Republican Debate Leaves Democrats Further Convinced Trump Will Be Biden’s 2024 Opponent

Donald Trump didn’t show up at the first Republican presidential debate on Wednesday in Milwaukee.

To Democrats, it didn’t matter. The contest between the eight other candidates did little to shake the Democratic belief that Trump will be the Republican nominee President Joe Biden faces in 2024 – and, in some cases, only increased that certainty.

“Trump was the nominee before and he’s the nominee after. It’s not really in doubt,” said Josh Schwerin, a Democratic operative who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “Trump defines the Republican Party right now. Nobody did anything that even comes remotely close to changing that. They are all proudly MAGA which is literally Trump’s brand.”

The former president’s absence from the debate gave Ron DeSantis a golden opportunity to firmly seize the Trump alternative mantle in the Republican primary race. But the Florida governor largely ceded that ground to others on stage, namely Vivek Ramaswamy, the bombastic businessman who adopted the former president’s aggressive style and proudly cast himself as the most pro-Trump candidate on the stage.

The most noteworthy aspect of the night to many Democrats was how the candidates rarely looked for clear opportunities to break with Trump’s ideology, even if they took veiled shots at his record. DeSantis lamented coronavirus lockdowns, former Vice President Mike Pence defended his refusal to go along with Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election results, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — the most outspoken critic of the former president on the stage — painted a dark picture of what the party will look like under Trump.

But few candidates actually broke with Trump’s political philosophy.

The Biden campaign and its allies, in both their pre- and post-debate commentary, defined the event as nothing more than a shouting match between “MAGA Republican presidential candidates,” using Trump’s slogan to cast the field as extreme and effectively validating the former president’s position as the most likely Republican nominee in 2024.

“What I saw on that stage last night was a singular world view, and that world view was divisive,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a member of the Biden campaign’s advisory council. “What’s most alarming to me is that while I’m going around the state of Maryland all the time, I don’t hear things like this. Their divisive and singular world view is not speaking to Marylanders. At all.”

A largely unchanged GOP race

Democrats said the Republican field did little at Wednesday’s debate to challenge Trump’s standing as the dominant frontrunner for the GOP nomination. 

Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, said the only clear hit on Trump came when the former president’s one-time Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, accused him of adding $8 trillion to the national debt during his time in office. 

“Can’t wait to run that ad in the general election,” he added. The Biden campaign also seized on the moment on social media during the debate. 

Messina also said that Christie, who is well behind in the polls, was the only candidate on stage who articulated a vision “that was different than Trump’s.”

“Not to go all Socrates, but what from the debate would change the course of the race,” said Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign. “Trump’s chances of winning the nomination are the same yesterday morning as they are today.”

Even Republicans agreed that the debate only cemented Trump’s standing.

GOP strategist John Feehery said the debate was good for Ramaswamy and Haley and neutral for DeSantis, who remains the runner-up to Trump in national polls. Still, Feehery added that the debate was simply an exercise in “rearranging the deck stairs on the Titanic.”

“But if the Titanic goes down, if Trump falls, that rearrangement could be significant,” he continued, adding that there’s “still no clarity on who is the chief alternative to Trump, though.”

As the former president’s legal woes continue to mount – he will turn himself in to the Fulton County jail in Atlanta on Thursday as part of his fourth indictment, this time for his alleged actions to overturn his 2020 election loss – some Democrats wondered if the growing list of charges would break the GOP’s allegiance to him.

But the opposite has happened. Polls find Trump in a stronger position with the Republican base after the four indictments, while his top rival, DeSantis, has faded.

“Before the debate last night, it was pretty clear Trump was going to be the nominee and nothing on stage changed that calculation. If anything, it solidified it,” said Eddie Vale, a longtime Democratic strategist. “Not only did none of the other candidates break through the Trump orange forcefield, they didn't even try. … The other Republicans were so sycophantic to Trump it looked like they weren't trying out for a cabinet position but were jockeying to be his Diet Coke button butler. “

The prospect of Trump as the 2024 nominee cuts both ways for Democrats: They know how to run against him and they know Biden can beat him – as he did in 2020. But there is considerable uncertainty around the former president and he has proven the ability to exceed expectations.

Biden himself hinted that he didn’t see much that worried him on stage, using the same political aphorism that many Democrats use to explain why they think he could defeat Trump in 2024.

“You know, my Dad used to say: ‘Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative,’” Biden posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday night. “So, tonight, compare me to the alternative.”