Trump prepares to launch third White House campaign
PALM BEACH, Florida: Former United States president Donald Trump is preparing to launch his third campaign for the White House on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), looking to move on from disappointing midterm defeats and defy history amid signs that his grip on the Republican Party is waning.
Trump had hoped to use the party’s expected gains in last week’s congressional and gubernatorial elections as a springboard to vault himself to his party’s nomination by locking in early support to keep potential challengers at bay. Instead, he now finds himself being blamed for backing a series of losing candidates after disappointing results in which Democrats retained control of the Senate and House control remains too early to call.
“Hopefully, tomorrow will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of our Country!” Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday. An announcement was expected at 9 p.m. EST on Tuesday (10 a.m. in Manila on Wednesday) from his club in Palm Beach.
Another campaign is a remarkable turn for any former president, much less one who made history as the first to be impeached twice and whose term ended with his supporters violently storming the US Capitol in a deadly bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Just one president in American history has been elected to two nonconsecutive terms: Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892.
Trump is also facing a series of intensifying criminal investigations, including a Justice Department probe into the hundreds of documents with classified markings that were discovered in boxes and draw
ers at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Aides and allies had urged Trump to wait until after the midterms were over — and then until after a December 6 Senate runoff election in Georgia — to announce his plans. But Trump, eager to return to the spotlight, is also hoping to stave off a long list
of potential challengers. This includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who cruised to reelection last week and is now being urged by many in his party to run for president, too.
Trump has tried to blame Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell for the GOP’s performance — and the longtime lawmaker’s allies have criticized Rick Scott, the Florida senator who heads the Senate Republicans’ campaign committee.
However, Trump has received the brunt of criticism for elevating candidates in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona who were unappealing to general election voters because they embraced his lies about the 2020 election or held hardline views on issues like abortion that were out of step with the mainstream.
While Trump has the backing of the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik, others were already moving on.
Asked whether she would endorse Trump in 2024, Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming told reporters on Monday: “I don’t think that’s the right question. I think the question is: who is the current leader of the Republican Party?”
Asked who that was, she replied: “Ron DeSantis.”
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump critic, compared Trump to a pitcher who keeps losing after GOP disappointments in 2018, 2020, and now 2022.
“He’s been on the mound and lost three straight games. If we want to start winning, we need someone else on the mound. And we’ve got a very strong bench that can come out,” Romney said.
Even the former president’s right-flank allies in the House Freedom Caucus kept their distance ahead of Trump’s announcement.
“I am focused on what’s happening here,” said Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the Freedom Caucus chairman, as lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill on Monday. “I’m just not paying attention to any of those things, so I don’t want to comment on that.”