Former President Donald Trump dominates the GOP primary field in early polling, but his rivals are ready to exploit a potential weakness: He can only serve one term if he wins in 2024.
A group of former Trump officials recently formed “The Eight-Year Alliance” in support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the GOP’s to-do list “simply can’t be done by a president who becomes a lame duck on his first day in office.”
Mr. DeSantis gave a not-so-subtle nod to Mr. Trump’s term limit in saying the next president could play a role in nominating successors to Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. over two terms.
“It is possible that in those eight years, we would have the opportunity to fortify Justices Alito and Thomas, as well as actually make improvements with those others and if you were able to do that then you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century, so this is big stuff,” Mr. DeSantis, who launched his 2024 presidential bid last Wednesday, told the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando this month.
A source familiar with the Nikki Haley campaign for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination said the former South Carolina governor thinks Mr. Trump‘s one-term limit is “an important fact for voters to consider.”
Mrs. Haley, 51, has called for a new generation of leadership in the White House as she takes on Mr. Trump, 76, and eyes a general election matchup with President Biden, who is 80.
The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution says that “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”
Mr. Trump won the 2016 election and occupied the White House from January 2017 to January 2021. His loss in 2020 is forcing him to regroup and try to convince voters he needs one more term, after a four-year hiatus, to build on his first-term accomplishments.
“Since no one was around for Grover Cleveland, there’s no historical situation to compare it to,” said Colin Reed, a GOP strategist who served as a spokesman for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Cleveland was the only president to have nonconsecutive terms, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.
Mr. Reed said the debate over Mr. Trump’s one-term ceiling will likely get wrapped into the broader debate about whether it is time to turn to a new generation of leaders.
“It comes up more on the issue of the age disparity between Trump and the rest of the field,” Mr. Reed said.
“The issue of age is off the table for the front-runners. But it’s very much up for grabs, in terms of those who are vying to topple the current front-runners.”
Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, said the issue of Mr. Trump’s term limit has been circulating at the level of consultants and campaign staff but it is “not a fully fleshed-out attack line for most of the hopefuls.”
“I doubt that this theme will be received well by hardcore MAGA voters. They would choose Trump for a single term over the other candidates for eight years,” he said.
That hasn’t stopped some in the GOP from raising the issue in the early phases of the primary cycle.
“We will nominate someone who is decent and serious and thoughtful and ready to crush it for eight years,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has decided not to run in 2024, told the “Good Morning New Hampshire” radio program in January.
The Eight-Year Alliance backing Mr. DeSantis includes former Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio, former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Will Bushman, former Counselor to the Secretary and White House Liaison at the Department of Labor Pedro Allende, former Senior Counsel and Senior Adviser to the Secretary of Commerce James Uthmeier and Principal Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Commerce David Dewhirst, according to a list provided to Fox News.
“Governor DeSantis can give us eight years in the White House. The republic faces grave threats, and it will require two terms of energetic, conservative executive leadership to begin righting the ship,” the alliance says on its website.
The Trump campaign responded to questions about the one-term limit by taking aim at Mr. DeSantis and highlighting a major accomplishment during his first term.
“President Trump is the only person who can drain the swamp and not be beholden to special interest groups. Ron DeSantis is a swamp creature who would do everything in his power to enrich his cronies and swampy D.C. insider friends,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung. “There’s only one person who nominated three Supreme Court justices that rolled back Roe v. Wade — and that person is President Trump.”
Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, said an explicit argument about Mr. Trump’s term limit could be a weak line of attack for his GOP opponents.
“The premise of the question is that Trump is on track to win,” he said. “Typically, campaign rivals are loath to concede that their rival is a near lock to win.”
Voters also tend to make their decisions based on what is in front of them, and not a potential development that is several years away.
“It’s a process argument and voters don’t gravitate toward process arguments. They gravitate toward substance. It’s really hard to get an average everyday voter to wrap their mind around because of the litany of things that are right in front of them that day,” Mr. Reed said. “Predicting things out for eight years, you just do so at your own peril.”
Mr. Trump’s presidential expiration date of 2028 could, however, sharpen the focus on who he picks as a running mate if his campaign is successful. The vice presidential pick would be considered the GOP figure on deck for a run in 2028.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said if the issue is a major factor, the logical solution would be for Mr. Trump to team with Mr. DeSantis or another primary rival.
The GOP could label the effort as “legacy leadership,” he said, adding that the move would be similar to what Ronald Reagan did with George H.W. Bush despite their differences in policy and approach.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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