Trump may be looking to announce 2024 candidacy in coming months
For nearly a year, a kitchen cabinet of Donald Trump confidants have told the former president not to announce his 2024 comeback candidacy before the midterms, arguing that he could be a drag on 2022 candidates and would be blamed if Republicans underperformed.
But Trump has continued to regularly push for an early announcement in private meetings, as potential 2024 rivals become more aggressive amid signs of weakening support among his base. Now an increasing number of allies are urging him to follow his instincts as a way to shore up his standing in the party and drive turnout to help the GOP take over the House and Senate next year.
The former president is now eyeing a September announcement, according to two Trump advisers who, like some others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. One confidant put the odds at “70-30 he announces before the midterms.” And others said he may still decide to announce sooner than September.
Trump has begun talking with advisers about who should run a campaign, and his team has instructed others to have an online apparatus ready for a campaign should he announce soon, two people familiar with the matter said. He also has begun meeting with top donors to talk about the 2024 race, one of these people said, while on trips to various places across the country.
“If Trump is going to run, the sooner he gets in and talks about winning the next election, the better,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who recently golfed with Trump in New Jersey. “It will refocus his attention — less grievance, more about the future.”
Graham has embraced an argument once dismissed inside much of the party, contending that Democrats are going to use Trump’s unpopularity among some voter groups to try to drive turnout no matter what he does. If he gets in the race soon, they argue, he will be better positioned to drive turnout on the Republican side in the midterms.
“You might as well get the benefit if you’re going to take the lashes too,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster working for multiple Senate candidates this cycle. “If you want to energize the base and get the base out, no one does it better than Trump.”
Others have argued Trump’s direct insertion into the midterm campaign will only play into Democratic plans to make the election a referendum on the extremism of Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, movement. Republicans believe they are on track for a banner midterm year, a result of massive dissatisfaction with inflation, President Joe Biden’s job performance and the direction of the country.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Public and internal party polls in several key states show Trump rates behind even Biden, who has suffered a historical collapse in public support since taking office. Trump lost a recent hypothetical head-to-head poll against Biden in New Hampshire and trails Biden in favorability in Wisconsin, both sites of marquee Senate contests this fall.
A May presentation for donors to Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign in Georgia, obtained by the Washington Post, showed Biden and Trump with similar favorability ratings in the low 40s, about a half-dozen points below those of Walker and his opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. In early 2021, the Battleground Survey by the National Republican Congressional Committee found that Trump’s unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ratings in core districts.
Trump has also slipped some among GOP voters, though he remains easily the most formidable Republican candidate in a primary, according to public polls.
Trump’s decision to enter the race, some in the party fear, could scramble the dynamics in the final months of the House and Senate campaigns.
“Of all the selfish things he does every minute of every day, it would probably be the most,” said one prominent Republican strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Everything we are doing that is not talking about the economy is going to be a disaster.”