It’s only nine months until voters will begin casting their ballots in the 2024 presidential primaries, and only four months until the first GOP debates start happening. Donald Trump continues to hold a commanding lead, following his indictment on false charges in New York. While the media and the GOP establishment are hoping for a 16-person Republican primary, where all the candidates try to weaken Trump and finish him off, the rest of the field doesn’t seem to be cooperating. Two potential 2024 candidates have dropped out in the last few days.
Mike Pompeo, President Trump’s former CIA Director and former Secretary of State, announced on Friday that he’s calling his presidential ambitions quits for now. Pompeo notes that he’s still young, so he may run in some future election.
Over the weekend, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin poured cold water on the RNC’s hopes that he would run. The RNC and the media tried to play the American people by claiming that Younkin won his gubernatorial race two years ago by espousing Trumpism, without actually being Trump. That was always a lie. Youngkin won because backing parents against out-of-control school boards are always going to be a winning issue with the voters, especially these days. At any rate, Youngkin now says he’s not running.
Neither Youngkin nor Pompeo had ever registered in the polls as potential candidates. There’s no enthusiasm anywhere to see either one of them run. Why would they bother throwing away their careers by drawing the ire of the loyal MAGA base, by challenging Trump? It’s worth noting that neither one of them bashed Trump in an effort to muddy up the waters. They were smarter than that. Come hell or high water, Republican voters want Donald Trump to be the nominee and for his second term in office to be one of terrible vengeance against the Deep State.
So, the field is thinning. Pompeo and Youngkin have lined up with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan by declaring themselves out of the race before it even starts.
Declared candidates at this point include John Bolton, who tanked the world’s closest chance at a peace deal on the Korean peninsula to undermine President Trump; Nikki Haley, who stated multiple times that she would never betray President Trump by running against him; Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who believes he is the true conservative of actual conservatism despite being friendly to the trans movement; Vivek Ramaswamy, who actually just wants to be Treasury Secretary; Mike Pence, who doesn’t understand how much the MAGA movement loathes him; and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is running because… um… reasons?
In other words, none of the declared candidates has even the slightest chance of bruising President Trump in the primary debates. The debates will still be hilarious, since Trump will be in them, but he can only do so much when working against such weak material.
Still undeclared are Chris Sununu, Chris Christie (Please run, Chris Christie! Oh, please!), Greg Abbott, Kristi Noem, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, and of course, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. May and June should be incredibly interesting as we learn which of the above will jump into the race, and which ones just couldn’t help themselves.
Here’s Mike Pompeo making his announcement that he’s bowing out of the race in 2024:
