DeSantis, Haley struggle to match Trump's big-name endorsements

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are failing to rack up big-name GOP endorsements in comparison with former President Trump, underscoring the challenges they face within their own ranks as voting is about to begin. 

With House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) endorsing Trump last week, the GOP front-runner officially has the support of all members of House Republican leadership. More than 100 members of the House and almost 20 GOP senators also have thrown their support behind Trump, while only a handful have endorsed any of his opponents. 

On Tuesday, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who is running for Senate in Michigan, became the latest national party figure to endorse Trump, after previously being critical of the former president and saying his “time has passed.” 

Strategists said the endorsement gap is indicative of the power that Trump holds on the party and the unwillingness that many Republicans have to abandon him. 

“It’s the political reality that the Republican base is enamored of Donald Trump, and Trump supporters are far more vocal about their support and far more rigid about the requirement that other Republicans support Trump,” GOP strategist Jason Cabel Roe said. 

The former president entered the 2024 presidential race in November 2022, one of the earliest starts of a presidential campaign in modern history, and was immediately viewed as the favorite. By the time Haley became his first major challenger in February of the following year, Trump had already attained endorsements from 25 House and five Senate Republicans. 

Since then, Trump’s endorsement advantage has only grown. DeSantis and Haley, Trump’s main competitors for the nomination, have received a few congressional and gubernatorial endorsements, but their numbers are dwarfed by Trump’s. 

DeSantis has received endorsements from just five House Republicans but has also scored noteworthy endorsements from Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), the latter of whom represents the state where the first voting in the 2024 GOP nominating process will take place Monday. 

The DeSantis campaign pointed to the many endorsements from state legislators that the Florida governor has received as a better indicator of popular support. Campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin said DeSantis has received endorsements from 42 legislators in Iowa, 66 in New Hampshire and 19 in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, totaling more than 350 nationwide. 

“State legislators are closest to the people and their endorsements reflect where the grassroots support lies,” Griffin said in an email. 

Haley received an endorsement from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) right after she joined the race but has not gained any other congressional support since then. But she was endorsed last month by popular New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) as she has surged in his state's polls to a clear second place and possibly competitive with Trump for first. 

Still, Trump has a considerable lead in the battle over endorsements that he did not experience even as he was rising during the 2016 GOP race. 

Alex Stroman, a South Carolina-based Republican strategist, noted that Trump did not have many big-name endorsements during the 2016 primaries, but Republicans overwhelmingly fell in line to back him after he clearly became the nominee. 

“Trump didn't really have the endorsement of anybody in 2016. And then he became a nominee, and people were falling all over themselves,” he said. 

Despite becoming the front-runner for the nomination early in the 2016 primaries, Trump did not have the influence on the party that he has now, and he did not win a majority of the vote in any of the early-voting states.

This time, Trump has regularly exceeded 50 percent in national polls and built up a significant lead over all his opponents ahead of the first ballots being cast. 

But strategists expressed doubts about endorsements from national figures such as Scalise and Emmer persuading voters, rather than simply reflecting the reality of the race. 

Roe said he sees endorsements as more influential in past races such as 2012, when several different candidates were the front-runner at one point, and 2016, which was a more competitive race.

“I think this is more of an inside-baseball thing, leaders genuflecting to Trump rather than something that will add to his political potency,” he said. 

He said endorsements from local figures such as Reynolds and Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats are likely more influential than those from national figures. Vander Plaats, who also endorsed DeSantis, has backed the eventual winner of the Iowa caucuses each cycle since 2008. 

“There's probably not two people that understand the Iowa caucus system better than the two of them, and clearly they saw something that was going on within their state that made them feel like the political risk of embracing DeSantis over Trump was a risk worth taking,” Roe said. 

Stroman said these types of endorsements can give the candidates effective surrogates to promote their campaigns and get voters to “take another listen” to them.

“The DeSantis-Reynolds endorsement, the Sununu-Haley endorsement matter light years more than any federal endorsees that Donald Trump has received,” he said. 

New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Mike Dennehy said the impact of endorsements depend on who it is and how a campaign uses them. He said Haley is “absolutely” using Sununu’s endorsement to the best of her ability, but time will tell if it will have an effect. 

But Republicans said the endorsements made by elected GOP officials may be more about their own future in the party than their support for Trump.

Trump and Emmer have a complex relationship, with the former president sinking Emmer’s chances of becoming House Speaker in October following Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) ouster.

But Emmer still endorsed Trump, becoming the last member of House GOP leadership to do so, following Scalise the day prior.

The New York Times reported that a person who spoke to Trump said the former president’s reaction to Emmer’s endorsement was: “They always bend the knee.” 

Dennehy said Republican leadership is starting to assess where the race stands and what will most likely be the outcome of the primaries, which is a Trump victory. 

“So in many ways, it's a no-brainer for Republican officials who want to expand their leadership in the future, or have ambitions for the future, to endorse Donald Trump,” Dennehy said. 

While many Republican members of Congress have declared whom they support for president, many have also stayed out. 

Dennehy said these members may have decided that they do not like Trump or do not care what impact he might have on their political future, especially if they are toward the end of their career.

“The large majority of Republicans are very strongly supportive of Donald Trump, and so Republican leaders who have not been as supportive of the president in the past or who have attacked the president in the past have faced severe consequences,” he said.