GOP agonizes on dumping Trump
Angst wracks party as announcement on run in ’24 looms
Before the votes are even fully counted in the 2022 midterm election, Republicans are starting to face a decision: Do they stick with Donald Trump into 2024 or leave him behind?
It has not escaped Republicans that last week represented the third consecutive political cycle in which Democrats ran with considerable success against the polarizing former president. While they rarely spoke his name, Trump formed the background music to their attacks asserting that the Republican Party had grown too extreme.
The tactics helped Democrats cast the election not as a referendum on the current, unpopular president, President Joe Biden, but on an even more unpopular ex-president and his allies. It is a strategy they will try again next month in Georgia, where Sen. Raphael Warnock faces a runoff contest against Herschel Walker, a Republican plucked from pro-football retirement by Trump. Already, some are looking beyond that race, dreaming of a 2024 contest that could feature, once again, Trump at the top of the ticket.
“As an American, the idea of another Trump campaign and all of his lies and divisiveness and his efforts to undermine American democracy is an absolute horror show,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. I-Vt. “On the other hand, I got to say that as a politician who wants to see that no Republican is elected to the White House in 2024, from that perspective, his candidacy is probably a good thing.”
But if Trump remains a major motivator for Democrats, Republicans are starting to have to take sides, with his allies in Congress pressuring other Republicans to endorse his 2024 candidacy and a loyal band of senators looking for ways to undercut Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s leader in that chamber and the object of Trump’s scorn.
The divisions were certain to consume the House as well, as Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California is trying to rally support behind his bid to be speaker of the House. Jason Miller, a strategist assisting Trump with his campaign announcement, warned Friday on Steve Bannon’s internet radio show that McCarthy “must be much more declarative that he supports President Trump” in 2024.
Some Republicans speaking out now previously enabled Trump and his policies, either through public support or silence. While they long privately claimed to disdain Trump’s politics, they were fearful of crossing the party’s base.
Now the party is reaping political consequences. Trump-backed candidates lost key Senate races in Pennsylvania and Arizona, as well as several House races from Alaska to North Carolina. On Saturday, Democrats were one Senate seat away from maintaining control of the chamber and were neck-and-neck in an unsettled race in Nevada. In the House, despite predictions of a Republican wave, neither party had secured a majority.
Since Tuesday’s election, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The New York Post — owned by conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch — called for Trump to be tossed aside. Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia and Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly — both major Trump allies during and after his presidency — said Trump shouldn’t be the party’s nominee in 2024.
GOP moderates used the moment to bemoan the party’s plunge into conspiracy theories and divisive issues that light up the right-wing media. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah called for a return to classic fiscal conservatism. Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire said Friday that Trump risked “mucking up” the party’s chances of winning in Georgia.
Even in the 168-member Republican National Committee that has been among Trump’s most immovable defenders, cracks are beginning to show.
“We can’t just jump and run and, you know, rah-rah Trump and jump over the cliff,” said Kyshia Brassington, an RNC member from North Carolina. “I think that we need to look at every one of the viable candidates who can run and win for 2024.”
Trump’s plans to run for president, which he is expected to announce Tuesday, could force the issue in ways not seen since Trump’s first campaign, as party leaders are asked to declare their allegiances to Trump or other potential rivals.
“We need DeSantis,” Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won reelection in Florida by 19 percentage points and has quickly emerged as a favorite in a still-theoretical Republican presidential primary. “That should be lit up in neon and projected onto the side of the RNC.”
But Americans’ opinions on Trump are not black and white. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 30% of voters consistently held views that could be considered pro-Trump, such as planning to support him if he runs in 2024 and saying that his actions after the 2020 election were justified.
Another 39% percent of voters consistently held a series of views that could be described as anti-Trump. And nearly 30% appeared to hold seemingly conflicting views about him and his actions — either by expressing a mix of sentiments or by declining to respond to one of the questions.