Republican Candidates Are Fighting Over Trump's Scraps In GOP Primary

Donald Trump has such a huge lead that the Republican primary is effectively over already, and the remaining candidates are just fighting over his scraps. But what if something happens and Trump isn't in the race anymore? Are there any candidates that can capitalize on such an opening? Farron Cousins answers this question.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Most of the trials that Donald Trump is facing are not going to begin until well after most, eh, probably not even most states, but after a lot of states have voted effectively, Donald Trump is gonna continue to run for president, uh, while he's facing trial. He's gonna win a bunch of states. He's gonna have the momentum at his back before any of the criminal trials begin. But that doesn't mean that the results of those criminal trials may not affect the remainder of the Republican primary season next year. Which brings us to our next question. Uh, 13 bright yellow YouTube user asks us, Hey, Faron, very interested to know, based on your opinion and polling, if Trump was unable to run in the 2024 race for some reason, who would pull ahead to take his place? I think at this point, the obvious answer based on polling of course, is Ron DeSantis.

Uh, and that's only because Ron DeSantis is still in the, in the national race. He's in second place now. He keeps losing ground in every new poll that comes out. Uh, he is not performing well in the debates at all. And so at the moment, I would say Ron DeSantis, but if he were suddenly the front runner, then he's gonna be getting all the fire from the remaining candidates, and I think he fizzles out quickly. Uh, it's very similar, by the way, to what happened to Jeb Bush in the 20 16 20 15 Republican race. Um, so I think you end up with somebody else pulling ahead, perhaps somebody that voters are not necessarily paying attention to right now. And I do think, by the way, if like Trump, if something were to happen to Trump and he were to drop out now, you know, even before the trials, I think we would see other Republicans immediately jump in.

They'd have a lot of ground to make up. But I do think, given the dissatisfaction that the Republican voters seem to have with the rest of their field, I think it's still a wide open race for somebody else to jump in. Glenn Youngen, obviously is the name that comes to mind, possibly even Christie Nome, uh, from South Dakota. So there's real possibilities for somebody that's not even in the race to jump in. If something were to happen to Donald Trump right now with the people who are currently in the race, I think Nikki Haley would benefit the most from Donald Trump stepping outta the race at this moment. I, I do not think the Trump people would immediately flock to Ron DeSantis. He'd have a good number, like his poll would definitely go up, but I think Nikki Haley's gonna take more away than Rhon DeSantis would. Um, and, and that's just strictly based on the fact that there are too many Maga people that have gone the complete other way on Ron DeSantis, whereas he used to be their number two, they now straight up hate him. So a lot of them are not gonna flip to him. But Nikki Haley has played it kind of down the middle, right? She,

She worked in the Trump administration, so hey, you know, she's kind of close to him. Maybe, maybe that helps. So I think Nikki Haley pulls ahead. I think if the Republican party itself, if Trump leaves the race and then suddenly you've got a situation where the MAGA hold is off, you may see Mike Pence, you may see Chris Christie. Uh, I think the more Ramis Swami is exposed to the public, I think the worse he does. I think again, DeSantis gets a small bounce at first and then goes right back, uh, you know, middle of the pack. And the other people whose names are not important enough to remember, with the exception of Tim Scott, they fizzle out anyway. Tim Scott could see a bounce, but I still think there's far too much racism rooted in the Republican Party for somebody like Tim Scott to actually have a chance. So that's what I think about that. But I think ultimately if Trump leaves the race, it's either gonna be Nikki Haley that benefits the most, or somebody that's actually not even running yet.