultant Dave Carney, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, told Fox News.<\/p>\n

Pointing to the single digit support Scott held in the polls as he suspended his campaign, Carney said \u2018It\u2019s not like Scott getting out of the race is going to reshuffle the deck completely. His support isn\u2019t going to change the dynamics that much.\u2019<\/p>\n

But Carney also emphasized that \u2018there\u2019s no way to spin this other than its good news for Nikki Haley. We\u2019ll see if she can take advantage of that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Haley, the former two-term South Carolina governor who served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, is battling two-term Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in the GOP nomination race, far behind Trump.<\/p>\n

Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel, pointing to DeSantis and Haley, told Fox News that the winnowing of the Republican field \u2018is a good thing for the two people who still have a shot at becoming the Trump alternative.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Trump\u2019s already in the finals,\u2019 said Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns in Iowa.<\/p>\n

And he highlighted that DeSantis and Haley are \u2018trying to construct some plausible path to get a one-on-one shot with Trump that everybody agrees is essential to any notion that he can be derailed from getting the nomination.\u2019<\/p>\n

While DeSantis has the stronger name ID from coast to coast and leads Haley in the national polls, she\u2019s tied DeSantis in the latest surveys in Iowa and leads him in New Hampshire \u2013 which votes second \u2013 and her home state, which holds the first southern contest.<\/p>\n

Haley\u2019s enjoyed a rise in the polls thanks in part to well-regarded performances in the three Republican presidential primary debates. Haley\u2019s campaign announced on Monday that they are reserving $10 million to run TV, radio and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting next month.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have plenty of money that we\u2019re going to be on TV with,\u2019 Haley touted this past weekend in an interview on \u2018Fox News Sunday.\u2019 \u2018We\u2019re going to be strong in New Hampshire. We\u2019re going to be strong in South Carolina, because we spent our money well. We\u2019ve got great ground games in every one of those states. And we\u2019re going to keep surging.\u2019<\/p>\n

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But Iowa comes first, and DeSantis last week landed the endorsement of GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who\u2019s very popular with Hawkeye State Republicans. Reynolds backing was a much-needed boost for DeSantis to alter a negative narrative.<\/p>\n

DeSantis is also aiming to land the endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, who leads the Family Leader, a top social conservative organization in Iowa, a state where evangelical voters play an out-sized role in Republican presidential politics.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tim Scott and Mike Pence were surging resources in Iowa, looking to attract evangelical supporters, and unlike Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis is making headway with those voters,\u2019 DeSantis campaign communications director Andrew Romeo argued in a statement to Fox News.<\/p>\n

Kochel said \u2018I think Iowa\u2019s going to be more determinative than ever as to who\u2019s going to have momentum going into New Hampshire and South Carolina.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Trump already has a ticket. There\u2019s maybe two more and maybe one more\u2019 coming out of Iowa, he forecast.<\/p>\n

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And Kochel predicted \u2018a pretty fierce contest\u2019 in the weeks ahead between DeSantis and Haley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2024 GOP field also includes former two-term New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie \u2013 who\u2019s concentrating most of his firepower on New Hampshire \u2013 and multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy \u2013 a 38-year-old first-time candidate who appears to draw much of his support from Trump\u2019s MAGA wing of the party. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum \u2013 who didn\u2019t make the stage at the third debate \u2013 and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison \u2013 who failed to qualify for the past two showdowns \u2013 are running long-shot campaigns.<\/p>\n

Seasoned Iowa-based Republican strategist and communicator Jimmy Centers cautioned that \u2018everyone needs to be clear-eyed that former President Trump will win the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The question is whether Gov. DeSantis or Amb. Haley come in a strong enough second place finish where they put a sizable gap between themselves and whomever comes in third to be able to say to Republicans in New Hampshire and beyond that this is a two-person race,\u2019 he spotlighted.<\/p>\n

Centers said Haley \u2018has clearly performed very well\u2019 since the start of the debates \u2018and voters are responding to that in Iowa.\u2019<\/p>\n

But he added that DeSantis enjoys some \u2018momentum right now after Gov. Reynolds endorsement last week.\u2019<\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a slimmer field, but it\u2019s the same story, as former President Donald Trump remains the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination with nine weeks to go until the first votes are cast. Sen. Tim Scott\u2019s suspension of his White House campaign on Sunday came two weeks after former Vice President Mike Pence departed the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}