Politico: “Mike Pompeo and Rick Scott are headed to Iowa this week and next, followed by Tim Scott in mid-April. Mike Pence plans to visit the early primary state of South Carolina, while Ron DeSantis appears to be conducting a soft launch in his home state of Florida. Jeff Kaufmann, chair of the Iowa Republican Party, said he’s never seen so much interest so early in a presidential election cycle. ‘Iowa’s going to be hopping,’ Kaufmann said. But what’s truly unique about the Republicans’ pre-presidential primary is the contingent framework that is unfolding around it.”
“It’s a primary – but a wholly conditional one. Prospective 2024 candidates, donors and conservative media outlets – the entire Republican ecosystem – are building strategies and structuring the race around the single question of whether former President Donald Trump runs again. It’s been nearly a half-century since either party had to navigate a primary in which a losing president loomed as a potential contestant. ‘He’s got them in a box,’ said Matt Moore, former chair of the South Carolina Republican Party. Or as one prominent Republican operative in New Hampshire put it, ‘I would almost call it a shadow campaign… It’s kind of operating in this silo as if he doesn’t run again.'”