Positioning the Republican Party for 2024

Commentary

(Part 1 was published yesterday)

The Trump Effect

There is no doubt that former President Trump lost much of his following with his choices of midterm candidates, who failed to win, like Oz and Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Dixon in Michigan, Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake in Arizona. And the jury is still out on Walker in Georgia.

Vance won the Senate seat in Ohio with Trump’s backing, but those who distanced themselves from Trump – Kemp, Sununu and DeSantis – won big without him. As I write this, we still await the results in Arizona, where Lake, who was endorsed by Trump for governor, is still in doubt.

In the closing days of the 2022 midterm campaigns, Trump made an ill-advised reference to the popular Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, as Ron “DeSanctimonious.” One wonders what effect this might have had on the other elections.

When voting problems arose in Arizona’s Maricopa County last week, Trump claimed “voter fraud” and wrote, “Do election over again.” He just can’t keep quiet.

Will Trump decide to run?

“I think you’re going to be happy,” he said on September 11, 2021, “I think you’re going to be very happy.” A few of us thought he provided an “out” for himself, suggesting that he would make some of us happy by announcing that he would forego a run and endorse DeSantis or someone else.

I believe his statements during rallies in Pennsylvania and Ohio, however, that he would be making “a very big announcement” on November 15, intimates that he does indeed plan to run again. As I prepare to publish this, it isn’t certain that he will hold to that date considering the December 6 runoff in Georgia.

Pundit Ben Domenech views an early announcement by Trump as “an uncharacteristic mistake. It’s unlikely to forestall any significant potential competitors, and might even embolden others.”

Comments by the Media

As expected, the leftist publications, like The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and New Yorker, had a field day with Trump’s midterm endorsement failures.

Assessing other media, Trump was the major cause of the GOP’s failure to win in the midterms. The headline over the opinion of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board read, “Trump is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.” They concluded with a familiar quote by Trump: “You’re going to get sick and tired of winning,” adding that maybe now Republicans are sick and tired of losing.

Commenting on Trump’s plan to announce that he’s running again, WSJ columnist Dan Henninger’s predicts “the 2024 presidential election ends that day. It guarantees a wipeout for Republicans.”

Nate Hochman, a candidate for attorney general in California, not a Never Trumper, but a Republican, tweeted about the “audacity of Trump to pick a fight with DeSantis, the leader of the one state GOP that didn’t underperform.” To which Brit Hume at Fox News responded, “I think a lot more Republicans share this sentiment than Mr. Trump recognizes.

Away from the commentary side, I found the reporting by Salena Zito, a top-notch grassroots reporter who writes for the New York Post and Washington Examiner, compelling.

“Many of his (Trump’s) once-devoted followers say they are done with the former president,” she added, writing from her stomping grounds in Pennsylvania. “Look, we’re done,” she was told. “We’re done with him. He cost us this election and we’re done.”

Writing in the New York Post, Zito suggested that Trump “didn’t understand that, while voters still liked him and loved his policies, they are looking toward the future rather than the past.”