This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
The stage of U.S. presidential candidates gets more crowded every day. Our Dakota Political Junkies discuss who has their hat in the ring and what each addition means for frontrunners.
Plus, they take a closer look at the debt ceiling deal. What are the political consequences of the compromise? Who were the winners of the standoff?
David Wiltse, Ph.D., and Lisa Hager, Ph.D., are both associate professors of political science at South Dakota State University.
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Lori Walsh:
You're listening to In The Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I'm Lori Walsh.
The showdown over the debt ceiling is over, or at least paused, thanks to a compromise that left both political parties satisfied, dissatisfied.
But let's talk about the political implications of that deal.
Our Dakota Political Junkies have their take, plus the field of 2024 presidential candidates is already ballooning. We'll talk about who is running and why.
David Wiltse and Lisa Hager are both associate professors of political science at South Dakota State University, and they're joining me from SDPB's Jeanine Basinger studio at SDSU.
Professor Wiltse, welcome. Thanks for being here.
David Wiltse:
Good to be here.
Lori Walsh:
Professor Hager, welcome as well.
Lisa Hager:
Thanks. Good afternoon.
Lori Walsh:
Let's start with the debt ceiling and the deal winners, losers. How do you look at a bipartisan deal like this? Is that the right question to look for winners and losers?
Lisa, let's start with you.
Lisa Hager:
I think it's fine to look at it from that perspective of winners and losers. I have a feeling that maybe some members of both parties are walking away dissatisfied. Even your introduction to this topic kind of hinted at that. So I think it's fair to still use those terms, but I think some people probably have some pretty lukewarm feelings towards it. I think in terms of winners, you can maybe look at many of the programs or groups of people who were off the table. So we didn't have any cuts or whatnot to Social Security or Medicare, and veterans were still protected, in terms of folks who were looking for more cuts in various areas, we didn't see that. This deal is a lot of kicking the can down the road.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, we didn't see that yet. Dave Wiltse, what does the ripple effects of this compromise? We could spend two hours on that, but top-of-mind ripple effects.
David Wiltse:
Well, I think on the same vein as what you talked about just before with winners and losers and downstream effects of this, two big winners here. One's kind of inside baseball, one's kind of outside baseball.
Kevin McCarthy came out a winner in this, not so much with the general public, but just within his party. He managed to get this deal through and keep his position as speaker and not have someone put up a really confidence vote or whatever the technical term is for a challenge from within the caucus. And that was one of the terms of his deal that coming into office, that it would be much easier to make that kind of challenge. So the fact that it hasn't happened yet, good for him.
When it comes to the larger picture, Joe Biden is the clear winner here. Typically, the American people, they don't really parse out who's in control of either chamber of Congress. They don't think about these inside games that are being played. They look at the overall results, and they place the credit or the blame to the president and the president's party. So in the big picture politically, I think the president was the clear winner here. A shutdown would have hurt him far more than it would've hurt Speaker McCarthy or any of the congressional leadership of either party.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Lisa, I think the term Dave is looking for there is motion to vacate. At least that's what I looked up this morning, because I don't have that top of mind because it feels very Great Britain to me. Help me, help you.
David Wiltse:
Yeah, Lisa, she's the Congress person.
Lori Walsh:
Exactly. Help us understand.
Lisa Hager:
And even then, those are things we just don't see very frequently. That's when we're seeing those conversations is when there's dissension in the party over who should be the speaker in the first place. That was unprecedented in and of itself what we were seeing back in January.
David Wiltse:
Sixteen rounds or whatever it was.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, so many.
Lisa Hager:
Right. Nothing we're used to here in the U.S.
Lori Walsh:
So the deal is, and this was maybe the first big test of that, which is it is very easy to get Speaker McCarthy out of there. They didn't do that. And I'm just wondering about lingering tensions for the next vote. We're already seeing Freedom Caucus members not vote for something just to prove, to show that they have a strong voice still.
What happens next, Lisa?
Lisa Hager:
I think what we're going to see is how a lot of these conversations are going to start bleeding into what our next topic is, which is the presidential election in terms of are we going to continue with four more years of President Biden and what that would mean for these budget conversations, or are we going to possibly give someone else who's running from the Democratic Party a chance, or are we going to go in the more Republican direction? And I think we're going to see a lot of commentary from members of the party in Congress kind of talking about what that means.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. So Joe Biden said before he was elected, he wanted to make Washington work again. A big juicy bipartisan deal might be fitting his definition of making Washington work, but I don't know that that's a great campaign slogan compared to some of the other ones that we've seen.
So let's talk about the Republican field, and there are some new entries to it. Dr. Wiltse, who's on deck so far? We don't have time for all that. Who's recent and noteworthy?
David Wiltse:
Yeah, just within the last few days we had Governor Christie, Mike Pence and Governor Burgum up in North Dakota declare, and now I think we're up to around 10, 11 declared candidates last time I looked. So it is shaping up to be a pretty wide field, very similar to what we saw in 2016 at about this time. So we are in store for another one of these potentially drawn-out nomination contest.
And once again, it will be Donald Trump who's kind of sitting above the rest of the field. And each of these folks will try to take him down in whatever way they can. And in many respects, I think we're going to see largely a repeat of what happened in 2016, unless something really big or catastrophic happens to the Trump campaign associated with one of these lingering indictments or something like that, which might possibly could remove him from the field. But I don't think this is the sort of contest Republicans really want to have at this moment. So it'll be interesting to see how they coalesce around one or perhaps two of this big field right now if they're trying to put up a decent opposition to President Trump.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, Dr. Hager, John Thune and Mike Rounds already coalesced around Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina. Does Pence, Christie, the North Dakota governor, does that matter to them, or they've put their chips on the table already?
Lisa Hager:
Right, yeah. I thought that was pretty interesting given the fact that we don't know what the entire field looks like. I take some of those endorsements as basically, "we're not interested in a nominee being Trump or DeSantis" more than anything else. And so that's who they've chosen to throw their weight behind at this point. So that I think will be another interesting thing as we see more endorsements come out, and even just as we see how various things play out as these candidates are appearing in different places and are able to get a sense of whether voters are interested in supporting them or not.
My gut reaction is that it's probably going to come down to Trump or DeSantis, but having some support from various senators can be helpful in propelling some of these other candidates along a little bit further than maybe they would get on their own.
David Wiltse:
Yeah, and this is what we call the invisible primary in political science, where the party elite has always had an interest in putting forward as credible of a candidate as possible, one who has a degree of popularity both with the mass electorate and popularity within the office holders and other elite of a party.
And this is something that in most elections up until 2016, both parties have worked very hard to vet the field and actively find someone who can keep all the various corners and factions of the party happy. So I see this as a very public and very important move by both of our senators in trying to have a hand in shaping the nomination and directing it towards somebody who is pretty well-equipped to speak to the different factions within the Republican party.
Tim Scott in many ways is this person. He has credibility with the Trump crowd, he has credibility with evangelicals, he has credibility with the more institutionally-oriented Republicans. And that's that's a signal that our senators are sending and other senators and governors and representatives will be making these decisions, as well.
Lori Walsh:
Dave Wiltse and Lisa Hager, today's Dakota Political Junkies, they are associate professors of political science at South Dakota State University in Brookings. Dave, thanks so much. We'll see you next time.
David Wiltse:
Thank you.
Lori Walsh:
Lisa, thank you as well.
Lisa Hager:
Thank you.
