The Republican presidential field is shrinking, but Trump’s lead isn’t

The great winnowing of the Republican presidential field has happened, but so far a more competitive race against former President Donald Trump has not.

With less than two weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses and the first primary ballots being cast, one of the core theories of the Republican presidential race — that if the field shrinks, so will Trump’s commanding lead — is about to face its first real test.

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There are only three serious candidates for the nomination, a far cry from the 16-candidate field Trump joined in 2015 on his improbable journey to the White House.

Those candidates are Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Every other Republican seeking the party’s 2024 nod has either dropped out or is polling in the single digits, below 5% nationally.

Many pundits and political operatives confidently predicted that as the field got smaller, Trump would gradually be reduced to the 35% of the primary electorate that is the hardcore MAGA base while a real competitor for the nomination would emerge.

Instead Trump begins 2024 at just under 63% nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Since the beginning of December, Trump has fallen below 60% in a poll included in the average just twice, and his smallest lead has been 41 points.

Over that time period, Morning Consult, Quinnipiac, Harvard-Harris, and Fox News have each shown Trump with at least two-thirds of the Republican primary vote nationwide.

Haley averages 11% support to DeSantis’s 10.9%, though surveys vary in terms of which of them is in second place. Combined, they do not crack the 35% that was supposed to be Trump’s ceiling.

Iowa is more competitive, but not by much. Trump is averaging 51.3% to DeSantis’s 18.6% and Haley’s 16.1%. No one else is in the double digits. The former president’s smallest lead since the beginning of December has been 23 points.

New Hampshire is where Republicans could conceivably unite to take down Trump. He is averaging less than 50% support in the Granite State. A St. Anselm poll showed Trump with 44% to Haley’s 30%, with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in third place at 12%.

An American Research Group poll in New Hampshire shows Haley closing to within single digits of Trump, winning 33% to his 37% even with Christie taking 10% of the vote.

If Christie dropped out and endorsed Haley, the race might be too close to call. Independents are also able to vote in New Hampshire, and there will be no competitive primary on the Democratic side with President Joe Biden only waging a write-in campaign against Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and a ragtag bunch of contenders.

Christie doesn’t sound like he is ready to drop out and endorse Haley, however. We’ll have to wait and see what’s in store for DeSantis in Iowa to know what the field will look like by that point.

Perhaps the polls are wrong. It’s also possible that with the holidays over and the first real votes approaching, public opinion will prove more malleable than it has been for most of the past 10 months.

But right now, the Republican presidential field is smaller than it has ever been. Trump’s lead in most polls is as big as it has ever been.

Rather than consolidating the anti-Trump vote, DeSantis and Haley appear to have split it. Rather than being confined to a third of the GOP primary vote and the MAGA deadenders, Trump’s ceiling appears closer to two-thirds.

Haley has been boosted by the Republican National Committee’s debates, which Trump has boycotted, but not reliably into second much less first place. DeSantis is diminished, but not to the point where he is consistently behind Haley or that it would make sense for him to drop out.

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New Hampshire is now the best chance to change this dynamic and get the Republican race for president to look more like what the conventional wisdom projected it would.

If the nation’s first primary does not play this role, there might not be much of a Republican race for president at all.