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ATLANA – Donald Trump has long been the dominant force in Republican politics, but as he has faced a series of setbacks in recent weeks – interrupted Tuesday night by the defeat of his preferred candidate for governor here in Georgia – the former president is worried about who he may be. provoke him.
Trump is questioning advisers and visitors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida about his budding rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including his former vice president Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (right).
Among his questions, according to several advisers who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations: Who will actually fight him? What do the polls show? Who do his potential enemies meet?
He also resumed talks on announcing a presidential commission of inquiry to try to dissuade the candidates, they said, although some party officials and councilors continued to urge him to wait until the midterm elections to announce his candidacy.
Trump’s debate followed remarkable defeats this month for elected candidates in Idaho, Nebraska, North Carolina and now Georgia, where former Senator David Purdue was defeated Tuesday by Trump’s main enemy, Gov. Brian Kemp, who rejected his requests to cancel the election. losses in the state in 2020. The defeats were caused by rival Republican centers of power amid a growing sense that Trump may not hold the dominant power he once held over the party.
Across Georgia, Republican voters said they simply rejected Trump’s harsh criticism of Kemp and overwhelmingly elected the incumbent governor, bringing a notable rejection to the former president, giving Kemp a victory of about 50 percentage points.
“I voted for him twice. Would I do it again? No! “Said Vija Ball, a 65-year-old developer who attended Kemp’s party on Tuesday night at the College Football Hall of Fame. content, and its delivery. And Trump can be a very vindictive person. “
Under the noise of a lone country singer on stage, Jim Braden, a 62-year-old developer, stood near the makeshift indoor football field and said it was an easy choice to elect Kemp as governor.
“We are not like the rest of the country that will follow the lie,” he said of Trump’s false claims of victory in the 2020 election.
In his victory speech, Kemp did not mention Trump and hardly mentioned Perdue. “Even in the midst of tough primary elections, the Conservatives in our state did not listen to the noise. They were not distracted, “he said. “The Republicans of Georgia went to the polls and overwhelmingly supported another four years of our vision for this great country.
The fact that Trump spent more than $ 2.5 million on behalf of Purdue, held a rally in Georgia and ruthlessly attacked Kemp, but was still defeated, was the last sign that his influence on the Republican Party, although significant, has waned in recent months. In another defeat for Trump, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger, who opposed Trump’s calls to “find” votes in 2020, was far ahead of his opponent, Trump-backed MP Jody Hayes.
The Association of Republican Governors has earmarked $ 5 million to defeat Perdue after supporting the winners against the Trump election in Nebraska and Idaho. The emerging rivals of 2024 are becoming increasingly bold in their desire to campaign against his interests. And in the U.S. Senate, all but 11 Republicans in the Senate have joined Democrats in a recent military aid bill for Ukraine, despite Trump’s criticism of the measure as a wrong priority given the shortage of local baby milk.
“Donald Trump is indeed the leader of the party at the moment, but there are many people, especially those in office, who also have claims to the” America First “program,” former Trump White House adviser Kelian Conway said Tuesday. at the Washington Post Live Event when asked about the growing dissent in the party.
The former president also fought in Ohio, Alabama and Pennsylvania against the Growth Club, a conservative group with deep pockets that once advised him. His Pennsylvania Senate nominee, Mehmet Oz, is locked in a tense run for re-counting after the May 17 primary there and has ignored Trump’s repeated calls for victory before all ballots are counted. And Trump’s election as governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, found his main victory overshadowed last week by an RGA statement suggesting the group does not see him as a competing candidate.
The changes contribute to the biggest challenge to Trump’s image – “King of Approvals”, he recently boasted – after his role in the riots on January 6, 2021 in the US Capitol threw his party into temporary chaos. Few in the party are still publicly opposed or criticized as they run for office, but a growing group is working hard to show that he can be ignored and not infallible.
Republican support for Republican primers in 2022
Trump has publicly dismissed such fears as he has promised his allies that he plans to run for president again.
“I’ve looked at the polls and I’m 60 or 70 points ahead,” the former president said in a recent interview with The Post in Mar-a-Lago when asked about his Republican opponents for the 2024 nomination, without quoting a specific poll. . He repeatedly boasted that he had “made” several of them or claimed to be loyal to him.
Asked about other Republicans, such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Who have repeatedly campaigned against his supporters, Trump said he was watching closely.
“It’s their prerogative,” he said. “People can do that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
But privately, his team is increasingly expecting Republican contenders – potentially including DeSantis, Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, among others – to come after him in 2024. Among his advisers, the biggest The concern, however, is that DeSantis, who dominates the talks among Republican operatives and donors, is taking over Trump.
“I guess a lot of people are fighting against him,” said Tony Fabrizio, his longtime sociologist, if Trump announced his candidacy.
This view is now widespread in Republican circles.
“I think it makes a lot of real and growing sense – albeit with muted tones, private conversations and rarely in public, but more publicly now than ever – that people may say not that he is a paper tiger, but that his power is greatly reduced. “Said someone close to him. “In particular, no one around Trump – and when I say no one, I mean no one but a handful of people who would not have a professional existence without him – does not want him to run again.
Another Republican operative who recently met with Trump said it is now clear that Trump will have to run to win the GOP nomination in 2024, for which the former president remains highly preferred.
“It will not be a clear field for him. There are a lot of people who want to go against him, “said the operative. “If he runs, Pompeo, Pence and Chris Christie will consider fighting him. Who knows what DeSantis will do? These guys work there, they hit every donor they can find, they want to run. “
Pence’s decision to campaign for Kemp, whom Trump called a “catastrophe” for not canceling the 2020 election results, is particularly remarkable – an early sign of a clear division between longtime allies. Pompeo, another potential contender for 2024, is also increasingly vocal, criticizing Oz after Trump approved him and calling for a “count of valid absentee ballots” in Pennsylvania after Trump offered Oz a victory over his rival. David McCormick before the primary ballots were counted.
In Georgia, the results were before 21:00 for Kemp and Perdue had already admitted. There was a little tension in both crowds.
Councilors have repeatedly had to dissuade Trump from running for president before the interim term, which Republican strategists fear will shake Democrats’ prospects by shifting the focus from frustration with President Biden, whose approval rating is about 40 percent. Trump is privately angry with some of his former allies, such as Pence, and discusses how to attack potential enemies in 2024.
On the spot in key states, Trump’s intervention caused friction with some of his local supporters.
“You have Republicans ready to go down there and campaign for Kemp, you have 30 or 40 or 50 state party presidents in these places who criticize Trump, you have guys like [former state GOP chair] Rob Gleeson, who gave Pennsylvania to us in 2016, is coming out against him, “said a longtime Trump adviser, noting the anger that followed Trump’s approval of Oz for the Senate and Mastriano for governor.
In Alabama, MP Mo Brooks (R) lost just two of his 67 county campaign chairmen after Trump withdrew his support in March, according to an adviser. Both later signed again as Brooks continued the campaign, claiming that Trump had been misled by advisers around him. Brooks’ share of the vote in public opinion polls more than doubled in the weeks since Trump withdrew his support as other candidates ran against each other.
In the Senate, minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Whom Trump has identified as an enemy in recent months, publicly celebrated in an interview with Politico the recent massive vote to send more support to Ukraine by rejecting “some free talk in the Trump years.” “For Republicans’ hesitant commitment to allies in Europe. Trump released a statement on …
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