Who’s Winning in 2024?

Now that the midterms are over, everyone is asking who will be running for president in 2024. The better question is, who has the best chance to win their party’s nomination? Here is my short list, based on the assumption that Republican voters still yearn for someone disruptive, while Democrats are skewing further to the left. The list below is not necessarily in the order of who I think will eventually win the nomination.

REPUBLICANS

Donald Trump — Bashing Trump is in vogue now, and he deserves it. Most of his handpicked candidates in major races lost to vulnerable Democrats. Washington Republicans are taking their swipes at their former leader, and Trump is looking far from inevitable. Having said that, Trump won 74 million votes in 2020. Even if 20 million of them are fed up with him, he still has 54 million supporters. That’s a huge base to start with — much larger than anyone else who might run.

J.D. Vance — I know this sounds nutty — he hasn’t even been sworn in yet for his first term as a senator from Ohio. But keep in mind that Barack Obama also made the leap to the White House less than three years into his first Senate term. Ohio is a crucial swing state and borders Pennsylvania, another must-win state for either party. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy vaulted to number one on the New York Times best sellers list. That’s his manifesto, in which he exhibits a grasp of many of America’s underlying social and economic problems.

Ron DeSantis — The first post-midterm poll from YouGov America that matched DeSantis against Trump shows that after his landslide reelection victory, the Florida governor has overtaken the former president 42%-35% among Republicans. DeSantis deserved his big win. Competence counts, and so does keeping your word, a concept many politicians find foreign. DeSantis attracted votes from a wide base of city-dwellers and suburbanites, blacks and whites and Hispanics. Republicans need to follow that script to win nationwide in 2024.

Nikki Haley — Haley doesn’t rank high in the polls, but if Republicans want a fresh new face, and the best woman candidate, Haley is ideal. She gained executive experience as governor of South Carolina and foreign policy expertise as UN ambassador. She has fighting spirit and doesn’t shy away from controversy. Witness her remark last week that Georgia’s Democratic senator Raphael Warnock ought to be deported because of his leftist views. It’s not happening, but it shows she knows how to play to the base.