Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of former President Donald Trump's most outspoken Republican critics in the Senate, is sounding off a warning, reported the Huffington Post on Tuesday: Trump could win the nomination again for 2024 — the exact same way he did in 2016.
"A large field of presidential contenders in 2024 could lead to a redo of the 2016 presidential race and help make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee once again, according to Sen. Mitt Romney," reported Igor Bobic. "'The only way that [scenario] could be prevented is if it narrowed down to a two-person race eventually. That means donors and influencers say to their candidate ― if they’re weakening: ‘Hey, time to get out,’' Romney told HuffPost in an interview on Tuesday."
He added, “Last time that was done was in 1968, so it’s been a while" — a reference to the failed campaign of his own father, George Romney.
This comes as former South Carolina governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley today became the first major candidate to jump into the race for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump, on a platform of building a new, younger generation of Republican leadership. Others, like Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have all expressed varying degrees of interest and intention to enter the race as well.
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This scenario would look similar to 2016, in which Trump was able to stand out above a huge field of candidates who fragmented the opposition to him until he had won too many states for anyone to catch up.
"Romney said he viewed Haley as an 'underdog' in the race," wrote Bobic. "Trump, the senator added, is 'by far the most likely' to become the GOP presidential nominee given his popularity and name recognition with a devoted slice of the GOP electorate."
Trump has directed most of his efforts at attacking DeSantis, a former ally whom he views as the biggest threat to securing the nomination. This is echoed in polling, which shows a head-to-head primary race would DeSantis an edge over Trump, but that Trump leads in a split field of candidates.
