The Republican Race for Second Place
Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy: Can anyone beat a down-but-not-out Trump?
“DeSantis and Newsom Offer a Glimpse at an Alternate 2024 With No Trump or Biden Running,” imagined Phillip Elliott for Time Magazine on November 30, 2023.
A debate between two rising stars in their respective political parties it may have been; an alternate glimpse of the 2024 presidential election it was not.
“The event was billed by some as a 2028 preview but it was more of a bizarro version of 2024 — one where neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden were running for a second term,” mused Elliott. “In that alternate reality, it turns out, we would all be arguing a lot more about the pandemic.”
Of course, all of that is fiction; both former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden are most certainly running for president in 2024.
While the Democratic Party coalesces, perhaps reluctantly, around President Joe Biden’s foregone reelection campaign, Republican Party primary candidates are still attempting to tear Trump from his precarious perch atop the 2024 Republican ticket.
“Why Did That DeSantis-Newsom Debate Even Happen?” wondered Ed Kilgore for the New Yorker last Friday. Kilgore wasn’t the only one mystified by the event.