2023: the year of political never-woulds

In a sense, 2023 never stood a chance.

While the past 12 months have been replete with wins, losses, and notable entanglements, when it comes to the gladiatorial arena that is American politics in the 21st century, 2023 will most likely go down as a mere appetizer to next year's main electoral course. In part that's to be expected; interstitial years between general elections are always a preparatory period when viewed through the lens of national politics. At the same time, the combination of former President Donald Trump's seemingly insurmountable lead over a slowly dwindling Republican primary field coupled with incumbent President Joe Biden's virtually guaranteed spot as presumptive Democratic nominee has cast an unmistakable pall of deja vu across next year's political landscape — even as the stakes of their election could be, as one headline in The Hill put it, "the end of democracy as we know it."

In spite, or perhaps because of this strange combination of electoral ennui and political urgency, this past year has proven to be fertile ground for aspirants from across the ideological spectrum — Democrat, Republican, and Independent alike — to boldly step forward...at exactly the wrong time. While just about every election cycle attracts some measure of quixotic hopefuls, 2023 has seen a particularly robust crop of baseless optimists.

With the caveat that nothing is written in stone, especially when it comes to American politics, the sheer proliferation of candidates who've already run into an electoral wall everyone else could see but them has made 2023 a banner year for never-woulds who should have stopped before they ever got started.

'Good, old-fashioned self-belief'

For the crowded (albeit winnowing) Republican field, "there is no 'campaign trail' in the traditional sense," New York's Olivia Nuzzi wrote in October. Trump's seemingly unshakable lead has led to candidate activity "scattered here and there, interspersed with long periods of stillness" from the rest of the field. Oftentimes, "it does not feel like the candidates are really running." To the extent that the candidates — even those polling above the single digits — genuinely believe they can go the distance, they still live "in fear of the front-runner whom they have to kill off if they are to have any chance, waiting instead for him to die of natural causes."

While there are plenty of concrete reasons why a candidate with effectively zero shot at election might toss their hat into a race anyway, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, political science professor Kenneth Miller stressed the importance of "good, old-fashioned self-belief" in an interview with Al Jazeera this fall, pointing out that "this could be very unpredictable year." And with that in mind, "one of the things that maybe we under-appreciate with some of these candidates is that they think they can actually win." Perhaps the highest profile candidate running without any major party support, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., bragged during a recent interview with PBS News, that he'd "rather be in my position than I would in President Trump's position or President Biden." And while Kennedy's candidacy could indeed affect the general election by drawing support from other candidates, "there are few things you can be more certain of in life than a Democrat or a Republican winning a U.S. presidential election," CNN's Harry Enten stressed. While Kennedy has never had a realistic path to an electoral victory, he and other independent and third-party candidates "are far more likely than usual to take a large chunk of the vote from the major parties" this year — a once-in-a-generation context that grants them oversized general electoral power even if winning was never truly on the table.

A 'seemingly inexorable march'

Consider Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who for more than a year enjoyed the plaudits and attention that came with being dubbed the Never-Trump candidate who could salvage a MAGA-addled GOP from the former president. That DeSantis has spent that time not only trailing Trump as a distant second, but doing so by anywhere from 20-30 points in various polls is a testament to how seemingly futile and unmoving the field truly is. It's little wonder, then, that DeSantis himself has "privately acknowledged to friends and allies that Trump holds so much sway over the Republican voter base that it leaves little room for alternative candidates," according to Bloomberg.

With the bloom fading from DeSantis' rose, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has increasingly been positioned by donors and pundits as the next best candidate to challenge Trump's inevitable-feeling nomination. But even as she ends 2023 with genuine momentum, actually blocking Trump's "seemingly inexorable march to the Republican nomination promises to be a slog," The New York Times reported. Indeed, with one month until the Iowa Caucuses, Haley's standing in that state has essentially stagnated in third place, even as Trump expands his lead to 51% of likely caucus-goers, according to a recently released Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll. That former Vice President Mike Pence, a one-time midwestern governor with deep legislative connections and an impeccable social conservative record, never broke 9% in polling is a sign of just how stacked 2023's political deck is against candidates who would otherwise have fared much better in other years.

For Democrats, President Joe Biden's campaign has been slightly more sensitive to polling changes, but here too his incumbency hasn't scared away all challengers, with three-term Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) mounting his bid to secure his party's nomination. But, having missed several state filing deadlines, suffering from minimal national profile (at a recent Axios focus group no participant shown his photo could name him), and lacking a robust campaign infrastructure, Phillips' candidacy is as much a last resort in the chance that Biden, in his early 80s, should be unable to run as election day draws closer. In terms of politics, it's unclear "why a Democratic voter would choose Phillips over Biden, other than age" Time Magazine reported. After launching his campaign last month, Phillips trailed Biden by 69 points in a Morning Consult poll, with "just 4% of potential Democratic primary voters" backing his run. A similarly timed Quinnipiac University national poll had him trailing Democrat Marianne Williamson, who was herself polling under 10 points, in spite of having raised a national profile for herself during the 2020 race.

While election day remains a ways away, with ample time for some unforeseen black swan to swoop down and scuttle the electoral landscape as we know it, 2023 has been surprisingly, frustratingly stable. The basic dynamics of the presidential election have been baked in almost from the moment the last one ended. The assumption that next year will be a rematch of 2020 seems broadly accepted by pundits and politicians alike. That there have been some presidential aspirants willing to tilt at windmills amid a political hurricane largely unchanged for the past 12 months is a testament to Pollyanna-ish optimism in a year defined by campaigns that were over well before they even started.