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For nearly a year, a kitchen cabinet of Donald Trump confidants told the former president not to announce his 2024 comeback bid before the midterm elections, claiming he could interfere with the 2022 candidates and face impeachment. if Republicans underperform.
But Trump has continued to regularly push for early announcements of private meetings as potential 2024 challengers grow more aggressive amid signs of waning support among his base. Now, a growing number of allies are urging him to follow his instincts as a way to strengthen his position in the party and boost turnout to help the GOP take the House and Senate next year.
According to two Trump advisers who, like several others interviewed for this article, the former president hopes to announce in September, spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. One trustee put the odds at “70-30 which he announces before midterms”. And others said he might still decide to announce earlier than September.
Trump has begun talks with advisers about who should campaign, and his team has instructed others to have an online campaign apparatus ready if he announces soon, two people familiar with the matter said. He also began meeting with top donors to talk about the 2024 race, one of the people said, as he traveled to various locations around the country.
“If Trump is going to run, the sooner he gets in there and talks about winning the next election, the better,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R.C.), who recently golfed with Trump in New Jersey. “It will refocus his attention – less complaining, more about the future.”
Graham embraced an argument once rejected in much of the party, arguing that Democrats will use Trump’s unpopularity among some constituencies to try to boost voter turnout no matter what he does. If he enters the race soon, they argue, he will be in a better position to boost turnout on the Republican side in the midterm elections.
“You might also benefit if you get your eyelashes,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster who has worked for multiple Senate candidates this cycle. “If you want to energize the base and take it out, nobody does it better than Trump.”
Candidate challenges, primary marks have Republicans worried about Senate chances
Others argue that Trump’s direct involvement in the midterm campaign will only play into Democrats’ plans to turn the election into a referendum on the extremism of Trump’s Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement. Republicans believe they are on track for a landmark midterm year as a result of widespread dissatisfaction with inflation, President Biden’s performance and the direction of the country.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Public and intra-party polls in several key states show Trump trailing even Biden, who has suffered a historic slump in public support since taking office. Trump lost a recent hypothetical direct vote against Biden in New Hampshire and trails Biden in favorability in Wisconsin, both seats in the Senate race this fall.
A May presentation for donors to Herschel Walker’s Georgia Senate campaign, obtained by The Washington Post, showed that Biden and Trump had similar favorability ratings in the low 40s, by about half a dozen points below those of Walker and his opponent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.). In early 2021, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Battleground Survey found that Trump’s unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ratings in key areas.
Trump has also slipped among GOP voters, though he remains easily the most formidable Republican candidate in the primary, according to public opinion polls.
Trump’s decision to enter the race, some in the party fear, could shake up the dynamics in the final months of the House and Senate campaigns.
“Of all the selfish things that he does every minute of every day, that would probably be the most,” said one prominent Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Anything we do without talking about the economy will be a disaster.”
After previously threatening to launch his campaign in July, Trump has decided in recent weeks to hold a series of political speeches to aides as he continues to plan the structure of his next campaign. He gave a speech on crime Friday in Las Vegas, where he revived his old idea that drug dealers should receive the death penalty. More speeches are planned.
“With Republican victories in 2022 and 2024, we can restore anti-crime policies and much more,” Trump said in Las Vegas. “Leave our police alone. Let them do their job. They know what to do. Let them do it.
Trump began talking privately about an upcoming presidential campaign announcement last August in response to Biden’s chaotic withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan. Several advisers told Trump not to take action because declaring to campaign in early 2024 would limit his ability to access funds in his Save America PAC, which pays for his staff and events, would trigger equal-time rules on television and will allow Democrats to reframe the election away from an unpopular Biden presidency.
The private discussions managed to delay the announcement, but did not dissuade Trump from pressing ahead. The challengers, who are also considering 2024 campaigns, have received more attention in recent months, and the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has raised awareness of his efforts to undermine the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump has also faced other investigations, particularly in New York and Georgia, that have only accelerated his desire to run, advisers said.
Democrats, meanwhile, have developed a party-wide strategy aimed at branding Republican candidates in close elections as “MAGA Republicans,” a phrase they’ve tested in a poll as off-putting to voters. In recent weeks, they have argued that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down nationwide abortion rights, the GOP’s continued resistance to some gun regulations despite mass shootings and the ongoing investigation into the Capitol riot all point to broader extremism in the GOP.
“The hearings of January 6th alarmed America. It’s real that we’re seeing movement in those numbers,” said John Anzalone, a Biden pollster. “If Donald Trump gets in before the midterms, every Republican congressman and candidate will have to answer these questions.”
Democrats hope, for example, that Republican candidates in competitive races will be forced to say whether they support Trump in the 2024 presidential election — a choice that could alienate either the former president’s supporters or otherwise stalwart voters who voted in two successive elections against the Trump brand of politics.
“Senators as well as Senate candidates have told me recently that voters are ready to turn the page on Trump and that he’s more of a headwind than a tailwind these days,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who met with number of senators from the Republican Party.
Several GOP strategists remain hopeful that a Trump statement won’t undermine the party in November. Republicans made a net gain of 14 seats in the 2020 congressional elections, even though Trump ran on the same ballot and lost the national popular vote by about 7 million votes. Polls show that economic concerns and inflationary pressures dominate the electoral landscape to the detriment of Democratic candidates.
Some people around Trump have warned that he could be making a mistake if he doesn’t try to get more involved in the midterm campaigns. National polls in the past year, including polls by the Pew Research Center, CNN and the New York Times, have found that only about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters want Trump to be the party’s 2024 nominee.
“When the Republicans have these massive wins in the midterms, if President Trump hasn’t declared for 2024 yet, the haters and establishment Republicans and their allies in the media will say they can win in 2024 without him and that the party should go and find someone else,” said Jason Miller, a longtime spokesman and adviser who now runs the social media network Gettr. “They’re going to try to make that narrative stick, and Democrats will be happy to expand it.”
The shadow race is underway for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination
But others, such as Republican National Committee Chairwoman Rona McDaniel and longtime adviser Kellyanne Conway, have repeatedly warned Trump against announcing a run now. Both said he didn’t want to be responsible for Senate losses, and McDaniel told others the party would stop paying his legal bills if he became the nominee.
“Some like to deny him credit when candidates win and blame him when candidates lose, but President Trump knows he can’t control the quality and energy of a candidate or his or her campaign,” Conway said.
Trump continues to dominate early voting for the 2024 Republican primary, although potential challengers such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received encouraging signs at GOP events by winning informal elections. A growing group of candidates, including his former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, are making advanced campaign plans. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has also left open the possibility of a 2024 presidential campaign, recently telling others he’s “humbled” by the attention he’s getting.
A group associated with Sen. Tim Scott (R.C.), a frequently discussed candidate for president or vice president, has released about $2 million in television ads in key states like Georgia and Nevada showing him…
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