“We cannot, we will not, go back to the days of the failed Republican establishment of yesteryear,” declared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in front of a crowd at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. “We can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy. I’m not saying you don’t do any of that. … But the question is, when the klieg lights get hot, when the Left comes after you, will you stay strong, or will you fold?”
In just a few simple sentences, DeSantis perfectly summarized what most Republican voters say they are looking for out of their party and their leaders: a will to fight.
Donald Trump clearly intends to maintain his grip on the GOP. But is Trump still what Republicans want in a party standard-bearer?
For years, the GOP was defined by the pursuit of robust national defense, limited government, and traditional social conservatism. But today’s party looks quite different. Over the past three months, my surveys have painted a clear portrait of what Republicans prioritize and value: the will to fight and to take on the establishment. And if any specific issue takes center stage for them, it is immigration.
The party, as remade in the Trump era, has embraced both his agenda and his combative ethos. At the same time, however, Republicans appear wary of knockoffs trying to ape Trump’s style. And though nearly half of Republicans think of themselves as Trump supporters more than Republican Party supporters, that number has been in decline since its high-water mark right before Election Day. That means there is plenty about Trump that Republicans like and wish to preserve, but also room for new leadership to emerge.
What would a new Republican leader look like if not Trump? When asked to rate a variety of characteristics on a scale ranging from “absolutely necessary for my support” to “absolutely could not support someone like this,” the most desired trait among Republican voters was: won’t back down in a fight with the Democrats. In fact, around half of all Republicans surveyed gave this the very highest mark, saying it was absolutely necessary.
That does not mean Republicans can live by obstruction alone. Of the dozen traits tested, the third-highest rated quality Republicans are looking for is someone who “will work in a bipartisan way to solve problems.” Indeed, according to survey work done by Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, while a majority of Trump voters say they view Democrats as “bad people” rather than just people with bad ideas, a similar majority also believes it is important to work with Democrats to get things done.
To some, these two characteristics may sound contradictory, but they were embodied by Trump himself: Fight as hard as you can, know when to walk away from the bargaining table, but do what it takes to get a deal done.
Rounding out the top three characteristics Republican voters say they need in a candidate is someone who “supports the Trump, America First agenda” on immigration and trade. Digging even more deeply into the minds of Republican voters, when our respondents were asked how concerned they were about a variety of issues, top answers were illegal immigration, lack of support for the police, high taxes, liberal bias in the legacy media, and the economic damage from COVID-19. Issues such as socialism, antifa violence, and the “general moral decline of the country” also rate highly as concerns — even higher than the deficit or COVID-19 lockdowns.
This is a language Trump speaks fluently. But what if Republicans want someone who fights like Trump and is focused on the same issues as Trump but isn’t Trump?
Today, just 43% of Republicans view themselves as Trump supporters first. And less than one-third of those who are either conservative, Republican, or very favorable to Trump fall into all three categories, with a large portion of the Right holding “somewhat favorable” views of Trump — supportive of some things he does but perhaps not the way he does them. Indeed, when we asked Republicans to rank qualities they are looking for in a candidate, “has a personality that reminds me of Donald Trump” came in second-to-last on our list, with only 29% of Republicans saying that’s what they want.
There’s no question that if Donald Trump were to run for president in 2024, he would be formidable and would likely clear the Republican field, rendering much of this discussion moot and pushing further down the line any debate about what a post-Trump GOP would look like. But if he doesn’t run, there are two main candidates thus far in the very early polling who stand out as the front-runners.
The first is former Vice President Mike Pence. Even in the aftermath of Jan. 6, when Pence earned Trump’s wrath by refusing to attempt to overturn the election, the veep remained relatively well-liked by the vast majority of Republicans and was the leader in our February polling on a hypothetical Trump-less 2024 field. He was the strong favorite of “party first” Republicans, though he was more closely challenged by Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr. among “Trump first” Republicans. But Pence has stayed under the radar, sitting out big gatherings like CPAC and signing a seven-figure book deal while Trump has lobbed rhetorical bombs at him whenever given the opportunity.
Recently, Trump took the opportunity to say that he would consider switching out his running mate if he were to run again. His proposed new No. 2? Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. And at the moment, Trump isn’t wrong that it is DeSantis who is the heir to the Trumpist movement within the party. DeSantis had a meteoric rise in our polling between February and March, leaping into first place in a primary without Trump, with a particularly strong lead among the “Trump first” voters of the party.
At Mar-a-Lago in early April, DeSantis took the stage and declared, “We have too many people in this party who don’t fight back,” hitting the notes so many Republicans still want to hear from their leader. And while most would be happy with that leader being Donald Trump, there are certainly some, such as DeSantis, who are positioning themselves effectively for the future by appearing to understand what Republican voters truly want today.
Kristen Soltis Anderson is a political columnist for the Washington Examiner. She is the co-founder of Echelon Insights and regularly brings her pollster expertise to Fox News. She is the author of The Selfie Vote.
