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      Trump v DeSantis: Republicans split over 2024 run and predict ‘blood on the floor’

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      Trump v DeSantis: Republicans split over 2024 run and predict ‘blood on the floor’ County leaders say they fear ex-president is even more divisive than he was two years ago and is therefore unelectableTerri Burl was an early member of Women for Trump. As chair of her local Republican party branch in northern Wisconsin, she twice campaigned vigorously for his election in the key swing state. By the time Trump left office, Burl rated him the greatest president since Ronald Reagan. Maybe even better.But now Burl has had enough.She viewed the prospect of Trump announcing another run for the presidency – as he did in Florida on Tuesday evening – with trepidation. Burl predicts “a lot of blood on the floor” if it comes to a fight with rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination, and defeat in the 2024 election if the former US president is the candidate.Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepens Read more“I will back whoever the Republicans choose to run in 2024. That’s a given. But I want them to go through the primaries and I hope it’s not Trump. He has too much baggage now. We need new blood because it’s obvious that he can’t get to business now without doing things to make people angry. His behaviour hasn’t changed,” she said.Burl, a substitute teacher, is not alone.The Republicans’ failure to deliver the much promised “red wave” in the midterms was a significant blow to Trump’s claim to be the voice of his party’s voters, not least because of the defeat of key candidates endorsed by him. But backing from the grass roots, which gave him a tight grip on the Republicans for years and kept its hostile leadership at bay, has been eroding for months.Republican county chairs and activists say support for the former president has diminished as a result of his continued pushing of election conspiracy theories, the investigations into his businesses and political actions, and his attacks on his most threatening challenger, DeSantis. Above all, there is a deepening fear that Trump is now even more divisive than he was two years ago when he lost the popular vote to Joe Biden by more than 7m votes, and is therefore unelectable.But local Republican leaders also say that Trump retains a substantial and virulently loyal following within the party that will fight to the last and could still decide the primaries.In rural Iowa, Neil Shaffer, chair of the Howard county Republican party, said he would rather see DeSantis as his party’s candidate in two years but that the membership of his branch is split.“Honestly, Trump’s got a lot of baggage, self-inflicted. Had he taken the loss gracefully, and held his tongue, and didn’t further these conspiracy theories, he probably could have been a president again, with an interim of Biden,” he said.“People that came to the Trump bandwagon, there were a lot of independents, a lot of first-time voters, a lot of everyday people. They did overlook some of the issues. Since then, a lot of the people that I’ve talked to that were first-time Republican voters would have a very difficult time being as enthusiastic for Trump this time around just because of how he didn’t gracefully take an exit. He lost a lot of political capital between November 2020 and January 6, and unnecessarily. All self-inflicted.”Shaffer said he has faith in the electoral system and that Biden legitimately won the election.Like Burl, Shaffer wants to see other candidates challenge Trump for the Republican nomination.“I honestly am a big fan of Governor DeSantis and have been for several months just following through this last campaign. Fresh face. Has the same kind of agenda as Trump without all the baggage,” he said.But Shaffer, speaking before Trump’s announcement, said he doubted Trump could be beaten.“If Trump runs, I’m 99% sure he’ll have the nomination. I know how caucuses and primaries work. You don’t have to have that many people show up and he has a very loyal and dedicated following,” said Shaffer.Burl is not so sure that Trump would win the primaries but she predicts a bitter fight that could further damage the Republican party.“If these two guys are the ones that are left, going back and forth, I think it’s gonna be brutal. There will be a lot of blood on the floor,” she said.A YouGov poll in the days immediately after the midterms gave DeSantis a seven-point lead over Trump among Republican primary voters, including independents. That’s a shift from a month before the elections when Trump had a 10-point advantage. However, among “strong Republicans”, Trump retains a narrow lead.Burl administrates a private Facebook group, American Patriots. She polled its members and found that Trump had a slight edge in support. In other social media forums, some of his supporters say he is a “proven fighter” who can connect with the public in ways no other politician can. Others say the time has come to “dump Trump”.“I love what DJT did for America. But … is he even electable?” asked one of his supporters.Others questioned his judgment after he backed weak candidates in the midterms solely because they were loyal to his claim that the last presidential election was stolen.Trump’s deriding of his Florida rival as Ron “DeSanctimonious” days before the midterms was a last straw for some. Then he took to Fox News to warn off DeSantis from running for the presidency, saying “he could hurt himself very badly” and threatening to “tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering”.“I think he would be making a mistake. I think the base would not like it. I don’t think it would be good for the party,” said Trump.Burl said she was “shocked” by the former president’s attack on DeSantis.“Trump is starting to call him names and that really disappointed me. And then he said that if DeSantis tries to run against him, he’s got some dirt on DeSantis that he’s going to bring up. That’s not the way to do things,” she said.Burl said some Republicans were concerned that while they saw Trump as his own man, DeSantis was too much of an accomplished politician whose decisions are calculated according to what he thinks will play well with voters.“Some people are saying that they don’t trust DeSantis because they think that he will cross into the establishment side. I’m not establishment. I don’t like establishment candidates. I like people like Trump,” she said.“But even though some people might look on DeSantis as establishment right now, I think he is coming out as his own type of Republican and really doesn’t want to cavort with all of the establishment Republicans and do what they say.”Shaffer is concerned about the damage Trump will do to the Republican party, and its presidential nominee, if he loses and goes down fighting.“How does Trump run and not tarnish the other candidates?” he said.And if Trump is the nominee? Shaffer said he would still campaign for the former president, but doesn’t relish the prospect.“If Trump got the nomination it will be a much more difficult for him this time around than it was in 2020. We’re gonna have to work very hard, much harder than in 2016 or two years [ago],” he said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024US politicsDonald TrumpRon DeSantisRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new book

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      Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookIn memoir, former vice-president protests loyalty but hits out over Charlottesville, Russia, both impeachments and more In his new book, Donald Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, protests his loyalty to his former boss but also levels criticisms that will acquire new potency as Trump prepares to announce another presidential run and the Republican party debates whether to stay loyal after disappointment in last week’s midterm elections.‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreAccording to Pence, Trump mishandled his response to a march staged by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017, a costly error that Pence says could have been avoided had Pence called Trump before a fateful press conference in which Trump failed to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”.Also in Pence’s judgment, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour” early in his term while beset by investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and links between Trump and Moscow.“Acknowledging Russian meddling,” Pence writes, would not have “somehow cheapen[ed] our victory” over Hillary Clinton in 2016.Pence does not stop there. Among other judgments which may anger his former boss, he says Trump’s claimed “perfect call” to Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in 2019, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment after he withheld military aid in search of political dirt, was in fact “less than perfect” – if not, in Pence’s judgment, impeachable.Pence also says that in January 2021 he urged Trump to make a farewell address to the nation and to encourage unity after the deadly Capitol attack he says Trump incited, the subject of Trump’s second impeachment. Trump remains unrepentant.Pence, famously devout, writes that he prayed for Trump throughout his presidency, and after urging a farewell address as given by “every president since George Washington … urged him one more time to take time to pray”.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the thrice-married, genital-grabbing, greed-worshipping Trump does not appear to have taken the advice to pray or be prayed for. A few days after the conversation about a farewell address, Pence writes, he “reminded” Trump “that I was praying for him”.“Don’t bother,” Trump said.Trump’s reluctance to be told what to do, to be told he is wrong or to credit advisers for anything mean Pence’s book would risk provoking attacks as Trump prepares to announce his next presidential campaign even if Pence were not a potential rival.Pence’s memoir, So Help Me God, will be published in the US on Tuesday. It has been trailed in the US media, including in a column published by the Wall Street Journal which presented the former vice-president’s version of events before, on and after January 6, when supporters incited by Trump attacked Congress in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Pence did not do as Trump demanded and reject electoral college results from key states while performing his ceremonial role in Congress. The House January 6 committee has presented Pence as something of a hero, but his reward on the day itself was a rampaging mob, members of which called for him to be hanged as a gallows was erected outside.In excerpts of an interview due to be broadcast on Monday, Pence told ABC News: “The president’s words [on 6 January 2021] were reckless and his actions were reckless. The president’s words that day at the rally endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building.”Until last week, Pence’s book seemed likely to read as something of a balancing act, between loyalty to the president to whom in his own words he “always deferred” – and to that president’s supporters – and the service of ambition which has seen Pence visit early voting states and address conservative groups.Pence writes that after Biden’s victory, he advised Trump to follow a path to the 2024 nomination, treating his defeat as not “a loss – just an intermission”.“Thirteen days after the 2020 election,” Pence writes, “I had lunch with President Trump. I told him that if his legal challenges came up short, he could simply accept the results, move forward with the transition and start a political comeback, winning the Senate runoffs in Georgia, the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, and the House and Senate in 2022. Then he could run for president in 2024 and win. He seemed unmoved, even weary: ‘I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.’”Republicans lost the Senate runoffs in Georgia, won the Virginia governor’s race in large part by distancing their candidate from Trump, then missed their midterms target. Last Tuesday, an expected “red wave” failed to show.Instead, Democrats are celebrating while Republicans find themselves contemplating a narrow and unruly majority in the US House, the far right ascendant, and at least two more years in the Senate minority thanks to Democratic victories in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the only seat flipped so far.A Republican backlash against Trump has formed quickly, particularly over his endorsements of election-denying candidates who lost Senate races and contests for governor and other state posts.01:41To make matters worse for Trump, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, enjoyed a landslide re-election, a rare bright spot for the GOP, and has shot to the fore in polls of the nominal field for 2024.Pence blames Trump for events leading to January 6 in new memoirRead moreRegardless, aides to Trump have indicated that he will plough ahead and announce his 2024 campaign – his third consecutive run – at his Mar-a-Lago resort in DeSantis’s state on Tuesday.Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis. But regarding the governor, at least, Pence keeps his own powder dry. In his book, the former vice-president and Trump coronavirus taskforce chief mentions his potential primary rival just once, praising him for his handling of the pandemic.Pence doggedly claims the Trump administration passed its Covid test with flying colours, even praising government scientists including Anthony Fauci – “a great source of comfort to millions of Americans” – who are now likely targets for investigation by House Republicans.Under DeSantis, more than 82,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Florida, the third-highest state total. The national death toll is close to 1.1m.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpMike PenceTrump administrationUS elections 2020US midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      ‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?

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      Analysis‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Chris McGreal in Columbus, Ohio and David Smith in WashingtonAfter the party came up short in another election, Ron DeSantis may be poised to become its new leader Sitting at the head table in a white and gold ballroom, beneath glistening chandeliers and an ornately corniced ceiling, Donald Trump looked sullen as midterm election results flashed up on a giant TV screen.Across Florida, 200 miles from his opulent Mar-a-Lago estate, the mood was quite different. In Tampa, Governor Ron DeSantis was celebrating his landslide re-election by repurposing lines from Winston Churchill.“We fight the woke in the legislature,” DeSantis declared as his photogenic young family looked on against a stars and stripes backdrop. “We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”‘Ron DeSanctimonious’: angry Trump lashes out at Republican rival Read moreAs the jubilant crowd chanted “two more years!”, suggesting that DeSantis, not Trump, should run for US president in 2024, was this the moment that power slipped inexorably from one to the other – that the Republican crown passed from old king to young pretender?Some in the party are ready to declare it so. David Urban, a longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Post: “It is clear the center of gravity of the Republican party is in the state of Florida, and I don’t mean Mar-a-Lago.”If such a shift has taken place, it did so gradually, then suddenly. Since he descended an escalator at his New York headquarters in June 2015, Trump has dominated and defined the Republican party, crushing rivals in the Republican primary then eking out a victory over Hillary Clinton to seize the White House.But the party of Trump suffered drubbings at the ballot box in 2018 and 2020. And despite forecasts of a “red wave” in 2022, it fell short again. From Michigan to Pennsylvania, novice candidates endorsed by the former president proved they were unready for prime time and too extreme for a wary and weary electorate.Finally, some Republicans admitted what everyone else could see: Trump is an albatross around the party’s neck. Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, once a vocal supporter, told the Fox Business channel: “The voters have spoken and they have said that they want a different leader. And a true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage. It is time to move on.”Rupert Murdoch already has, it seems. “Trumpty Dumpty”, boomed the front page of his tabloid the New York Post. “Trump is the Republican party’s biggest loser” was the verdict of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. A column on the Fox News website proclaimed: “Ron DeSantis is the new Republican party leader. Republicans are ready to move on without Donald Trump.”Indeed, if Trump was the big loser of the night, DeSantis was the big winner. His victory by nearly 20 percentage points was a personal vindication that appeared to put Florida, once the quintessential swing state, beyond Democrats’ reach for a generation.His stunning wins in big, majority Latino counties, including Miami-Dade and Osceola, set him up to make the case that, as a presidential candidate, he could repeat the formula in states such as as Arizona, Nevada and Texas. “We have rewritten the political map,” he told supporters.A DeSantis 2024 campaign would also promise generational change. At 44, the former navy lawyer and congressman would be similar in age to John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they ran for the White House, a sharp contrast from 76-year-old Trump or Joe Biden, who is turning 80 this month.Crucially, DeSantis could sell himself as Trump 2.0, an upgrade committed to the same “America first” policy agenda, media sparring and liberal-baiting (he recently flew Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard) but without the liability of multiple federal, state and congressional investigations.He could also break from Trump over the coronavirus pandemic, contending that he kept Florida open while the then president was urging lockdowns. Tim Miller, former communications director for Jeb Bush 2016, said: “He would try to paint Trump as somebody that lost, is a loser and is costing the party. He’d probably criticise Trump for not being stronger on Covid and say he should have fired [Dr Anthony] Fauci.”DeSantis is especially popular with conservatives for taking the lead on “culture war” issues related to race and gender. Last year he got into a spat with the Walt Disney Company over his support of the controversial law, nicknamed “don’t say gay” by opponents, prohibiting the teaching of gender identity concepts to young children.But if you come at the king, you best not miss. Trump has spent months preparing to strangle the DeSantis campaign at birth. At a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, last weekend, he casually rolled out a nickname, “Ron DeSanctimonious”, hoping to brand his opponent as he has so many before.On Tuesday, menacingly, he told Fox News: “I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly. I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife.”And on Thursday, with DeSantis buzz reaching a crescendo, Trump lashed out in a lengthy and angry statement berating Fox News and other Murdoch-controlled media for going “all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious DeSantis”, whom he called “an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations”, as he again took credit for DeSantis’s 2018 win.“Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer,” he wrote, comparing the race to his winning 2016 campaign. “We’re in exactly the same position now. They will keep coming after us, MAGA, but ultimately, we will win. Put America First and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”Soon after, he invited reporters to a “Special Announcement” at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, presumably confirming that he is mounting a third consecutive bid for the White House. Some allies were quick to offer pre-endorsements, with Elise Stefanik, the Republican chair in the House of Representatives, declaring herself on team Trump.JD Vance, who won a Senate senate race in Ohio with Trump’s backing, did likewise. And at a rally for Vance in Dayton the night before the elections, many supporters sporting Make America Great Again hats and T-shirts were hoping for Trump to announce his candidacy there and then.But even within a crowd of enthusiastic fans there were those who had doubts. Mandy Young said: “I think Trump was a great president but I don’t think he can win again. He is too divisive. The independents who voted for him before won’t vote for him again because of all the investigations.“Also, I don’t like the way he called DeSantis ‘DeSanctimonious’. I think DeSantis would be a great president. It makes me think Trump doesn’t care about the Republican party winning, only himself. He should step back. He would still have a lot of influence as a respected godfather giving advice.”On election day, Jeffrey Weisman, a consistent Republican supporter because he says the party is better for the economy and his jewellery store business, voted at the biggest Greek Orthodox church in Columbus, Ohio.Weisman supported Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections but would prefer the former president stayed out of the next one. “I like DeSantis. Having Trump going out there as well I think will hurt DeSantis’s chances. So for that reason, I do not want Trump to run,” he said.The strengths and weaknesses of Trump’s influence were on display in Ohio’s election for US senator. The former president’s endorsement of Vance pulled the bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy and venture capitalist from the back of the field in the Republican primaries and won him the nomination. But Trump’s backing then dragged down support for Vance in Tuesday’s general election, even if he won.Mark R Weaver, a Republican strategist in Columbus, who has worked on several hundred state and national campaigns, said that has implications for any challenge from DeSantis both in Ohio and across the country.“Trump’s ability to improve a candidate’s chances is weakening. He’s no longer able to guarantee or even predict someone he endorses is going to win. Whatever charm he had has worn off, certainly in the general elections. In the primaries, he can still be a big factor. In Ohio he was.”Weaver said that while Trump would still win a Republican contest for the presidential nomination against DeSantis if it were held today, that may not be true by the time the primaries actually begin in early 2024.He said: “I have noticed a slow descent of Donald Trump’s popularity amongst Republicans. I’ve noticed a rapid ascent of Ron DeSantis’s popularity.“If those two trajectories continue, Trump slowly getting weaker and people looking for better options, and DeSantis quickly getting stronger and having more people support him, the trajectory lines could cross right about March of 2024. That sounds like a crazy statement right now but if those trajectories cross, Ron DeSantis can beat Trump in the primaries in 2024.”Trump’s political obituary has been written by Republican elites countless times before only to prove wishful thinking. An Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted about groping women’s private parts couldn’t do it. His half-hearted condemnation of a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, couldn’t do it. His proposal that injecting bleach might cure coronavirus couldn’t do it. Even his incitement of a coup attempt at the US Capitol couldn’t do it. Can DeSantis do it by appealing to the bottom line: electability?Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “I’ve always said that the Republican party would not fully respond to offloading Trump until they lost enough elections. Political actors are single seekers in re-election, and once their power is threatened, that is usually where a course correction happens.“But they’ve gotten themselves into quite a quagmire with Donald Trump because he still has a solid 30%, at least, base of support, and that is large enough to still create headaches for the party if they try to offload him.”Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, added: “They also do not have a formidable enough heir apparent. It is not Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis is a paper tiger who was created and propped up by Donald Trump. He does not have the political talent, the charisma or the toughness to take on the onslaught coming his way from Trumpworld. It’s already beginning.”Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, agreed. “Trump would eat him alive,” he said. “Right now Trump is still the dominant player in the Republican party. Most of the base is still with him. DeSantis is utterly untested. He’s weird. He has zero charisma. He’s thin skinned. He can’t think on his feet. He’s never been tested and he’s easily offended. Trump will do and say anything.”Walsh, who challenged Trump in the 2020 Republican primary, added: “Trump’s the king. If you try to slay the king and you don’t, your career is over. That’s a huge, huge risk a 44-year-old guy like DeSantis would be taking.”They are not alone in arguing that, while DeSantis is like Trump without the chaos, he is also Trump without the charisma. The former president’s rallies are rollicking, knockabout affairs that give his fans community, entertainment and laughs. DeSantis is said to be unskilled in retail politics and somewhat humourless.Jennifer Mercieca, a professor in the communication and journalism department at Texas A&M University, said: “Donald Trump is an authoritarian PT Barnum. He’s able to keep our attention and curiosity. He’s got great comedic timing. He has a good sense of drama and Ron DeSantis doesn’t have that kind of easily translatable appeal for media audiences. His affect is flat. He’s not as entertaining.“The thing about Donald Trump is that he’s really entertaining. He’s good at keeping our attention and primarily he does that through outrage and things that are very negative for politics and political problem solving. But in terms of a matchup between those two, I would put money on Trump.”Trump has shown himself perfectly capable of going scorched earth and burning the whole party down. A ferociously nasty bareknuckle primary fight between him and DeSantis will have Democrats reaching for the popcorn. At a valedictory press conference at the White House, Biden seemed amused at the prospect. “It’ll be fun watching them take on each other,” he said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Donald TrumpRon DeSantisRepublicansFloridaUS elections 2024US politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden indicates he’ll run in 2024, following Democrats’ midterms wins

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      Joe Biden indicates he’ll run in 2024, following Democrats’ midterms winsPresident says he’ll announce decision in early 2023, while two-thirds of midterm voters said they wouldn’t like to see him run To those who do not want to see the US president run for re-election, Joe Biden has a message: “Watch me.”A self-assured Biden, riding high from Democrats’ history-defying showing in this year’s midterm elections, said at a post-election press conference that he intends to seek another term, but that it was ultimately a “family decision”.US midterm elections 2022: Senate and House remain in balance as counting continues – liveRead more“I think everybody wants me to run, but we’re going to have discussions about it,” Biden told reporters, indicating that he would sit down with his family over the holidays and announce his decision “early next year”.01:27A full accounting of the election results will take several more days, or possibly weeks, to know as key states continue counting and a Senate race in Georgia heads to a runoff that could determine control of the chamber.Though Republicans hold the edge in the district-by-district battle for the House, Biden and his party managed to avoid the “giant red wave” that many Democrats had braced for in a political environment shaped by widespread economic discontent and the president’s low approval ratings. Control of the Senate also remains within reach for Democrats.Despite the unexpectedly strong showing Biden, approaching his 80th birthday this month, could still face strong headwinds in 2024. Two-thirds of midterm voters said they would not like to see Biden seek re-election in 2024, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Research. That includes more than 40% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans, the poll showed.But the surprising, mixed results on Tuesday may serve to bolster Biden’s case for seeking re-election and perhaps even quell concerns among those in his party who hope the party elects another standard-bearer in 2024.“Our intention is to run again,” Biden said. “That’s been our intention regardless of what the outcome of this election was.In the months before the election, vulnerable Democrats were peppered with questions about whether they would support Biden in 2024. And Democratic leaders have mostly delicately sidestepped questions about whether he should run again.For now, Democrats’ successes have shifted the attention to Donald Trump, who hoped a wave of Republican victories would propel the launch of his third presidential bid, expected as soon as next week.But many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost on Tuesday night, among them Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, who lost a marquee Senate race in Pennsylvania to John Fetterman. The underwhelming results have raised questions about the former president’s political strength, with some openly warning that he is a drag on the party.Meanwhile, Trump’s chief Republican rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, cruised to re-election on Tuesday. Following DeSantis’s strong performance on Tuesday, in which he expanded his support among Hispanic voters and turned the increasingly Republican state even redder, many conservatives are already pushing him as a promising alternative to Trump. The conservative New York Post anointed DeSantis as “DeFuture”.Biden welcomed the Republican competition. “It would be fun to watch them take each other on,” he said.Even before the president makes a decision, his team has started to lay the groundwork for a potential campaign.“We are engaged in some planning for the simple reason that if we weren’t engaged in planning in November of this year, we should be in the political malpractice Hall of Fame,” said Anita Dunn, senior White House adviser, during an Axios event last week.Biden’s approval rating stands at 43% among registered voters, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released ahead of election day. But he remains popular among Democrats, with eight in 10 giving him positive ratings compared with nine in 10 Republicans who disapprove of his job performance. Slightly fewer than four in 10 independent voters say they approve of his performance.There appears to be little appetite among elected Democrats to challenge Biden in a primary. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a leading progressive, has ruled out a run against Biden.Should Biden choose not to run, it’s unclear who would step forward to seek the nomination.As vice-president, Kamala Harris is seen as an heir apparent, and would probably emerge as the frontrunner. Harris, who campaigned across the country for Democrats this cycle, was credited with spotlighting the issue of abortion and reproductive rights, which proved decisive in key races. But she, like Biden, also suffers from low approval ratings.Other Democrats have attracted 2024 speculation. The Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, both of whom ran in 2020, traveled to several states this cycle to campaign for Democrats.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who easily won re-election on Tuesday a year after defeating a recall attempt, has sought to build a national profile by publicly challenging DeSantis. And Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who stormed to re-election in a battleground state, is seen as a rising star.David Shor, a top Democratic data analyst, said the midterm results underscored the power of incumbency, as many of the party’s endangered members held on to their seats despite a challenging political environment. Rallying behind an incumbent also avoids a messy primary, he said.“There’s definitely a case that it would make sense to avoid a bruising, trillion-dollar primary where all of the smartest minds in the Democratic party devote themselves to driving the favorables down of all of our favorite candidates,” Shor said in an interview on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America.But the bigger variable, Shor argued, could be the economy.“The traditional pattern of American politics was that there was this really strong relationship between economic conditions and presidential approval. That was true for Clinton, it was true for Bush but it stopped being true for Barack Obama and for Donald Trump. But it’s come back for Joe Biden,” he said. “And so I think ultimately, the question of 2024 is really just what the economy ends up being.”TopicsJoe BidenUS elections 2024DemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump urged to delay announcement on 2024 run until after Georgia runoff

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      Trump urged to delay announcement on 2024 run until after Georgia runoff Trump cautioned to wait until after crucial Senate race as candidates he endorsed were defeated in midterm elections Donald Trump, reeling from another electoral setback, is facing pressure to delay his announcement of a new bid for the White House until after a crucial Senate race next month.Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from overRead moreTrump-endorsed candidates slumped to defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections, leaving the former president at arguably his weakest standing in the party since the riot at the US Capitol last year.Trump looks set to announce a third consecutive run for president next Tuesday but some in his inner circle are cautioning him to wait until after the Senate runoff in Georgia on 6 December.Trump-backed Herschel Walker and the Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, will face off after neither passed 50% of the vote on Tuesday. The race could decide control of the Senate, depending on results in Arizona and Nevada.Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told the rightwing network Newsmax: “Everything comes down to Herschel Walker and Georgia. And if we can pull that off, we might get … Chuck Schumer packing from the [Senate] majority leader’s office.“I’m advising the president to hold off until after the Georgia race, after Herschel Walker … This is bigger than anything else in the country.”Miller also said Trump should deploy campaign funds to help Walker, a controversial former football star.12:55Republicans had expected widespread success in the midterms but though the House looked set to change hands, the Senate remained on a knife-edge after a high-profile Trump-endorsed candidate, the TV doctor Mehmet Oz, fell to embarrassing defeat in Pennsylvania. Many are pointing the finger at Trump.Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, said: “He is wounded and that’s evidenced by the rightwing media ecosystem putting out collective rebukes in the wake of a disappointing midterm result because Donald Trump was at the centre once again.“He cost them a much larger victory in the midterms. He is the albatross around the Republican party’s electoral neck and will continue to be as long as he is alive and breathing.”Trump is holding an event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next week where he is expected to announce his run. He has taken shots at Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor widely seen as his chief rival. But DeSantis enjoyed a strong night on Tuesday, winning a landslide, his victory speech greeted by chants of “two more years”. Worryingly for Trump, allies including the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post have come out strongly for DeSantis.A column on the Fox News website proclaimed: “Ron DeSantis is the new Republican party leader. Republicans are ready to move on without Donald Trump.”But Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, cautioned: “I’m not holding my breath that this posture will remain. We saw this before after the election in 2020 and it lasted as long as the ratings started to crash.“When they started losing ratings to Newsmax and other media outlets, they went right back to the fawning coverage of Donald Trump. Are they willing to remain steadfast this time around because they think now that Ron DeSantis is the heir apparent? We’ll see how long that lasts.”On Wednesday, Fox News reported that Trump would not delay his announcement. On Thursday, Trump launched a tirade on his Truth Social platform.“For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am angry about the midterms, don’t believe it,” he wrote. “I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a ‘Stable Genius’.”Trump also criticised reports that he blamed his wife, Melania, and friend, Fox News host Sean Hannity, for talking him into backing Oz in Pennsylvania.“I’d like to apologise to Melania and Sean Hannity for all of the Fake News and fictional stories (made up out of thin air, with no sources despite them claiming there are!)” wrote Trump, whose attacks on the media often prove unfounded.It is not a foregone conclusion that Trump will express robust support for Walker. Trump has attacked Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader. He is also widely held to have contributed to the loss of the Senate in 2021. Then, Warnock and Jon Ossoff won Georgia runoffs as Trump persisted in his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud, potentially depressing Republican turnout.01:56Nationally, Republican hand-wringing continued. Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and a longtime Trump ally, told the Associated Press: “We lost in ’18. We lost in ’20. We lost in ’21 in Georgia. And now in ’22 we’re going to net lose governorships, we’re not going to pick up the number of seats in the House that we thought and we may not win the Senate despite a president who has a 40% job approval.“There’s only one person to blame for that and that’s Donald Trump … The only animating factor in determining an endorsement is, ‘Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen or don’t you?’”John Fetterman’s rise from small-town mayor to Pennsylvania senatorRead moreThe Republican strategist David Urban, a former Trump adviser, told the AP: “How do people feel in America? I think people feel not great about the Trump brand right now. It’s bad.”Commentators, however, noted that Trump has been written off before but still holds sway over the Republican base, as evidenced by rallies that draw fiercely loyal crowds.Joe Walsh, a podcast host and former Republican congressman from Illinois, said: “We’ve seen this movie before. He led a fucking insurrection and the party still bowed to him. So will the dam finally break with this one? No, I don’t think it will. I still think it’s his party.“This whole DeSantis thing is overrated. Trump knows that … I still expect him to come out this month and announce he’s running and I don’t expect many Republicans to have the balls to say, ‘Donald, you suck.’”TopicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Trump expected to announce 2024 campaign before end of November

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      Trump expected to announce 2024 campaign before end of NovemberEnvoys quietly start to prepare groundwork for aggressive field operation, putting Trump at center of attention ahead of midterms Donald Trump is expected to announce a third White House campaign before the end of November as envoys have quietly started to prepare the groundwork for an aggressive field operation, according to people familiar with the matter, thrusting him into the center of attention ahead of Tuesday’s midterms.Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social Read moreThe plans for a potential 2024 campaign have started to accelerate in recent weeks, with the former president and his advisers signalling that an announcement is imminent and aiming to capitalize on his position as the clear frontrunner to seize the GOP nomination.Expecting broad Republican gains in an array of midterm races, Trump has indicated that he wants to launch his latest presidential campaign around the week of 14 November on the back of that momentum, taking credit for Republican wins that were bolstered by his endorsements and those that were not.The date, earlier reported by Axios, is not final and partly dependent on GOP performance in the midterms. But Trump has been eager to start a 2024 campaign in part because he believes it could shield him from intensifying criminal investigations by the US justice department.The anticipated presidential campaign is expected at first to be a tight-knit operation, with the core team mainly drawn from his recently created Maga Inc political action committee, which plays off his Make America Great Again slogan and where staffers were told when they joined that they could become part of the 2024 campaign personnel.The early team is widely expected to include a leadership role for Susie Wiles, the chief executive at the Save America Pac. He has credited her with winning him Florida when he captured the Oval Office in 2016, and she had a complicated tenure working with another Republican political darling: Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.Wiles was recently a top adviser to DeSantis until she was ousted after being accused of leaking emails showing the governor appearing to sell access to lobbyists on golf trips, leading some allies to believe she would be an asset if Trump finds himself in a 2024 race against DeSantis.The Maga Inc staffers expected to play leading roles on a 2024 campaign include senior strategist Chris LaCivita, veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio and the committee’s executive director, Taylor Budowich, considered a capable political operator who is additionally Trump’s main spokesperson.Trump has also raised the possibility of bringing back 2020 deputy campaign manager Brian Jack – as well as his close partner Justin Clark, who worked on litigation related to the January 6 Capitol attack – and Scott Gast, the chief counsel for Compass Legal Group and a Trump representative with the National Archives.But in recent weeks, Trump envoys have started sending out feelers for people who might be interested in working as Trump 2024 field directors, one of the sources said, offering up to double the usual salary of what a presidential campaign field director might otherwise make.The plans for the anticipated presidential campaign have intensified as the justice department moves forward with several criminal investigations surrounding Trump, including over potential mishandling of national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and over the January 6 attack.Some advisers have told Trump that the timing could be positive since the combined effects of announcing a presidential run and daring the justice department to indict him as a candidate could drown out political messaging by congressional Democrats and the Joe Biden White House.Trump remains the fixation of the political and media world, and the reach of Trump coverage invariably exceeds that of Biden. Page views on stories about Trump and the justice department can reach millions, a figure multiple times greater than stories about Biden’s presidency.On Thursday night in Iowa, Trump opened a swing of four rallies in the final five days of the midterm campaign season, where he was joined by Republican senator Chuck Grassley, who is seeking re-election for an eighth time.The rally underscored both Trump’s significant baggage and his popularity with his base – tens of thousands of supporters turned out on a frigid night where temperatures dipped below 40F to hear the same grievances about his 2020 election defeat to Biden that he has delivered countless times.The loudest cheers came when he talked, almost giddy with excitement, about his own campaign. “In order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again,” he said of another White House bid. “Get ready – that’s all I’m telling you. Very soon.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Only the Strong review: Tom Cotton as hawk … too chicken to take on Trump?

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      Only the Strong review: Tom Cotton as hawk … too chicken to take on Trump?The Arkansas senator’s book may be a calling card for 2024 but he must know he is highly unlikely to be the next GOP nominee Together, Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell worked to undermine Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. On 6 January 2021, both Republican senators refused to take the path paved by their colleagues Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and object to results in key states. Cotton, from Arkansas, branded those who stormed the Capitol “insurrectionists” – a label he had used before, for those who rioted in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidenceRead moreUnlike Cruz, Cotton didn’t back down or simper before Tucker Carlson. In contrast to Hawley, he is southern but not neo-Confederate, more Andrew Jackson than John C Calhoun. Cotton’s new book, Only the Strong, name-checks Abraham Lincoln. He has previously opined on slavery, saying the founders viewed it as “the necessary evil upon which the union was built”, a remark that angered the left (most likely pleasing its author). More recently, Cotton condemned David DePape, the man who attacked Paul Pelosi. The US needs to “get tough on crime”, the senator said.Cotton’s consistency, however, is limited. He knows his party belongs to Trump. In his new book, he avoids mention of January 6.Cotton is happy of course to castigate Joe Biden on Ukraine, writing: “His weakness enticed Vladimir Putin to invade.” The senator is a decorated combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq (though not as an army ranger, as he has previously said). Against the backdrop of the botched US pullout from Afghanistan, his critique is comprehensible. Not surprisingly, though, Cotton is loth to criticize Trump, a Vietnam-era draft-dodger who in early 2022 lavished praise on his idol, Putin, and derided Nato as “not so smart”.“I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians,” the normally loquacious Cotton told ABC in response.There is also the fact Cotton received more than $40,000 in campaign donations from a commodities speculator who profiteered from Ukraine’s misfortune.The subtitle of Cotton’s book is “Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power”. He seeks to pin all that is wrong on the Democrats, their allies and their voters. He slams Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for their lack of military service – but again his gaze is selective. He omits George W Bush’s spotty time in the Texas air national guard, rather than go to Vietnam, and Trump’s “bone spurs” which kept him out of the same ghastly war.Practically speaking, Only the Strong is best viewed as an obligatory pre-presidential campaign book, penned to distinguish its author from the rest of the Republican field. Cotton pays lip service to Trump but his heart clearly belongs to Ronald Reagan, the last president to win in a landslide.Cotton approves of Reagan’s stance toward a Sandinista-run Nicaragua but is silent on Iran-Contra. He rightly praises Reagan’s arms treaty with the Soviets, but doubles down on his contention that Vietnam was a “noble cause”. Cotton has only scorn for Daniel Ellsberg, the source for the Pentagon Papers, which cast light on US handling of Vietnam. Cotton is unmoved by evidence the government was less than forthright.He avoids substantive criticism of the Iraq war. Bush should be faulted for failing to “dedicate enough troops during the early days”, Cotton writes, without elaboration. It’s a far cry from calling Bush a “stupid moron”, which Trump did in an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.Cotton would look foolish or worse if he tried. He is an unbowed war hawk. In 2013, he attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by Dan Senor, the Bush administration spokesman who once told reporters: “Well, off the record, Paris is burning. But on the record, security and stability are returning to Iraq.” Senor’s event netted more than $100,000. Donors included the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who memorably urged the US to bomb Iran.“You pick up your cellphone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go,’” Adelson said in 2013. “And so, there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes and scorpions, or whatever.”Predictably, Cotton goes full bore at Biden for, he claims, doing “next to nothing to protect America from our greatest threat, Communist China”. Biden’s efforts to restrict US companies and citizens from helping China make semiconductor chips seem to have escaped the senator’s notice.Likewise, Cotton supports arming Taiwan against China but fails to comment on Trump’s willingness to cut Taiwan loose. Trump once remarked that the island was “like two feet from China” and the US was “8,000 miles away”, chillingly adding that if the Chinese invade, “there isn’t a fucking thing we can do”.At a September rally, Trump contrasted Biden with Xi Jinping and Putin: “I’ve got to know a lot of the foreign leaders, and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game.”Pence blames Trump for events leading to January 6 in new memoirRead moreFrom Cotton? Nada. From the looks of things, he wishes to maintains his viability as a possible Republican nominee. At 45 he is decades younger than Trump and in far better condition than Cruz. He has plenty of time.But don’t expect Cotton to take on Trump in 2024, unless Trump is indicted. Cotton lacks Ron DeSantis’s war chest, and would probably get crushed. For what it’s worth, even DeSantis is suddenly reported to be suffering from cold feet. Beyond that, Sarah Sanders, once Trump’s press secretary, is a shoo-in to be the next governor of Arkansas. With her assistance, Trump would crush Cotton in his home state.On Friday, reports said Trump was set to announce his bid for re-election in a matter of days. Within the GOP, there shall be no god before Him, and Him does not include Cotton. His book’s shelf-life may be limited.
      Only the Strong: Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power is published in the US by Hachette
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      Trump’s third run for the White House appears a matter of when not if

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      AnalysisTrump’s third run for the White House appears a matter of when not ifMartin Pengelly in New YorkFlurry of reports suggests former president will move swiftly after midterms to announce candidacy – but who will challenge him? As the midterm elections loom in the US and Republican hopes of retaking Congress rise, it appears it is now a matter of when, not if, Donald Trump will announce his third White House run.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreThe former president has trailed another campaign ever since his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, a contest Trump refused to concede, pursuing the lie about electoral fraud which fueled the deadly attack on Congress and his second impeachment.In Texas last month, Trump said: “In order to make our country successful, safe and glorious again, I will probably have to do it again.”Now, a flurry of reports say Trump will move swiftly after the midterms, seeking to capitalise on likely Republican wins fueled by focusing on economic anxieties and law and order.“I’m like 95% he’s going to run,” Reince Priebus, the former Republican chairman who became Trump’s first White House chief of staff, told the Associated Press this week.“The real question is are other big challengers going to run? If President Trump runs, he will be very difficult for any Republican to defeat.”On Wednesday, Vanity Fair reported that Ron DeSantis, Trump’s nearest challenger in polls regarding 2024, and who as governor of Florida has deployed Trumpist policies and theatrics, may keep his powder dry.One Republican “briefed on donor conversations” was quoted as saying: “He’s led them to believe he will not run if Trump does.” Another said that at 44, DeSantis “can walk into the presidency in 2028 without pissing off Trump or Florida”.DeSantis does seem likely to beat his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist. Trump seems equally likely to run for president again, particularly as doing so might help him avoid or complicate multiple investigations.Trump is in legal jeopardy over attempted election subversion, in Georgia as well as around January 6; his retention of classified White House records; his business affairs, subject to civil and criminal lawsuits; and a defamation suit from a writer who says he raped her.He denies wrongdoing. But earlier this week, the Hill quoted a “veteran” Republican aide as saying: “A couple of weeks after the election, I assume that [the US attorney general, Merrick] Garland will indict Trump.”A second aide said an indictment “could actually end up helping [Trump] politically”. Trump has long presented investigations as political witch-hunts, a reliable way of whipping up his base.‘The sorts of things campaigns do’Not everyone thinks Trump will run. Michael Cohen, his former lawyer who went to prison after admitting offences including lying to Congress, fraud and campaign finance violations related to paying off women who claimed affairs with Trump, thinks Trump won’t risk a second defeat.Speaking to the Daily Beast, Cohen said: “One of the things he knows is that his popularity, even among Republicans, has diminished … people are sick and tired of the chaos he creates every single day. And I think they’re getting sick and tired of the way that the Trump 2.0-ers are doing the exact same thing.“He cannot afford, emotionally, to be a two-time loser.”Polls show Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination but have also shown most Americans do not want him to do so. One survey, by NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ, found that 57% said Trump should not run again – though among Republicans, the total fell to 26%.Cohen also said Trump may have financial reasons not to run.“If you read the fine print, he has sole discretion over 90% of all of the money that his supporters are currently giving him, that makes it into a 90% slush fund. So I bet if you look to see how he paid to fix his airplane, which was sitting on the tarmac for a long time, I guarantee it’s coming from that slush fund.”The poll that showed most voters do not want Trump to run also showed that more than 60% of Americans and 30% of Democrats said Biden should not run either. Nonetheless, the Washington Post this week reported that the president, who will soon turn 80, is “quietly” preparing to do so. A rematch of 2020 seems likely – and Trump, a relatively sprightly 76, has reportedly started recruiting.According to the news site Puck, “aides are doing the sorts of things that campaigns do in their early stages, like having those hard conversations about what worked in 2016 and did not in 2020, about hierarchy and titles, and engaging vendors”.Multiple reports have linked Chris LaCivita to the nascent campaign. The longtime Republican operative was behind the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 took a hammer to John Kerry’s decorated service in Vietnam, holing the Democrat below the waterline in a campaign against a president, George W Bush, who memorably avoided that war.The homestretchMost observers think Trump is holding back his announcement to avoid distracting from key midterm races. Such races include Senate contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania where the Trump-endorsed Republicans, JD Vance and Mehmet Oz, are locked in tight fights that could decide control of the chamber.Herschel Walker hits back at Barack Obama: ‘Put my resumé against his’Read moreBut Trump is nothing if not a disruptor and the AP reported this week that an announcement could yet come at a rally in the midterms homestretch.The former president is due to appear in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday. Iowa will kick off the Republican primary in 2024.On Saturday, three days before election day, he is due to appear in Pennsylvania to support Oz and Doug Mastriano, the extremist, election-denying candidate for governor. On Sunday, he will rally in Florida. On Monday, the last day of the campaign, Trump will speak in Dayton, Ohio.A more personal motive may be in play. Tiffany Trump, the former president’s daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, will marry Michael Boulos at Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 November.Puck reported that Trump was “factoring his daughter’s upcoming nuptials into his thinking about when he will announce his candidacy”.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS elections 2024analysisReuse this content More