Jonah Goldberg: Why July is the cruelest month for GOP presidential … – The Winchester Star

Perhaps T.S. Elliot was wrong. July, not April, is the cruelest month, at least for GOP presidential contenders trying to supplant Donald Trump.

Before July, the campaigns have excuses for why the momentum hasnt kicked in yet. They can say theyre just in exploratory-committee mode, or theyre just getting the campaign stood up. Hey, we havent had a chance to meet the voters yet at an Iowa Pizza Ranch or chat with the gang at Manchesters Red Arrow Diner.

The ides of July is when the excuses evaporate in the summer heat as campaigns have to reveal their second quarter fundraising numbers. For Trumps challengers, those numbers vary in ugliness, but none are pretty. Mike Pence, a former vice president with enormous name ID, raised a paltry $1.2 million and may not reach the 40,000 small donors required to make the first GOP debate. Chris Christie, who has the highest negatives of any of the declared candidates, raised $1.6 million and has enough small donors to make the debate.

The most significant disclosures came from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He raised a lot of money $20 million but he maxed out 70% of his donors, meaning he cant go back to them again. And hes burning through an enormous amount of cash.

But its the polling numbers that should depress everybody but Trump, who leads the field by over 30 points. DeSantis, whose team insisted in the spring that everyone should wait until he actually gets in the race, has actually lost a few points since he got in the race in May. The rest of the field is jockeying to stay out of single digits.

The one thing all of the challengers to Trump agree on is that none of this bad news really matters yet and they have a point. National polls at this stage are stupid. A surprise victory in Iowa or New Hampshire by any of them would completely recalibrate the race.

This is part of the cruelty. Every campaign except the one in the lead thinks its way too early to rule out anybody. Its a marathon not a sprint, as DeSantis says. But the only measures of progress are how much money theyve raised and from whom and those infernal polls.

The political press follows both as if theyre tangible points on the scoreboard and so does the donor class, which now includes tens of thousands of small donors. Its a vicious feedback loop: Failure to raise money or show momentum in the polls leads to negative press coverage, which in turn negatively affects your standing in the polls and how much money you can raise.

Indeed, you have to go back to 2000 to find an open GOP primary where the clear front-runner in mid-summer went on to win the nomination. At the beginning of July 2015, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump were neck and neck (though by the end of the month, Trumps surge had begun). In 2007, Rudy Giuliani led Sen. John McCain 2 to 1. Heck, most recent winners of the Iowa caucus didnt go on to win the nomination.

The problem is that this is an open primary in name only. Donald Trump is effectively running as an incumbent. Of course, he isnt one. He lost in 2020.

But GOP primary voters are acting like they dont know or dont accept that. Perhaps its because Trump refuses to admit defeat. Perhaps DeSantis is right that the criminal indictments of Trump have caused voters to rally around him in an act of defiance or sympathy. (If DeSantis is right, Trump might be looking at another boost: Trump says he received a letter from special counsel Jack Smith that he is a target of the January 6 grand jury investigation.) And maybe having so many Republican challengers praising or ignoring Trump has signaled to voters that Trump is the de facto incumbent until further notice.

Whatever the reason, pretending that this primary is normal when voters have an abnormal attachment to the front-runner is a recipe for the front-runner to glide to the nomination. With the exception of Christie, the other candidates are running as if Trump is not a candidate they are working to defeat, but just an idea. If you think of Trump as if he were, say, the personification of a political concept, like the Second Amendment, the way these GOP candidates talk about him makes a bit more sense. But the Second Amendment isnt running for president. Trump is.

If he werent running, it would make complete sense for GOP candidates to avoid offending Trump voters Republicans in 1976 certainly didnt routinely denounce Richard Nixon on the hustings. But unless they decide to run directly against the guy beating them now, the next six months are going to look a lot like July.

Jonah Goldbergs column is syndicated by Tribune Content Agency.

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Jonah Goldberg: Why July is the cruelest month for GOP presidential ... - The Winchester Star