ANALYSIS | How strong is Trump? He is winning over his Republican rivals in their home states

(CNN) — Do you know who is third in the polls for the Republican race for president in 2024? It may seem like an odd question given that the two leading candidates, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are the only ones that average more than 5% nationally.

The answer, however, is former Vice President Mike Pence and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, both tied at just 4%.

More worrisome for Haley, who will speak on a CNN forum this Sunday night, and for other candidates not in the top two, is the apparent nationalization of the GOP primary process this year. We see this reflected in state polls, including early voting and those from declared candidates’ home states: all largely show a significant lead for Trump.

Presidential primaries, unlike general elections, are not held on the same day. They are sequential, with the states that vote first taking on inordinate importance. This is why Republican candidates flock to Iowa (for their caucuses) and New Hampshire (for the country’s first primaries).

In recent years, the leaders in the national polls at this point in the primary season who would later lose their party nominations did so in part because they lost the caucuses of Iowa. That happened to the two candidates with the biggest national lead: Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Clinton, in 2008.

Both were clearly struggling in Iowa at this point in the cycle. In fact, neither of them led the Des Moines Register polls May 2007.

The contest towards 2024 is nationalized

This year, we don’t see as much of a disconnect between the national polls and those of the first states, at least not yet. The top two candidates in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls are Trump and DeSantis. A University of New Hampshire survey conducted in mid-April, for example, gave Trump 42% and DeSantis 22%. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is expected to announce his 2024 plans this week, was in third place with 12%.

Let’s focus on the Sununu data. A few years agoI pointed out that one of the best ways to predict whether a candidate trailing in the national and top-state polls might surprise people is by examining how he was doing in his home states.

At this point in the 2016 cycle, Senator Bernie Sanders was already leading Vermont’s Democratic primary, despite Hillary Clinton’s sizable national lead. On the other hand, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s lack of poll strength in his home state made me rule him out as a candidate.

Polls in your home state are a crucial early indicator of a candidate’s strength. There the voters know the candidates better. If you can’t stand out where voters already know you, how are you going to do it in states where voters are just getting to know you?

Sununu need not worry about name recognition in the Granite state. The same is true of Haley in South Carolina, where she was governor. South Carolina is also the third state on the Republican Party’s 2024 candidacy schedule, after Iowa and New Hampshire.

The most recent poll from South Carolina that meets CNN’s standards for publication puts Trump well ahead. The Winthrop University survey, conducted in early April, gave Trump 41%, DeSantis 20% and Haley 18%. His compatriot from South Carolina, Sen. Tim Scott, stood at 7%. More recent data suggests that Haley is down a bit and Scott is up in recent weeks, though Trump is still well ahead.

Trump may very well maintain his lead and knock Haley out of the race with a victory in the South Carolina primary. Let’s remember that he already did something similar in 2016, when he ended the presidential candidacy of Senator Marco Rubio by defeating him in Florida.

Weaknesses in his armor?

Of course, you can spot where Trump is vulnerable, if you look closely.

For example, in Florida, DeSantis and Trump traded poll leads this year.

And it can be argued that these early state polls suggest overall that Trump is a bit weaker than the national numbers might indicate. On average, his polls are between 40 and 50 points in the first states, compared to 50 points nationwide. In other words, the majority of voters in the early states are choosing someone other than Trump, which is not the case nationally.

Can you imagine how devastating it would be for Trump to lose New Hampshire or South Carolina, or both? He would punch a big hole in the idea that his appointment is inevitable.

At the moment, however, that scenario seems like a fantasy. Trump may be showing some weakness in early voting states, but not to the same degree as the national leaders he lost in years past.

Trump can be defeated. It’s just going to be very difficult.