The South Carolina Republican Party could cancel its marquee presidential nominating contest in 2020 in a move to protect President Trump from any primary challengers.
Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina GOP, said he doesn’t anticipate Trump would face a primary challenge and emphasized that the state party executive committee hasn’t held any formal discussions about the contest, dubbed “first in the South” and usually third on the presidential nominating calendar. But McKissick would pointedly not rule out canceling the primary, indicating that that would be his preference.
“We have complete autonomy and flexibility in either direction,” McKissick told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “Considering the fact that the entire party supports the president, we’ll end up doing what’s in the president’s best interest.”
As Trump’s re-election campaign ramps up, one component of the effort is preparing for possible primary challenges. The president is solid with Republican voters and would almost certainly defeat any intraparty opposition. But incumbent presidents who faced primaries are in greater peril in the general election, a fact not lost on the Trump campaign and the GOP more broadly.
To minimize potential political hurdles for Trump, some state parties could move to scrap their 2020 presidential primaries. Already a long shot, the unavailability of one or more high-profile primary contests could further hamstring the odds of any Republican who dares to run against Trump in 2020. There is precedent for this strategy, even when less uncertainty has swirled around the incumbent president.
In 1992, the Iowa GOP didn’t issue a presidential ballot during its caucus, to save President George H.W. Bush from being embarrassed by Pat Buchanan — Bush won the New Hampshire primary, although Buchanan still did better than Bush had hoped. In 2004, when President George W. Bush was running for re-election, the South Carolina GOP skipped its presidential primary.
Luke Byars, a veteran Republican operative in South Carolina and the executive director of the state party in 2004, said that there were some complaints but that the point was to further Bush’s re-election and avoid unnecessary distractions.
“We did not want to have a primary,” Byars said. “We had a meeting of executive committee, passed a resolution endorsing the president for re-election and said there would no Republican primary.”
More than a few state GOP affiliates could make a similar call in this election cycle.
Sometime next summer, as the Democratic presidential primary is getting into high gear, the South Carolina Republican Party’s executive committee is likely to meet to consider the matter. The most likely outcome is a vote to endorse Trump and take a pass on the 2020 White House nominating contest.
Under South Carolina law, the state taxpayers pick up the tab for the Democratic and GOP presidential primaries, which according to tradition are scheduled early in the calendar for maximum impact on the nominations. If the Republican Party chooses not to go without one, the legislature won’t have to appropriate any funds to underwrite it.
Trump’s Republican allies in the state, including Gov. Henry McMaster, aren’t likely to complain.
“Pigs will fly before the South Carolina GOP allows Trump to have opposition,” said Matt Moore, McKissick’s predecessor as chairman of the state party.
CORRECTION: This story was corrected to note that Bush defeated Buchanan in the 1992 New Hampshire primary.
