by Frank Holmes, reporter
On paper, the 2024 presidential election is 34 months away—but on the stages, in the living rooms, and in the cigar-smoke-filled back rooms of America’s battleground states, it’s already started. A little-reported event dealing with the New Hampshire primary proves it… and it tells us which Republicans might just be running for president in 2024.
The media quietly announced that a whole group of possible presidential contenders will attend a March 30 event, has the unwieldy name, “Defending the First in the Nation Primary Cocktail Reception and Fundraiser.”
On paper, the event is about keeping the Granite State as the first presidential primary held in the country—something that’s being attacked by liberals in both parties, who think the state isn’t “diverse” enough.
But it’s really one of the first auditions for the 2024 presidential race.
Who’s on the bill? Attendees will include: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex.; Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
We know that because of a report from Politico.
They’ll be meeting with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, R.N.C. Co-Chair David Bossie (who may someday become chair), and several other party bigwigs.
The party has basically announced it’s not going to change its primary schedule—so what’s really going on here? The party leaders have a chance to meet with possible 2024 presidential hopefuls and kick the tires, examining their strengths and weaknesses.
What does it say that these candidates are driving up for the inspection? It says they’re thinking about running.
None of this is surprising, if you know what to look at.
Ted Cruz has never quite gotten over losing 2016’s nomination, which he contested all the way to the Republican convention. Cruz lost the primaries to President Donald Trump, but he kept piling up delegates thanks to the strange rules that governed state primaries. He even named his running mate: Carly Fiorina, who ended up endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.
The party’s leaders have held up Sen. Tim Scott as a possible presidential candidate since he got elected to the Senate. The buzz got so loud that in 2018, he had to say, “I’m not even running for president of my home owners’ association.”
But that was 2018—and this is a new cycle.
Scott has made a huge number of visits to Iowa and New Hampshire; he gave a smashing response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address; and he’s piled up $37.8 million in campaign funds.
Tim Scott lives in South Carolina—one of the earliest and reddest primary states—and doesn’t need the money to beat down a strong Democratic challenger. But he can use the money to support other candidates—who might want to return the favor in two years.
The Senate’s other Scott — Rick Scott of Florida — can use his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to visit any state he wants, anytime he wants. But it just so happens he’s made several trips to Iowa and New Hampshire over the last year.
Sen. Tom Cotton, as well, has become a frequent flyer from Des Moines’s airport—and he’s made some really strong pitches to the state. He’s personally trying to recruit Republicans to run against the only Democrat the state elected to Congress. And he said he’s put his heart where his work is: “I’m the only one who loves you so much that I married a girl born in Iowa,” he told a crowd last June. The next month, he visited a shooting range in New Hampshire—and Arkansas isn’t lacking in shooting ranges.
This count doesn’t include other possible or likely candidates for 2024’s Republican nomination—former Vice President Mike Pence, former State Secretary Mike Pompeo, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota.
You may think this is premature—the 2022 midterm elections haven’t even happened yet. You’d be right—and wrong.
It’s true the midterms are nine months away, but the presidential landscape isn’t the same as when Bill Clinton announced his presidential campaign a short four months before the 1992 Iowa caucuses. Today, candidates need an organization and get-out-the-vote activists in shortly after the midterms to be considered viable.
Plus, Trump himself may run for president a third time, and several of these presidential hopefuls have promised not to run for president in the event of another Trump campaign.
For that reason, Trump might just wait them out before throwing his hat in the ring. “Knowing Trump, he’ll dangle it right up to the New Hampshire primary filing deadline,” an anonymous Trump insider told Vanity Fair recently.
Every four years, dozens of would-be presidents dip their toes in the water to measure the political temperature—most come out disappointed. The 2024 primaries are two years away, and the presidential race is nearly three years in the future.
The old saw goes, “Two years is an eternity in politics.” But most politicians secretly want eternity to revolve around themselves—and will stick out the political campaign as long as their health, their families, and their donors will let them.
The Horn News will be watching them every step of the way.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”