Is it inevitable that President Trump will be the second person in history — President Nixon was the first — to win the Republican Party’s nomination for president three times? Many thoughtful observers, and others as well, think so.They have some solid evidence. Polling has been showing majorities of Republicans favoring Mr. Trump since the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicted him March 30 on charges that seemed both trivial and invalid. The day before that, Mr. Trump led Governor DeSantis by just 44 percent to 29 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. By April 6, Mr. Trump’s lead rose to 51 percent to 25 percent and 54 percent to 22 percent on April 19.Mr. Trump’s national numbers have risen slowly since, while Mr. DeSantis’s have sagged. If current numbers hold up, it may be that Mr. Bragg, elected after leading a June 2021 Democratic primary by just 8,828 votes, will have propelled Mr. Trump to another term in the White House.Yet will the polling hold up? I think there’s a possibility — not a certainty, not a probability, but a possibility — that it won’t. Evidence comes from the October 22-26 NBC News-Des Moines Register poll of potential Republican caucusgoers in Iowa. Des Moines Register pollster J. Ann Selzer’s record of accuracy, and in particular of spotting shifts in voter opinion, commands respect and attention.Like other recent polls of early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire, this poll showed Mr. Trump below 50 percent, at 43 percent of the vote. The big headline was that Ambassador Nikki Haley jumped into second place, tied at 16 percent with Mr. DeSantis. This follows her jump into second place at New Hampshire last month.Taken together, in the Des Moines Register poll, Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis, and fourth-place Senator Scott have 39 percent, just below Mr. Trump’s 43 percent. Yet winnowing down the field won’t necessarily mean that all the non-Trump votes go to his opponents, as my Washington Examiner colleagues Tim Carney and Byron York note.As Mr. Carney points out, when the Des Moines Register poll asked voters for their second choices, nearly half, 41 percent, of Mr. DeSantis voters said Mr. Trump. So a Mr. DeSantis withdrawal would put the former president at around 50 percent, far ahead of Ms. Haley.And as Mr. York points out, only 19 percent of Ms. Haley’s voters, about 3 percent of the total, say they’re “very enthusiastic” about supporting her. She may have momentum, but the ratio of those favorable to those unfavorable about her — 59 percent to 29 percent — is behind not only Mr. Trump’s — 66 percent 32 percent — but also Mr. DeSantis’s — 69 percent to 26 percent.Yet this static analysis doesn’t take into account other possible dynamic effects. Some 37 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters say their minds aren’t made up, which suggests a floor for Mr. Trump of 27 percent — a beatable number, as National Review’s Rich Lowry notes.And when you aggregate the first-choice and second-choice votes, plus those who are saying they are actively considering Mr. DeSantis, his total comes out to 69 percent, actually a tick more than Mr. Trump’s 67 percent. The corresponding number for Ms. Haley is 55 percent, suggesting either lower name identification or some resistance on the part of Mr. Trump’s voters and thus a lower potential ceiling.The history of presidential caucus and primary voting is full of examples of large numbers of voters changing their minds in very short periods of time. Those who insist that current poll numbers will hold fast seem to be ignoring those examples.The most vivid example in my mind is the Iowa Democratic caucuses in 2004. Governor Dean of Vermont, brandishing his consistent opposition to military engagement in Iraq, had built up a strong lead — and in a state with a heritage of dovish/isolationist/pacifist leanings.He was well organized, too, and I remember watching Mr. Dean’s hordes of orange-stocking-capped volunteers buzzing around Des Moines on caucus day. Yet the big news that night was a big victory for John Kerry, who had voted for the Iraq War. Very large numbers of voters, in a thought process I’m not sure anyone fully understood, just changed their minds.Something similar could conceivably happen in Iowa next year’s Republican contest. Large numbers of Mr. Trump’s voters could decide, for reasons not yet apparent, to switch to Mr. DeSantis or Ms. Haley. Sure, Mr. Trump’s voters surely are more attached to him than Mr. Dean’s voters were to their candidate in 2004, but there’s no big difference this time on an issue as prominent as Iraq was back then.Will something like this happen? Unlikely, I think, and maybe the wish is the father of the thought. Yet I think it’s possible. The alternative, given President Biden’s flagging numbers, is that the Manhattan district attorney will have paved the way for Mr. Trump to become the 47th president of the United States.Creators.com
