Walsh says to challenge Trump in GOP ‘primary’
Road ahead difficult
WASHINGTON, Aug 25, (AP): Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman ad tea party favorite turned radio talk show host, announced a longshot challenge Sunday to President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, saying the incumbent is “completely unfit” for office and must be denied a second term.
“Somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative” among Republicans, Walsh told ABC’s “This Week,” adding that “the country is sick of this guy’s tantrum. He’s a child . ... He lies every time he opens his mouth.”
Already in the race is former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld.
Walsh narrowly won a House seat from suburban Chicago in the 2010 tea party wave but lost a 2012 reelection bid and has since hosted a radio talk show. He has a history of inflammatory statements regarding Muslims and others and declared just before the 2016 election that if Trump lost, “I’m grabbing my musket.”
But he has since soured on Trump, criticizing the president in a recent New York Times column over growth of the federal deficit and calling him “a racial arsonist who encourages bigotry and xenophobia to rouse his base.”
Walsh promises to contest Trump from the right as opposed to Weld, who is regarded as fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Weld was the 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee.
The road ahead for any Republican primary challenger will certainly be difficult.
In recent months, Trump’s allies have taken over state parties that control primary elections in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere. State party leaders sometimes pay lip service to the notion that they would welcome a primary challenger, as their state party rules usually require, but they are already working to ensure Trump’s reelection.
South Carolina Republicans have gone so far as to discuss canceling their state’s GOP primary altogether if a legitimate primary challenge emerges to eliminate the threat.
At the same time, polling consistently shows that Trump has the solid backing of an overwhelming majority of Republican voters. An Associated PressNORC poll conducted this month found that 78% of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. That number has been hovering around 80% even as repeated scandals have rocked his presidency.
“Look, this isn’t easy to do . ... I’m opening up my life to tweets and attacks. Everything I’ve said and tweeted now, Trump’s going to go after, and his bullies are going to go after,” Walsh told ABC.