Americans for Prosperity Action, the libertarian-leaning, free-market super PAC of the Charles Koch network, this morning endorsed Nikki Haley in the Republican primary. This could be a highly consequential decision — but will it simply deliver the race to Donald Trump? AFP Action has been clear all year that it is willing and able to deploy significant resources toward the goal of preventing another Trump nomination as well as opposing Trumpish losers in down-ballot primaries. It now argues that doing so is essential to breaking a logjam in which both parties nominate candidates opposed to “core American principles,” resulting in Democratic victories and bad policy. In 2022, it endorsed Ron DeSantis in his reelection bid. Today’s press release sound a note of regret with regard to DeSantis, and softly suggest that he should drop out of the race:
Allow me to offer our thanks and appreciation to Governor DeSantis, who has been a tremendous leader for the State of Florida. He has been a strong advocate for many important freedom-oriented policies and fiscal responsibility in the Sunshine State, which is why we were proud to endorse him for re-election in 2022. We also understand that some of the Governor’s supporters, including some who support AFP, will be disappointed in our decision. However, as the 2024 primary season heats up, we are entering a time period that demands choices. Donald Trump won the nomination in 2016 largely because of a divided primary field, and we must not allow that to happen again, particularly when the stakes are even higher in 2024.
The decision plainly reflects a negative assessment of DeSantis’s prospects, and it is a big gamble on the ability of Haley to turn her momentum from the debates into a majority coalition.
The 2024 Republican primary has been dominated by three great questions. First, is there even an opening to talk Republican primary voters out of the self-destructive insanity of renominating Trump for a third time? Second, if that opening exists, can the opponents of renominating Trump unite around a single opponent? Third, is the best path to beat Trump an aggressive confrontation or an effort to peel off his supporters?
The theory of the DeSantis campaign, from the outset — a theory I have generally endorsed — has been that only DeSantis can both unite the anti-Trump vote and reach out to the soft Trump supporters, and that this can be done by arguments that don’t attack the premises of Trump support. So, DeSantis has attacked Trump’s character and his criminal indictments only to the extent that he argues that they distract Trump from getting the job done. On policy, DeSantis has largely argued not that Trump’s platform is bad but that Trump himself has been unable to deliver on it. DeSantis has hung in second place all year and gained many key endorsements (foremost among them Iowa governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats), but with November almost over and DeSantis just a few days from completing his barnstorming tour of all 99 Iowa counties, polling still shows him far from winning the Hawkeye state even after driving the two main competitors for the social conservative vote (Mike Pence and Tim Scott) out of the race. DeSantis and his SuperPAC are also no longer as awash in resources as they were earlier in the year.
By contrast, campaigns such as Chris Christie’s that go full-bore against Trump and Trump’s entire worldview have been completely unable to gain any traction at all. If Republican voters are open to DeSantis but not sold on him, they are not even listening to Christie.
Haley has tried something different. She has neither attacked Trump much directly nor pandered much to the sentiments of his supporters. Instead, she has staked out a brand as the alternative to Trump for voters who want a return to the pre-Trump party. That has been most conspicuous in her strong support for Ukraine and distaste for DeSantis’s fight with Disney, the two main policy contrasts she presents with DeSantis. But she has also taken a softer line, at least rhetorically, on many social issues. Until the debate season started, she was nowhere in polls or fundraising, but she has been the breakout star of the debates in large part by aggressively attacking the loathsome Vivek Ramaswamy as a stand-in for Trump and Trumpism, while DeSantis has adopted a play-it-safe strategy of using the debates mainly to deliver his own message rather than engage in combat. Haley has succeeded in outlasting other contenders — she, too, benefits from Scott’s departure, leaving her as the sole South Carolina candidate — but the big question is whether she can actually make the leap from consolidating the moderate and traditional Reaganite vote to something that could defeat Trump. Some of her standing in the polls in terms of likeability and general election appeal reflects the fact that DeSantis has borne the brunt of the withering assault from Trump and the press, and she has not.
The AFP Action endorsement brings not just advertising money but also a network of grassroots activists. AFP Action says that it has contacted some 6 million voters so far — a big number, given that Trump won the 2016 primary with a little over 14 million votes. The group argues that it is possible to change the trajectory of the primary by persuading regular Republican general-election voters who don’t typically vote in primaries to turn out against Trump. That, too, is untested — it sounds a lot like Ted Cruz’s theory in 2016 – but AFP Action has the resources to make it worth the attempt. Its polling memo argues that Haley is now making enough progress in favorability and second-choice option among Trump and DeSantis supporters that she could be a plausible alternative in a one-on-one race.
For DeSantis, the choice is now stark: He has to win Iowa outright. It adds to the stakes in Thursday night’s debate between DeSantis and Gavin Newsom. I’ve been thinking lately that, if he finished a strong second in Iowa — i.e., much closer to Trump than to Haley — his campaign could still make the case that he’s the only alternative to Trump, especially if that is followed by Haley not making a similarly strong showing in New Hampshire. But AFP Action’s move, in addition to its own resources, will likely be a signal to a lot of the donor class to cut bait on DeSantis immediately after Iowa unless he can prove more strength at the voting booth than he has been showing in polls. DeSantis can still upend that narrative with a victory in the Iowa caucuses. Without one, he may face intense calls and pressures to let Haley take the uncontested shot in New Hampshire and on her own home turf in South Carolina. His campaign responded to this morning’s decision with undisguised bitterness:
The DeSantis campaign issued the following statement after Americans for Prosperity endorsed Donald Trump: “Congratulations to Donald Trump on securing the Koch endorsement. Like clockwork, the pro-open borders, pro-jail break bill establishment is lining up behind a moderate who has no mathematical pathway of defeating the former president. Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign. No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different.” -Communications Director Andrew Romeo
Meanwhile, if Iowa remains the one bullet left in DeSantis’s chamber to establish himself as the alternative to Trump, AFP Action’s move ought to be an immediate signal to Christie to get out. It is Haley’s path, rather than that of DeSantis, that Christie is obstructing by camping out in New Hampshire.