GOP hopes Trump will avoid stoking civil war
Former US president Donald Trump is set to reassert himself as the leader of his party this weekend, but Republicans are pushing him to opt for a message of unity over further dividing an already fractured GOP.
GOP officials and strategists across the country will be closely watching Trump’s first major address since leaving office, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida tomorrow, looking for signs of whether he is more interested in seeking vengeance against Republicans who have crossed him or helping the party coalesce against their common opponents: President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress.
They say where Trump – who still holds firm control over the GOP base after his defeat – chooses to place the lion’s share of his focus over the next two years will be a critical factor in determining if the party will win majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, or remain shut out of power in Washington.
‘‘The more he’s able to get his voters out to support Republicans, the better we do. The more he pushes a grudge against other Republicans, that’s more challenging for the party,’’ said Neil Newhouse, a leading GOP poll taker.
Former presidents usually don’t remain as involved in party politics as Trump appears poised to be. He has set up a political action committee, pledged to endorse candidates he aligns with in primary elections, and left the door open to running for president again in 2024.
Also, the long-term political ramifications of Trump being impeached but acquitted over his role in the deadly January 6 Capitol riot are largely unknown.
While the last four years revealed the limits of Trump’s appeal – suburban, college-educated and female voters fled the GOP in droves – they also showed that no other figure is as effective in motivating the party’s base of white, working-class, rural and evangelical voters.
‘‘Trump will continue to cast a long shadow over the party, and Republican candidates are going to have to be able to adapt to be viable,’’ said Ken Spain, a former National Republican Congressional Committee aide. ‘‘It could lead to historic gains, but it could also lead to historic division.’’
The divide over Trump among Republican leaders has been on full display in the lead-up to CPAC.
Asked at a news conference this week whether Trump should speak at the conference, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said he should. But Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last month, bluntly disagreed, saying: ‘‘I don’’t believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.’’
Meanwhile, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and Trump have publicly traded barbs since the impeachment trial, and have pledged to wade into upcoming Republican primary battles, which could put them further at odds as the election cycle progresses. But McConnell, who did not receive an invitation to speak at CPAC this year, said he would still support Trump if he was the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.
Many Trump fans are eager to see him take on the Republicans they feel have wronged him. That constituency will be particularly prevalent at CPAC, which attracts the most ardent conservative activists.
‘‘Will it hurt the party? It may cause some bad feelings, but if you did your job up until now, we
wouldn’t even need to have this conversation,’’ Edward Muldrow, the chairman of the Gwinnett County Republican Party in Georgia, said of attacking Trump sceptics in the party. ‘‘We have to figure out, are they with us or are they against us?’’
But Republicans who are hesitant of further pursuing internal battles argue that the party doesn’t have to look that far back to see how it can backfire.
In the first elections since his own defeat – the twin January Senate runoffs in Georgia – Trump was often more occupied with attacking Republicans he felt didn’t support him strongly enough, and spreading unfounded claims of voter fraud, than promoting the GOP candidates or targeting their Democratic opponents.
Republicans ended up losing control of both seats in once-red Georgia, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats. Some members of the GOP hope Trump and his allies will learn a lesson from that experience, but they’re not holding their breath.
‘‘The more he pushes a grudge against other Republicans, that’s more challenging for the party.’’ Neil Newhouse, Republican poll taker