If Paul can’t add a sizeable chunk of establishment or evangelical voters to his libertarian-leaning coalition in Iowa, there will be little reason to believe he’ll be able to do so in other states where he won’t have the luxury of a robust foundation on top of which he can build. Worse still, if he falls short of Ron Paul’s mark, it will mean that not only was he unable to add to the coalition his father assembled, but that he wasn’t even able to preserve it. By trying to be all things to all GOP voters, he’ll have effectively become nothing to everyone.
Already there are signs that could happen in Iowa.
Paul’s efforts to attract social conservatives and foreign policy establishment types have only just begun, and already there are grumblings among Ron Paul’s true believers that the younger Paul is selling out. An internal poll conducted in February of the elder Paul’s delegates to the 2012 Iowa GOP convention found that fewer than 70 percent of those delegates are leaning Rand Paul’s way in 2016. “He’s moderating on most of [his father’s positions], not taking a real clear stance on a number of them,” Drew Ivers, the chairman of Ron Paul’s 2012 Iowa campaign and one of a number of recent high-profile defections from Rand’s camp, complained to Politico last month. “The strategy of sending a blended message is one that has risk.”
It’s not all bad news for the Paul camp, however. In Iowa, he might not have to venture as far from his base as he may need to in other contests to be competitive. If everyone who is expected to seek the nomination does, the crowded field in Iowa could work to Paul’s advantage. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio will have to fight it out for the support of the establishment Republicans who backed Romney in 2012, while Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Santorum will need to compete for the evangelical votes that delivered the caucus to Santorum in 2012 and Huckabee in 2008. If everything were to break right for Paul, he wouldn’t need to win a larger slice of the vote than his father to win the caucus. And if he pulls off a victory—something his father never managed to do on any primary or caucus night—it will be easy enough to overlook the raw numbers that delivered it.
Still, even there Paul faces a potential no-win situation in the long term. A libertarian-heavy campaign in Iowa might be enough to deliver him a caucus victory, but it won’t be enough to ultimately win the nomination—and by the time Iowans show up to caucus, there won’t be much time left for Paul or any other candidate to rebrand for the contests that will follow. The distance between now and the caucuses is further than between the caucuses and the GOP nomination. Rand Paul, then, faces a choice: He can focus on winning the battle in Iowa and know he’ll likely lose the nominating war. Or he can give up his best shot at an early nominating contest victory in hopes of future ones. We know Rand Paul’s determined to do better than his father. The question will come down to just how much better he wants to do.
