# Will Trump face a credible primary challenge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 11, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665 "2017-06-11T02:50:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/21 "2017-06-14T05:14:34Z")
It makes sense for Kasich to try, though. He’s widely respected by the more idealistic religious part of the base, and there may be an opening due to Trump/Pence’s ethical scandals. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/22 "2017-06-29T19:57:29Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > What even is a credible Republican these days? > > I will note that Mr Comey has executive branch experience, and is very tall. Some people like tall. Trump is tall too. He’s not “Comey tall” but he’s still pretty tall. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/23 "2017-06-29T22:16:49Z")
I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t. I’d bet on Ben Sasse. Kasich has no national constituency. ---
**Author:** ![jaxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jaxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaxx)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/24 "2017-07-29T13:17:10Z")
A strong economy and a relatively stable middle east( not necessarily peaceful) and he probably won’t face a serious challenge from the left. I suspect that the elites will come at him from a supposed middle of the road position unless some on fire issue pops up at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/25 "2017-07-29T13:34:03Z")
Kasich is too moderate to win a modern GOP primary, and he’s not especially moderate. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/26 "2017-07-31T13:26:09Z")
This presidency has been pretty unpredictable, and there’s no way to tell what will happen between now and 2019. That said, if things continue to shake out the way they’ve been, I would expect that Trump will have at least one primary challenger in 2020. Key question is how many. If he faces one major opponent I think he could easily lose. (Campaign slogan: “_Make America Semi-Respectable Again_”.) But if too many jump in, then Trump wins easily. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/27 "2017-08-01T00:00:42Z")
The way things are going I could see Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski make a run. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/28 "2017-08-02T16:38:51Z")
Looks to me like Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is [trying to put down a marker](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442) on the non-batshit-insane-Republican-alternative spot. Sure, he’s flogging a book, but [publishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiles_in_Courage)[a](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Audacity_of_Hope)[book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_History) seems to be the standard first step in hinting at presidential ambitions, getting name recognition and disseminating positions to a national audience. Plus he’ll be getting national attention in 2018 as he is up for reelection, and there will most likely be a concurrent special election to fill John McCain’s seat. (If McCain retires or dies in office, the governor appoints his replacement, but the replacement only serves until the next statewide election. At that time there is an election to see who completes the term.) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/29 "2017-08-02T16:54:09Z")
Cruz and Paul will run because that’s what guys with massive egos do. I won’t rule out another run by Mittens. Little Marco will run as well. Honestly, I believe Pence (or Ryan) will be the incumbent and run pretty much unopposed in the primary. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/30 "2017-08-02T18:16:46Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Cruz and Paul will run because that’s what guys with massive egos do. I won’t rule out another run by Mittens. Little Marco will run as well. > > Honestly, I believe Pence (or Ryan) will be the incumbent and run pretty much unopposed in the primary. By that point, it may be down to ben carson. He’ll be the only one not impeached and/or in jail, because his defense of “I don’t remember, I think I was taking a nap during that meeting” will actually be believable. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/31 "2017-08-02T18:25:23Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > Looks to me like Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is [trying to put down a marker](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442) on the non-batshit-insane-Republican-alternative spot. Sure, he’s flogging a book, but [publishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiles_in_Courage)[a](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Audacity_of_Hope)[book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_History) seems to be the standard first step in hinting at presidential ambitions, getting name recognition and disseminating positions to a national audience. I wonder about that, in that Flake is basically calling out a major portion of his own party. I really believe he is putting the book out from personal integrity, not to build a launching pad for higher office. Now, if it does resonate with backers and money people, then I’m sure he wouldn’t turn them down…but I see him as comfortable being a lone voice in the wilderness (his fondness for wilderness survival trips as support of that trope). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/33 "2017-08-05T14:17:50Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > I expect that some people will try, and there are certainly Never-Trump donors with enough money to get such candidates fired up. Trump crushed something like 15 other contenders in 2016, however, and ISTR polls showing that his support among his voters has not wavered since the election. In other words, as of now there’s no reason to believe that GOP voters will abandon Trump in favor of any of the candidates that they rejected before, or more generally in favor of the GOP establishment. This. It’s certainly the narrative Trump will try to push from 2018 onwards. IOW, he, like substantially all first term incumbents, is the natural choice; anything else is simply handing ammo to the Most Hated Enemy - the left. In one sense, Trump’s 2016 primary campaign was taking a lesson from Schwarzenegger’s successful campaign in CA. Enough folks like macho posturing so much that that can substitute for almost any or every other consideration, policy prescription, doctrine, etc. The fact those fans collectively lean R just indicates under which team banner the macho posturer should stand. From now to 2020 Trump will certainly be making the most of the megaphone the presidency hands him. A megaphone ideally suited to macho posturing. Doubly so when any and every contrary tidbit of news can be claimed to be wholly fake or at least exaggerated and the claim will be believed simply because Trump said it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/34 "2017-08-05T18:34:21Z")
Adding [this new NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/us/politics/2020-campaign-president-trump-cotton-sasse-pence.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0). > [@](#): > > Senators Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse have already been to Iowa this year, Gov. John Kasich is eyeing a return visit to New Hampshire, and Mike Pence’s schedule is so full of political events that Republicans joke that he is acting more like a second-term vice president hoping to clear the field than a No. 2 sworn in a little over six months ago. > > President Trump’s first term is ostensibly just warming up, but luminaries in his own party have begun what amounts to a shadow campaign for 2020 — as if the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue weren’t involved. > > The would-be candidates are cultivating some of the party’s most prominent donors, courting conservative interest groups and carefully enhancing their profiles. Mr. Trump has given no indication that he will decline to seek a second term. … > > … In most cases, the shadow candidates and their operatives have signaled that they are preparing only in case Mr. Trump is not available in 2020. Most significant, multiple advisers to Mr. Pence have already intimated to party donors that he would plan to run if Mr. Trump did not. > > Mr. Kasich has been more defiant: The Ohio governor, who ran unsuccessfully in 2016, has declined to rule out a 2020 campaign in multiple television interviews, and has indicated to associates that he may run again, even if Mr. Trump seeks another term. … > > … Mr. Pence has been the pacesetter. Though it is customary for vice presidents to keep a full political calendar, he has gone a step further, creating an independent power base, cementing his status as Mr. Trump’s heir apparent and promoting himself as the main conduit between the Republican donor class and the administration. > > The vice president created his own political fund-raising committee, Great America Committee, shrugging off warnings from some high-profile Republicans that it would create speculation about his intentions. The group, set up with help from Jack Oliver, a former fund-raiser for George W. Bush, has overshadowed Mr. Trump’s own primary outside political group, America First Action, even raising more in disclosed donations. … > > … Beyond Washington, other up-and-coming Republicans are making moves should there be an opening in 2020. Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations and a former governor of South Carolina, put her longtime pollster on the payroll, has gotten better acquainted with some of New York’s financiers and carved out a far more muscular foreign policy niche than Mr. Trump. > > “She sounds more like me than Trump,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Republican from South Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/35 "2017-08-07T14:31:23Z")
There would have to be a reason for people to challenge Trump. I don’t think the threat of impeachment alone will do Trump in; however, if he has cost his party control of congress, or if it looks like it might happen in 2020, that would be an entirely good reason to challenge him. Everything hinges on how popular the Republican brand is in 2019. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/36 "2017-08-07T16:51:11Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Adding [this new NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/us/politics/2020-campaign-president-trump-cotton-sasse-pence.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0). Pence calls it “fake news”. Just trying to placate the Big Boy, of course. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/37 "2017-08-08T15:02:35Z")
It’s still a couple of years away, but I can’t imagine that he’ll run. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/38 "2017-08-08T15:31:21Z")
Surely Pence won’t mount a primary challenge against Trump, but given the small but nonzero probability that Trump won’t be running, it’d be silly not to be prepared. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/39 "2017-08-08T16:02:25Z")
When it comes to Trump you can never say “surely”. Who is to say that Trump doesn’t turn on Pence at some point and begin harassing him in tweets and otherwise, resulting in Pence deciding to challenge for the top slot? You never know. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/40 "2017-08-08T16:49:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Assuming he is still in office will he face a serious challenge within his party? There is literally no way to know at this point or even speculate as anything but a wild ass guess. It would depend on how things fall out in the next 3 and a half years. All of the choices so far listed in this thread with only a few exceptions are just basically the ones who ran against Trump in the last election (or against Obama), but I doubt any of them would be a serious challenge to Trump. Trump will be his own most serious challenger, as he erodes his popularity among the non-faithful, and if he starts to really piss off his base or they become disillusioned (granted, that doesn’t seem to be happening yet) then it could be anyone. The key will be what is the issue that breaks the camel’s toe? Will it be the lack of progress on health care reform? He seems to have been able to deflect this, so far wrt his base onto the Republicans in congress. Will it be a downward spiral of the economy? Hasn’t happened so far, in fact, the DOW continues to have records set (of course, if it IS a bubble it will be ugly when it pops and that could and probably will land in his lap). Will it be some foreign policy decision that is seen as such a monumental fuckup and clearly on him that no one can deflect? Depending on what it is will depend on who might be a serious challenge to him from his own party when he’s the incumbent. Today, right now? You would be better off speculating on who will win this years Superbowl…and probably able to do so more accurately at this point (I assume football season hasn’t started yet anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665/41 "2017-08-08T17:07:05Z")
> [@XT](#): > > The key will be what is the issue that breaks the camel’s toe? Are you sure “camel toe” is the term you intended? 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-trump-face-a-credible-primary-challenge/788665.md?page=3)