无意冒犯前得克萨斯州众议员威尔·赫德和迈阿密市长弗朗西斯·苏亚雷斯，但周六，前副总统迈克·彭斯成为第一个退出2024年总统竞选。这是一个大新闻，因为彭斯在党内的地位，但这不一定是一个惊喜:由于他的低民调和筹资总额538团队中的一些人早在7月份就预测到了这一点。但如果你预计这将是最终动摇共和党初选的事件，请再想想:彭斯的退出不太可能给他的任何反特朗普候选人带来有意义的提振。
简而言之，彭斯的竞选从未开始。主要由于他的高姿态，他以9%的支持率开始了今年的第三次民意调查538的全国初选平均票数。但是从那以后一切都走下坡路了:当他在6月7日(他的生日!)，他下降到5%，周六他退出时，他以4%的支持率排在第五位。
通常情况下，前副总统是强有力的总统候选人。在彭斯之前，过去七位竞选总统的前副总统中有六位成功获得了党内提名(理查德·尼克松、休伯特·汉弗莱、沃尔特·蒙代尔、老布什、阿尔·戈尔和乔·拜登)。但是作为当彭斯加入竞选时，我的同事杰弗里·斯凯利注意到了这一点彭斯当时的民意调查与没有获得党内提名的人非常相似:同为印第安纳州人的詹姆斯·丹·奎尔。布什的副总统在2000年的选举中寻求入主白宫，但像彭斯一样，他从初选中退出在选举年前的秋天。
彭斯的主要问题是他在共和党内没有根基。当然，彭斯曾在前总统唐纳德·特朗普政府任职，但他损害了他与党内特朗普派系的关系2021年1月6日，当他拒绝反对2020年选举的认证时。根据公民调查，他的共和党人的净支持率从当天的+76个百分点下降到一周后的+44个百分点。尽管如此，他的平均净支持率今年年中一直保持乐观——但在整个夏天，他们一次又一次地遭受打击加大了他对特朗普的批评。今年8月，在特朗普因试图推翻2020年大选结果而被起诉后，人们开始关注彭斯对特朗普的反对他的支持率直线下降。根据538的平均数据，截至周五，45%的共和党人对彭斯持负面看法，43%的人持正面看法。
前副总统迈克·彭斯在共和党中的支持率很低。
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在这一点上，彭斯的支持可能主要来自党内希望摆脱特朗普和特朗普主义的少数人。因此，他退出竞选对志同道合的候选人来说可能是个好消息，比如前联合国大使妮基·黑利。但哈利等人可能不会因此在民意调查中遭遇大幅飙升。
九月下旬，WPA情报和公平投票对共和党初选进行了一次独特的排名选择投票调查，不仅询问可能的共和党选民他们的第一选择是谁，还询问他们的第二、第三、第四选择是谁，等等。选择是。在将便士排在第一位的选民中，没有一致的第二选择。20%的人说他们的第二选择是南卡罗来纳州参议员蒂姆·斯科特，19%的人说是哈利，18%的人说是商人维维克·拉马斯瓦米，15%的人说是佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯，14%的人说是前新泽西州州长克里斯·克里斯蒂，9%的人说是川普。
这只是一项民意调查，但它表明彭斯的支持将相对均匀地流向所有其他顶级候选人，这不会有助于，比如说，海利加强她的论点，即她是最有可能击败特朗普的候选人。但当然，即使民意调查是错误的，彭斯的支持压倒性地流向另一位候选人，这也不会显著改变竞选的轨迹。请记住，彭斯在全国范围内的支持率仅为4%。充其量，这将使海利的支持率从8%上升到12%——并非一无所获，但仍落后于特朗普，后者的支持率为57%。无论反特朗普的选票聚集了多少，他仍可能赢得共和党提名，除非有人能想出如何赢得一些支持特朗普的选票。
Why it doesn't matter that Mike Pence dropped out of the GOP primary
No offense to former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, but on Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence became the first big name todrop out of the 2024 presidential race. It's big news because of Pence's stature within the party, but it wasn't necessarily a surprise: Thanks to his low polling andfundraising totals, some on the 538 team werepredicting this as long ago as July. But if you're expecting this to be the event that finally shakes up the Republican primary, think again: Pence's withdrawal isn't likely to give a meaningful boost to any of his fellow anti-Trump candidates.
Simply put, Pence's campaign never got going. Thanks largely to his high profile, he started the year polling in third place with 9 percent support, according to538's average of national primary polls. But it all went downhill from there: By the time he actually entered the race on June 7 (his birthday!), he was down to 5 percent, and on Saturday when he dropped out, he was sitting in fifth place at 4 percent.
Normally,former vice presidents make for strong presidential contenders. Before Pence, six of the last seven former vice presidents who ran for president successfully captured their party's nomination (Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, Al Gore and Joe Biden). But asmy colleague Geoffrey Skelley noted when Pence jumped into the race, Pence's polling at the time was most similar to the one who didn't get his party's nomination: fellow Hoosier Dan Quayle. Bush's vice president sought the White House in the 2000 election, but like Pence, hedropped out of the primaryin the fall before the election year.
Pence's main problem was that he had no base within the GOP. Of course, Pence served in the administration of former President Donald Trump, but hedamaged his relationship with the Trump wing of the partyon Jan. 6, 2021, when he refused to oppose the certification of the 2020 election. According to Civiqs polling, hisnet favorability rating among Republicansdropped from +76 percentage points on that day to +44 points just one week later. Still, hisaverage net favorability numbersremained positive through the middle of this year — but they took hit after hit over the summer as Penceratcheted up his criticism of Trump. In August, after Trump's indictments for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election shone a spotlight onPence's opposition to Trump, his numbers dipped underwater. According to 538's average, as of Friday, 45 percent of Republicans had an unfavorable opinion of Pence, and 43 percent had a favorable one.
At this point, Pence's support was probably mostly coming from the minority of the party that would like to move on from Trump and Trumpism. Ergo, his withdrawal from the race may seem like good news for like-minded candidates such as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. But Haley et al. probably won't experience a significant spike in the polls as a result of this.
In late September,WPA Intelligence and FairVoteconducted a unique ranked-choice voting poll of the GOP primary that asked likely Republican voters not only who their first choice for president was, but also who their second, third, fourth, etc. choices were. And among voters who ranked Pence first, there was no consensus second choice. Twenty percent said their second choice was South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, 19 percent said Haley, 18 percent said businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, 15 percent said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 14 percent said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and 9 percent said Trump.
That's just one poll, but it suggests that Pence's support will flow relatively uniformly to all the other top-tier candidates, which would not help, say, Haley strengthen her argument that she is the candidate best positioned to defeat Trump. But of course, even if that poll is wrong and Pence's support flows overwhelmingly to one alternative candidate, that wouldn't significantly alter the trajectory of the race. Remember, Pence was polling at just 4 percent nationwide. At best, that would take Haley from 8 percent to 12 percent — not nothing, but still leagues behind Trump, who sits at 57 percent. No matter how much the anti-Trump vote coalesces, he will probably still win the Republican nomination unless someone else can figure out how to win some of that pro-Trump vote too.
