Mulvaney: Ahead of tonight’s GOP debate, a poll reveals many things may not be as they seem

In advance of the fourth Republican debate, The Hill’s sister media outlet, NewsNation, did some thorough polling of Republican primary voters. The poll’s insights shed some fascinating — and in some ways, unexpected — light on tonight’s gathering.   

Simply put, several things may not be as they seem.   

Donald Trump is still leading the Republican field as expected, but by more than some polls have indicated. Although the data is nationwide and our elections are conducted state-by-state, his topline number is still impressive: 60 percent of respondents indicated that they intend to vote for Trump. 

Trump does even better on the issues, with scores above 60 percent on questions regarding which candidate is best suited to deal with the issues most important to GOP primary voters.  Put another way, even folks who don’t like him still like his policies.

The data point that is likely to get a good deal of attention, however, is the 29 percent of Trump supporters who say that he should be disqualified from the ballot if he is convicted of a crime.  

Although noteworthy, that is not necessarily as damning as some — including all of his challengers — may hope or think. After all, even if almost one-third of his support were to evaporate, that would still leave him with 40 percent support. That’s not a majority, but with no unified non-Trump candidate, that plurality would still have him leading the field.    

More importantly, perhaps, the chances are practically zero of Trump getting convicted of anything prior to say, the end of March. With the heavy slate of early primaries — including two “Super Tuesdays” —Trump may lock up enough delegates to win the nomination by April Fool’s Day.   

And there is about as much chance of Trump giving up the nomination after he has already won it as there is of him showing up in Tuscaloosa for today’s debate. 

The polling data would also suggest that any requiem for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may be premature. Many in the media have certainly written him off, and the disarray within his organization seems to be real. But his polling numbers are better than expected. 

Yes, he is no longer alone in second place. He is now tied with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. But he is leading Haley by a commanding margin — more than 20 points — on the critical “favorite second choice” question. It seems that both Trump and anti-Trump voters would turn first to DeSantis if their preferred candidate were to drop out of the race. 

Haley, for her part, has had a solid couple of months. She has seen her poll numbers more or less double, and she is statistically tied with DeSantis for second place. She has lined up some heavyweight financial support, and she has attracted invaluable positive attention from media across the political spectrum.   

But it remains to be seen how much of that translates into durable support at the ballot box. Importantly, she trails not only DeSantis, but also Vivek Ramaswamy (though only slightly) in the “favorite second-choice” category. She has momentum, but the poll hints at limits to her upside potential. 

That perhaps unexpected minor victory in the “favorite second choice” category was the only positive news for Ramaswamy. With the ever-increasing thresholds for debate qualification, especially in regards to polling results, this may be the last we hear of him until the vice presidential and Cabinet sweepstakes ramp up in earnest.  

You should look for him to come out swinging — against the other candidates, against the moderators, against the network, against fill-in-the-blank. Because, why not? That seems to be what gets him the most attention, which more and more appears to be what his campaign is about.  

While former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s numbers are similar to Ramaswamy’s, we at least know why he is in the race: He cannot stand Donald Trump. Whether you agree or disagree, that type of forthrightness is welcome in the current political environment, with most of the other candidates tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how/whether/when to name-check the prohibitive favorite.   

Unfortunately for Christie, however, a staggering number of GOP primary voters stand firmly in the “disagree” column. Indeed, Christie just narrowly qualified for the debate. If anyone has suffered most from Trump’s boycott of the previous debates, it is he, as his efforts to draw contrasts between himself and the front-runner haven’t gained traction fighting an empty podium.  

The other group to suffer has been viewers, as watching Christie and Trump slug it out verbally on stage would have made for some excellent television.  

For everyone on the stage tonight, the bottom line will be this: Can anyone consolidate the anti-Trump vote and peel off enough support from the former president to compete with him? Because without that magic combination, the best any of them can hope for is second place. 

The NewsNation poll shows that that is going to be extraordinarily difficult. Indeed, perhaps the most striking takeaway is that the GOP is now markedly more populist than it is conservative.  A decade ago, the party faithful might well have been falling over themselves at the prospect of either DeSantis or Haley or Christie leading the ticket. But the party has taken a different turn. And no one on the stage tonight will be able to out-populist the absent former president. 

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.