I think this is 95 percent wishful thinking, made facially plausible by the fact that Trump has kept a low-ish profile since leaving office. To the extent that he’s out of sight, he’s also out of mind for many Republican voters. Ask them today if they regard him as the leader of the party and you’re destined to see a smaller percentage who say so than said so in December 2020, for instance.
But he’s coming out of hibernation. He’s holding rallies again and issuing midterm endorsements, and he’s bound to have a high profile this summer campaigning against enemies like Liz Cheney. There’s also a chance that he’ll be indicted somewhere, whether in Georgia for trying to tamper with the vote-counting or in New York for tax shenanigans involving his businesses before entering politics. If his candidates end up winning their primaries and if Democratic prosecutors end up charging him, all of that will bind many wayward Republican voters back to him again tightly. The enmity of the left and the perception that he’s a consummate winner are two of his most valuable political assets. If in fact his grip of the GOP has slipped, it’s capable of tightening again quickly.
And yet, if you look hard enough, there is some evidence that it’s slipped. A little.
Republican politicians and donors told WaPo an encouraging tale this weekend that the party isn’t quite as wedded to Trump as it used to be:
In states such as Alabama, North Carolina and Alaska, Trump’s endorsed Senate candidates trail in fundraising or have been challenged in early polls. An increasingly emboldened minority of Republican senators in Washington have bucked Trump’s direct commands, first by supporting a bipartisan infrastructure bill and now by working on a bipartisan effort that would make it harder for a future president to overturn a federal election result…
Art Pope, a prominent North Carolina donor who opposed Trump in 2016 but said he came to support much of his presidency, said he constantly hears in donor circles that a new nominee is needed in 2024, even if there is general support of Trump. “My preference would be he not run again for a variety of reasons and let there be a good primary going forward,” Pope said.
“The longer he’s not president, the more he’s going to realize he can be a kingmaker, and can still be the lead in the Republican Party even if he’s not president,” said Doug Deason, a Texas donor with close ties to the Trump family who said he doesn’t expect Trump to run. “I just think he’s going to realize the freedom that he has.”…
“People aren’t necessarily seeing his messaging as much. They just say he’s not on Twitter, they don’t really know what he’s doing,” said a senior Republican, reflecting private conversations with donors and operatives. “A lot of people now say to me: ‘He did great things, he was a great president, but it’s time for something new.’”
Deason is kidding himself if he thinks Trump could still be the leader of the party with some other Republican as president, but I don’t believe he really thinks that. The donor class is simply straining for ways to persuade Trump that he shouldn’t run again, allowing the GOP to nominate a more electable conservative like DeSantis. Telling him “you can still call the shots without having to run for anything!” is nonsense so obvious that I have to believe even Trump sees through it.
But it can’t hurt to try to convince him. It’s not like he’s eager to undertake another long, exhausting political campaign.
It’s true that Republicans — specifically, Republican senators — have seemed more willing to defy Trump lately. Not only did 19 back the bipartisan infrastructure bill over his objections, Trump’s effort to instigate a rebellion against McConnell as majority leader has gone nowhere. (And McConnell has enjoyed reminding reporters of it.) Some Trump enemies like John Thune have decided to run for reelection despite the certainty of a Trump-backed primary, too. At the state level, Brian Kemp is seeking a second term as governor of Georgia even though no Republican apart from Liz Cheney has earned more of Trump’s wrath than him. And he stands a reasonable chance of winning despite Trump’s vocal support of David Perdue.
Polling of Republican voters also shows some intriguing signs of Trump fatigue. WaPo notes a recent YouGov poll that found 54 percent of GOPers view him “very favorably” compared to 74 percent before the insurrection. A Pew poll published in October saw just 44 percent of Republicans and leaners say they want him to run again in 2024. And a CNN poll released yesterday detected an almost even split in the same groups — 50 percent want Trump as the nominee next time versus 49 percent who want to try someone else. Just 38 percent of right-leaning independents want him on the ballot.
And yet, despite an all-out recruiting campaign spearheaded by McConnell and featuring participants as well-known as George W. Bush, the GOP has failed to recruit multiple A-list Trump enemies to run for Senate this year. In a political vacuum, Doug Ducey, Larry Hogan, and Chris Sununu would each easily be the strongest candidates Republicans could field in Arizona, Maryland, and New Hampshire, respectively. But each of them has gotten on the wrong side of Trump for various reasons, leaving them in a nasty predicament. Either they run and end up humiliated when they’re successfully primaried by some Trump-led MAGA recruit or they win their races, arrive in Washington, and find that … Trump still controls the party agenda by dint of his total domination of the House GOP. They’re under his thumb either way.
If Trump’s grip really were weakening, Ducey, Hogan, and Sununu would have every reason to know it and feel emboldened by it. McConnell and allies like Susan Collins have been at pains lately to reassure them that Trump is no longer the force in primaries that he used to be, with Collins telling the NYT, “No one should be afraid of President Trump, period.” But what are we to conclude from the fact that all three candidates passed on running except that they do think there’s still reason to fear him? Relatedly, what are we to conclude of the fact that former Never Trumper J.D. Vance is polling dismally in Ohio despite frequent appearances in MAGA media and Peter Thiel’s money behind him? Vance’s Trump-skeptic pedigree appears to have made him DOA in that race despite his desperate efforts to atone. That doesn’t sound like a party that’s moving away from Trump to me.
You think Ducey wants to deal with nonsense like this during a nasty primary?
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) February 14, 2022
If Mark Kelly ends up holding that seat in Arizona, remember whom to thank.
All of that said, I do think Trump’s obsession with 2020 could be hurting him now even among his own base. Watch Lindsey Graham:
"For [Trump] to win in 2024, he's gotta talk about the future … if he continues to talk about the 2020 election, I think it hurts his cause and quite frankly hurts the Republican Party" — Lindsey Graham on ABC pic.twitter.com/1fRrOxvjX3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 13, 2022
It’s not that most MAGA fans no longer believe the election was stolen. They’ve just moved on. They know Trump’s not going to be reinstated and are now focused on making the case against Biden ahead of November. The more he continues to babble about the last election having been rigged, they less his interests align with theirs and the more apt they are to look elsewhere for leadership. I don’t think he can help it, though; the wound to his ego will never heal. “Behind the scenes Trump has pushed back on aides, and even screamed at advisers, who have told him not to focus so much on re-litigating the last election, according to three people familiar with the matter,” WaPo reported this weekend. “One adviser recalled a recent phone call in which Trump started shouting that he won the election after a person started discussing some of the reasons he lost — and how he could improve in 2024.”
He’s obsessed and most of his fans aren’t. And my guess is that, for many of them, doubt about whether he really did lose fair and square continues to swirl in their minds even though they dutifully insist that the election was stolen when asked about it. Republicans are well aware that they’ve won the popular vote a grand total of once this century. Keeping the Democrats out of power is their highest calling, even more so than loyalty to Trump. If a Trumpish candidate with a proven track record of electability is laid before them — think DeSantis or Youngkin — and that candidate is keen to go on offense against the Biden Democrats instead of Brian Kemp and Liz Cheney, I’m not so sure that person has zero chance against Trump. But first, they have to prove they’re more electable than he is. Youngkin’s already done it. DeSantis will get his chance in Florida this November.
I’ll leave you with this. No wonder Ducey et al. didn’t want to represent this party in the Senate.
After former President Trump suggested pardons for Jan. 6, 61% of Republicans said they would support it; four in ten would oppose.
Two-thirds of Americans overall would oppose it. pic.twitter.com/ZURqQgWLdS
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 13, 2022
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