Wednesday’s real debate? Trump versus Reagan

This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here.

Good morning and welcome to On the Trail 2024, the Deseret News’ campaign newsletter. I’m Samuel Benson, Deseret’s national political correspondent.

I’m catching a flight today to Los Angeles for the second Republican presidential debate. It’s at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. My colleague Eva Terry put together a great primer on the debate, with all you need to know about how to watch it. Read Eva’s story here.

Read my interview with one of the debate’s co-moderators here.

Here’s more of the Deseret News’ 2024 election coverage:

• A behind-the-scenes look at how Fox News’ Dana Perino is preparing to moderate the next GOP debate

• Mar-a-Lago: 5 takeaways from a new book about Donald Trump’s house by Jennifer Graham

• Trump will skip GOP debate, try to woo striking UAW workers instead by Suzanne Bates

• Everything you need to know about Hunter Biden by Gitanjali Poonia

• Is a swing-state GOP chair trying to game the election for Trump?

The Big Idea

A tale of two presidents

Two former presidents will take center stage at Wednesday’s Republican debate, but neither of them will be in attendance.

Two things to watch:

1. All eyes are on Trump — even though he won’t be there.

Let’s get this out of the way: the biggest elephant won’t be in the room, with former President Donald Trump saying he’ll head to Detroit to check in on the UAW strikes instead of participating in the debate. That marks two consecutive debates that he’s ducked, and he’s given no reason to believe he’ll be at any of them in the future (he’s alluded to skipping them outright).

Is it the right strategy? Ask 100 pundits and you’ll get a hundred answers. Trump dipped in the polls slightly after his first no-show. But he’s since climbed even higher and now sits at his highest perch of the election cycle, at 55%. His closest challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is somewhere in the low teens.

By not attending, he allows his opponents to cannibalize themselves. Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who some have called “Trump 2.0,” took the brunt of the attacks during the first debate, despite sitting at third or fourth in most polls. Trump wasn’t on the stage, and the candidates seemed content with that set-up: few mentioned Trump, and fewer were willing to attack him.

“There’s such a big gap for the (other) candidates to make up,” Aaron Kall, the director of debate at the University of Michigan, told me. “The only way you can really do that is attacking the front-runner. And last time, that wasn’t the case.”

Would things be different if Trump were on stage? Perhaps. Ideally, he’d be there, making his case directly to the American people why he should be the Republican nominee. Dana Perino, a Fox News host who is one of the moderators for Tuesday’s debate, told me she wishes Trump would be there, too. “But I also practice the serenity prayer,” she continued, “and appreciate the wisdom to know the difference between the things I can and can’t control or change.” Amen, Dana.

2. Is Reaganism dead?

Debates at the Reagan Library have become a staple for Republican presidential primaries. The set-up is something like this: a stage, podiums and lights are arranged in the hangar. A life-size replica of Air Force One hangs in the air. And the candidates spend two hours arguing over who is the rightful heir to Ronald Reagan’s conservative vision.

In 2008, appeals to Reaganism made Mitt Romney a viable candidate early in the race. “He may not be the heir to Reagan, but he looked the most like the former president,” The New York Times reported after that year’s Simi Valley debate. In 2012, Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry vied for Nancy Reagan’s endorsement, with Romney eventually coming out on top. In 2016, Ted Cruz vowed to “reassemble that old Reagan coalition” and called that year’s election a “time for choosing.”

But in an age when Trump’s MAGA wing has engulfed the Republican Party, are odes to Reagan out of date? And in this new-look GOP, can a Reaganite win the nomination?

Nancy Reagan died months before the 2016 election, just as the tides in her party were starting to shift. (Her eldest son said she would’ve voted for Hillary Clinton that year.) The Reagan-Trump feud seems to live on, in no small part due to the Reagan Foundation’s efforts to usher in a new (and non-Trump) era of the Republican Party.

But it’s not just Trump who is ignoring the 40th president: Among the other GOP candidates, Reagan just doesn’t seem to be all that popular. None of the candidates on Tuesday’s stage, except Chris Christie, have participated in a Reagan Library debate before. And aside from occasional eulogies to the Republican glory days of the 1980s, The Gipper is rarely mentioned.

As a Wall Street Journal headline this week said: “Reagan’s Library Still Attracts GOP Candidates. His Ideas Don’t.”

What I’m reading

• DeSantis was expected to be the legitimate non-Trump candidate. Then establishment conservatives saw a glimmer of hope in Sen. Tim Scott. Then former Gov. Nikki Haley. Now, many big-money GOP donors are giving up. “Trump’s like 50 points ahead,” one New York-based GOP fundraiser said. “Who wants to get involved and waste money?” Big GOP donors hoped for an alternative to Trump. Now some are giving up. (Sally Goldenberg, Shia Kapos and Jessica Piper, POLITICO)

• I reported last week on the Nevada Republican Party’s efforts to hold a caucus two days after the state’s primary election. Critics say it will all but guarantee a victory for Trump in the “first-in-the-West” state. Local reporters have details on the party’s private weekend meetings, where details for the caucus were hammered out: Nevada GOP approves party-run caucus that will exclude candidates who run in primary. (Tabitha Mueller and Jacob Solis, The Nevada Independent)

• Evangelical Christians are the strongest voting bloc in Iowa, the first state to cast votes in the GOP presidential primary. For the first time ever, a Hindu is running to win the Republican nomination. But he’s managed to walk a careful line, quoting Old and New Testament passages he learned from his Catholic prep school days and weaving references to God into his stump speeches. Can Vivek Ramaswamy, a practicing Hindu, win over Christians in Iowa? (Philip Joens, Des Moines Register)

Poll pulse

As we barrel toward a federal government shutdown, a new Pew Research Center poll splashes cold water on Washington: Americans are not happy with the state of our politics.

Some key findings:

• 4% of U.S. adults think our political system is working “extremely or very well.”

• 63% have little or no confidence in the system’s future.

• 65% said “exhausted” is the most frequent emotion that comes to mind when they think about politics. (Second place, with 55%, was “angry.”)

Sheesh.

What to watch

The debate, of course. Here’s our guide on how to watch, stream or listen to it.

It’s also worth paying attention to Detroit, where both Trump and President Joe Biden will visit the UAW strikes and make their pitch to union workers.

Do you have a question you’d like me to answer in next Friday’s newsletter? Send it along to onthetrail@deseretnews.com. Let’s talk policy, polling, candidates ... anything election-related.

See you on the trail.

Samuel

Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.