The coming year will be crucial in USA by holding midterm elections, something Republicans face in a way that until recently conceivable: winning without Donald Trump.
Five years after completely submitting to the will of the flammable leader and a year before the midterm elections, the Republican Party imagines life after Trump.
“At this stage, I would be the frontrunner if I chose to run in the 2024 presidential race,” said Matt Lacombe, assistant professor of political science at Barnard College in New York.
“But it is also very possible that the coordination between potential candidates and party officials … is sufficient to prevent him from pursuing or succeeding” a new nomination, he clarified.
After Trump secured the nomination as a Republican presidential candidate in May 2016, the party abandoned its political platform at its next two conventions, choosing to simply declare allegiance to its new chieftain.
The consensus remains that all roads to Congress pass through the Mar-a-Lago Golf Club, Trump’s property and retirement home in Palm Beach, Florida.
And that to succeed in Washington you had to kiss the ring in Palm Beach, flattering Trump and his loyal base of tens of millions of fervent devotees.
Republicans who do not follow that line know that, at best, they risk being vilified in public and being the target of threats against their families by exalted Trump supporters.
“Despite losing his megaphone on social media, his support still energizes grassroots supporters, drives donations and, in some cases, eliminates competitors and forces withdrawals,” Tommy Goodwin, a political consultant and lobbyist based in Washington.
However, some prominent Republicans took advantage of the recent gubernatorial elections in some states to call for a course correction, although without moving away from Trump and his “big lie” that the Democrats stole the 2020 elections with Joe’s victory. Biden.
Avoid her figure
Republican billionaire Glenn Youngkin, who won the Virginia gubernatorial election, surpassing Trump’s electoral harvest in the suburbs of that state in the 2020 race, especially among independents and women.
Trump immediately took credit for himself, but in reality Youngkin played down the mogul’s influence and in the weeks leading up to the election did his best to keep him at bay.
In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli started out strongly in favor of Trump, even speaking at a “Stop the Steal” rally in 2020, but distanced himself from the former president during the gubernatorial campaign, which he nonetheless lost. narrowly to Democrat Phil Murphy, who was reelected.
Democrats found it difficult to sustain the gains they made in the suburbs of those states, which helped them regain the House of Representatives in 2018 and the White House in 2020.
The suburbs are likely to be a key battlefield again in the 2022 elections, in which control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and 36 governorates is at stake. Yet Trump is far less popular there than he is on the field.
The bottom line for many Republicans is that the key is to borrow a lot from Trump’s strategy, but openly avoiding his figure.
The former president’s approval sank to an all-time low of 34% after the Jan. 6 riot, when thousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent lawmakers from certifying Biden’s victory in the election.
Since then, Trump has issued a series of statements praising the insurgents and defending the threats against the life of his vice president Mike Pence, who presided over that session of Congress.
The head of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, urged the 75-year-old former president to stay out of the midterm elections and told reporters: “I think we have to talk about the future and not about the past.”
However, Rick Scott, chairman of the Republican Senate campaign committee for 2022, told NBC that any Republican would be “foolish” to reject Trump’s endorsement, highlighting the dilemma they face.
“Donald Trump is where he wants to be: in the limelight, like a crying child in a crowded candy aisle, demanding more soda, while throwing bags of chocolates at other children,” says Peter Loge, associate professor at George Washington University.
“The past never dies”
Trump’s rostrum is not what it was before his social media ban, which effectively curbed his daily influence.
Furthermore, his electoral recipe proved not to be as effective as he claimed.
Trump is the first president since Herbert Hoover nearly a century ago to lose the House, Senate and White House in a single term.
“So far, Trump-backed candidates have not fared particularly well,” said Sam Nelson, associate professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Toledo.
“While Republican primary candidates actively seek your valuable endorsement in (partisan) elections, that very sustenance can be dangerous in general elections, as it motivates Democrats to vote against the candidate Trump supports.” Nelson considered.
Loge believes that challengers may emerge who think they have nothing to lose, along with others concerned about the future of the Republican Party and the country.
“The 2022 midterm elections will also go a long way in determining what the true level of support for Trump will be by 2024,” he noted.
“If Trump-backed candidates win the primary and general elections, Trump’s shares will go up” and if they lose them, “they will go down,” he explained.
But Trump remains a hero to the millions of disgruntled new voters he brought to the Republican cause in 2016.
Mark Bayer, former Senate and House chief of staff, recalled a famous line from William Faulkner: “The past never dies. It is not even past ”.
The same can be said of Trump’s influence over the Republican Party. His control is as strong as when he was president ”, he commented.
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Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
