Alternate headline: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like 2015.

The first RNC presidential primary debate takes place a week from tonight, which will serve to officially start the active campaign. Despite the RNC’s best efforts to limit the number of candidates on stage, eight already qualify under their terms — although one of those, Donald Trump, likely won’t show up.

That might make it awkward for Ron DeSantis, who would end up being the on-stage target for all of those vying to take the Not Trump slot in the primary. But according to a recent study by Republican consultant Rob Pyers, that’s nothing new. DeSantis has been targeted for more attack ads in the primary than Joe Biden and Donald Trump — combined:

A quarter of all independent expenditures in the 2024 election cycle, $20.2 million, has targeted Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), more than has been spent in either positive or negative independent expenditures for former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden combined.

Trump, the Republican front-runner, was hit with just $8.1 million of negative independent expenditures directed toward him, according to data compiled by Republican consultant Rob Pyers. Biden, the incumbent president and front-runner for the 2024 Democratic nomination, was attacked with $9.2 million of independent expenditures.

The attacks on Joe Biden will come later. Right now, GOP primary candidates are rightly focused on the nomination fight, and Biden’s not running as a Republican. That still leaves the question why so much money targets the current runner-up rather than the polling leader. Three other GOP strategists offer the obvious answers:

“The top folks in polling always attract the most negative advertising. However, few Republican candidates are willing to go negative on Trump — so DeSantis ends up taking the most fire,” Republican pollster Doug Usher said.

Republican strategist Doug Heye came to a similar conclusion. “Most Republican campaigns, or those with funds, have determined that DeSantis is their biggest obstacle, thus the spending against him,” he explained. As for why they have opted against negatively targeting Trump, he said, “If candidates aren’t going to go out of their way to criticize Trump every time he’s indicted, you sure aren’t going to see funds spent attacking him.”

According to fellow GOP strategist Susan Del Percio, “They’re afraid to go after Trump.” So the next logical target becomes DeSantis, who is in second place in the Republican primary polls. “If you’re not going to go after Donald Trump, you go after Ron DeSantis because they’re all trying to be No. 2,” she said.

Gee, doesn’t this sound … familiar? It should; it was the same strategy used by a crowded field eight years ago after Trump came down the escalator. Rather than go directly at Trump (with a few limited exceptions), the other 837 candidates instead attacked each other while sucking up to Trump in hopes of capturing his base when Trump inevitably imploded. Only Trump wasn’t the one who imploded — the other candidates essentially knee-capped each other while Trump managed to leverage his plurality into a stampede in the primaries and caucuses.

Eight years ago, that strategy might have made sense. Trump was a novelty and had only limited baggage, all of it personal in nature. (The worst of it emerged in the general election, readers will recall.) Not only has the novelty worn off, Trump has a track record to criticize and contrast, both in office and in actions outside of it.

Instead of addressing that, the GOP field — or at least their “independent” surrogates — seem determined once again to fight over who loses best to Trump. And so far, it’s not even working as intended. DeSantis has taken a bit of a dip in the polls, but no one’s challenging him yet for the top Not Trump slot, as the RCP aggregate average shows this week:

DeSantis seems to be holding up well under the attack-ad blitz. Going negative hasn’t done much to lift up the other candidates either, at least not so far.

This does, however, give us a preview of what to expect a week from tonight, especially if Trump snubs the debate as expected. With the possible exception of DeSantis and Chris Christie, who insists he’s running to take down Trump, the rest of the stage will likely follow the money right back into 2015 and spend most of their time targeting DeSantis and snuggling up to Trump supporters. DeSantis himself has treaded carefully when it comes to criticizing Trump too, at least up to now, although he’s starting to get a bit more bold in contradicting him:

“Do you think that if Trump were to win, that he wouldn’t fire Wray or wouldn’t try to reform the FBI? It seems like he has a personal interesting in doing that…”@RonDeSantis: “He had three years to fire Christopher Wray and he didn't fire him. And remember I went to the… pic.twitter.com/seF2XPRekb

— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) August 16, 2023

DeSantis: "I disagree with Donald Trump's attacks on Governor Chris Sununu. I think New Hampshire is the best governed state in New England. I think Chris has done a great job up there and you can see with the fact that people flee to New Hampshire, just like people flee to… pic.twitter.com/COdEUaufEf

— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) August 15, 2023

A little bit of throat clearing, perhaps? DeSantis could be prepping a course change and opting for a direct, head-on campaign against Trump. That could be a key to the debate next week and something worth watching. DeSantis has been just as guilty of pussyfooting around Trump as he accused Gavin Newsom of pussyfooting around Joe Biden — and that strategy hasn’t worked out well for him either.

As for the others, well, follow the money. As Del Percio says, they’ve all been afraid to go after Trump the last several months (Christie excepted). They and their surrogates have put a lot of resources into Trump avoidance. They’re not going to abandon their million-dollar investments in that strategy at the first campaign event.

Of course, this is just the first debate. A couple of these candidates may not make it past this event, but those who do will look at the results to tune their strategies over the following few days and weeks. At some point, they have to decide whether it’s 2015 or 2023, and whether they want to run for the nomination or for the Best Loser.