In a recent interview on “Meet the Press,” Ohio’s Republican governor, John Kasich, hinted that he may challenge President Trump in the 2020 GOP primaries.
This is all nice to gossip about, but is it practical? It depends on your goal. Primary challenges to sitting presidents rarely succeed in defeating them for renomination — in fact, it hasn’t been done since the 1850s. But such intraparty challenges often work in driving sitting presidents from office. That may be Kasich’s real objective.
Consider a few examples. In 1912, former President Teddy Roosevelt, frustrated with the direction his former protege and successor, William Howard Taft, was leading the GOP and country in, came out of retirement and beat Taft in 12 state primaries. Taft won renomination anyway, but the damage was done. The Rough Rider was able to put the last nail in his coffin by running that fall on the Bull Moose ticket, splitting the Republican vote and making Democrat Woodrow Wilson the next president.
In 1952, frustrated with the stalemate in the Korean War, voters saw President Harry S. Truman as vulnerable. Sen. Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., a popular figure inside the party, primaried Truman and showed some serious strength in New Hampshire. Truman withdrew from the campaign, opening the door to the out-of-touch, “egghead” Gov. Adlai Stephenson’s nomination. A woman once excitedly told Stephenson, “All the thinking people are voting for you,” to which Stephenson sniffed, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”
In 1968, Democratic Sen. Gene McCarthy of Minnesota, opposed to the Vietnam War, took on incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in the New Hampshire primary and showed astonishing strength, garnering more than 42 percent of the primary vote. LBJ abruptly quit the campaign and went back to Texas, where he drank and smoked himself to an early death.
In 1976, Ronald Reagan took on the incumbent, but unelected, Republican president, Gerald Ford, carrying the fight all the way to the convention in Kansas City. Ford won the nomination by just 57 delegate votes out of 2,257 cast, but then he lost in the fall.
In 1980, Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts tried to restore Camelot by taking on incumbent Jimmy Carter, losing. He lost, but he succeeded in weakening the Georgian and dividing the party. Ironically, he thus paved the way for the historic election of Reagan that fall.
And in 1992, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan made an attempt to wrest the GOP nomination from incumbent George H.W. Bush. He lost, but he seriously weakened Bush. The presence of protest candidate Ross Perot in the fall election muddied the waters, but the bottom line was that Bush was damaged by the challenge, the party was divided, and Democrat Bill Clinton won the presidency.
So turning to today, Kasich can run and he can lose. But he could cost Trump re-election by weakening the GOP, ridding the party of Trump but perhaps not of Trumpism. Divided parties lose in the fall. United parties win in the fall. It’s just that simple.
But for Kasich to win the 2020 Republican Party’s nomination over Trump, God would have to drop everything else and provide the miracle.
Craig Shirley is the author of five books about the life and work of former President Ronald Reagan, including most recently Last Act: The final years and emerging legacy of Ronald Reagan. He is also the author of the forthcoming Honored Madam about the life and times of George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington. His firm, Shirley & Banister, worked briefly for John Kasich’s presidential campaign in 2016.
