Donald Trump, who inspired deadly riots in the Capitol in a desperate bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has announced he will run for president again in 2024.
“I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump, 76, said as he held large American flags at his Mar-a-Lago club and Palms home in Fla.
The announcement — and official filing — came a week after the 2022 midterm elections, which saw Trump-backed Republican candidates underperform in key Senate races and competitive House elections. As a result, the Democrats were able to retain control of the Senate.
“America’s comeback begins now,” Trump said, adding, “Your country is collapsing before your eyes.”
The dark vision echoed Trump’s inaugural address of a country suffering from “American genocide” and needed him to fix it.
The Trump race sets up a potential rematch against President Joe Biden, who turns 80 on Sunday and says he wants to run for re-election in 2024.
Exit polls show inflation is the top issue with midterm election voters. They said they trust Republicans over Democrats on this issue by a wider margin. And the electorate was nearly three-quarters white, reversing a decades-long trend of declining white voters as a share of the midterm electorate.
And yet, Republicans achieved less — and fingers are being pointed in Trump’s direction, even from within his own party.
Outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in this country, buoyed Democrats in these elections. But voters also sent a message that they didn’t want extremes, rejecting Trump candidates up and down the ballot who peddled their baseless campaign lies.
Republicans lost competitive Senate races in purple states like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona and Nevada. Democrats could extend their majority with another election three weeks from now in Georgia, with yet another Trump supporter who has put up a strong fight.
As for the House, Republicans remain in control, but with a much smaller majority than they had hoped for, hampering their ability to pass legislation next year.
The Cook Political Report favored Trump in 21 of the 64 House race contests rated as toss-ups or leaning one way or the other. Only seven have won. It was even worse for Trump candidates in the most competitive races. Of the three dozen toss-up races, Trump endorsed nine candidates. Only one has won.
And yet, Trump is launching another run for president and falsely claiming that his candidates did well, despite evidence that his brand and his style of politics have proven radioactive in competitive states and districts over several consecutive election cycles.
Trump’s move shows a degree of weakness — an attempt to freeze the GOP presidential field and force Republican elected officials to come off the sidelines and support him.
He doesn’t want to give oxygen to any potential challengers who may be sensing an opportunity, especially someone like Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
What about “DeFuture”?
Many in the party have begun to openly question whether it’s a good idea to keep their vehicle running while former presidents, especially Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are waiting in the wings.
DeSantis won re-election as Florida governor last week. He is a staunch conservative and has drawn controversy for flying immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard and other liberal cities and enclaves, widely seen as a disciplined version of Trump.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, which turned on Trump in revelations from a Jan. 6 congressional committee hearing, called DeSantis a “de-future” — and Trump a “Trumpty Dumpty,” who “couldn’t build the wall” and was “a big loser.”
Some conservative groups also released polls — too soon after the midterm results — showing DeSantis beating Trump in early presidential primary states and places like Texas.
The message was clear – it’s time for someone.
But Trump’s hold on the GOP base cannot be underestimated. There are other moments when the “fever” could have been broken but never has been — not by criticizing the late Republican Sen. John McCain as a war hero, not by accessing a Hollywood tape in which he bragged about assaulting women, not two. Dozens of women accused him of sexual harassment or assault, not even the January 6 uprising.
But this latest setback could threaten what Republican officials care about most — winning.
As the party is in the reckoning for the next two years, its resolve will be tested.
Trump seems fearless and ready for a fight
He recently nicknamed DeSantis Ron “DeSanctimonious” and touted the polls before Election Day, saying they would make him look good in a hypothetical GOP presidential primary.
He has taken to his own social media platform – which he formed when he booted from mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook to spread disinformation and incite rebellion – to blast naysayers, the media and spread baseless election conspiracies.
Expect the same again from candidate Trump.
But it’s hard for his party to escape the reality that Trump’s brand hasn’t played well in purple states since the beginning of his time on the national stage, especially now that they’ve suffered because of it.
He may have won the presidential election in 2016, but many swing states were very close, and he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.
In the 2018 midterms, his party lost 40 House seats and control of the chamber.
Four years into his presidency, after many voters saw him rejecting his continued work and mishandling the coronavirus pandemic, Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020.
Many swing states were close, but he also lost the popular vote by 7 million votes.
Instead of conceding, and with no other off-ramp to explain his loss, Trump retrenched and cried fraud.
After recounts, audits and dozens of court cases, Biden’s election was repeatedly upheld. Yet Trump continued with the lies and led rank-and-file Republicans to turn to dangerous conspiracies that eroded their faith in the electoral system.
The courts have proven that the 2020 election was fair and there was very little fraud, certainly not enough to overturn the results.
Despite that, Trump has built his false narrative of a stolen election as a litmus test for supporters in these midterms. They bought in the primaries and many lost in the general election, giving Democrats seats that might have been won by non-electoral Republicans.
Widely unpopular—except among the Republican base
Most Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of the former president. But, at least before the midterm elections, he was the most popular and powerful figure within the Republican Party.
Despite recent losses, he continues to be the favorite for the GOP presidential nomination. It will take a lot to defeat him — time, money and fighting, yes, the GOP establishment in many ways. The Republican National Committee and many state parties are now filled with Trump acolytes.
Trump’s grip on the party seemed to be loosening this past summer because of the time and distance between the Jan. 6 hearings and his removal from power. But the FBI search of Trump’s Florida home seemed to ironically strengthen his grip, as GOP base voters saw Trump as a victim.
And the former president has always used victimhood, especially white victimhood and grievance, as fuel for his political fires.
There are many others waiting in the wings
It’s not just DeSantis who could challenge Trump for the nomination. And it’s unclear if DeSantis will. He is only 44 years old and will likely tread carefully to unsettle a base of loyal — and he hopes, perhaps formerly loyal — Trump supporters.
Other Republicans are also circling, positioning themselves and making moves for a 2024 presidential run, such as Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
Trump’s unorthodox move to officially step in now is an attempt to thwart those efforts, clear the field and focus attention on him, especially as he faces multiple civil and criminal investigations in several states. Trump is also facing a criminal investigation into his finances, including his tax filings and how the Trump Organization is run, and he is fighting several lawsuits.
A Trump vs. Biden rematch?
Trump’s announcement comes as Biden faces several political challenges. Biden’s popularity has taken a hit, as inflation continues to rise, gas prices rise and variations of the coronavirus pandemic continue to pop up.
Biden was widely panned for his chaotic execution following the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan under the Trump administration.
While Trump leaned against Biden largely because he lost significant support from large swathes of suburban and independent voters across the country, he retained significant support among Republican voters.
Biden, on the other hand, has struggled to unseat his base. In this era of extreme polarization, the way to get elected is to maintain the president’s popularity with his own party and win over the narrow sliver of swing voters left in the country.
As president, Trump often raised cultural grievances
Trump’s victory in 2016 was one of the most surprising results in American history. He became an unpopular president, who made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims while in office, was impeached twice, and whom Americans viewed as the coronavirus pandemic was wrong.
It helped Trump lose his re-election bid to Biden. But now, with Biden’s popularity waning and the economy faltering at an uncertain moment, Trump sees an opportunity to rise back to power.
During his tenure as president, Trump weaponized white cultural grievances, right-wing nationalism and, ironically, considering his status as an Ivy League-educated billionaire, an anti-elite economic populism.
Nativism was the foundation of Trump’s 2016 candidacy and subsequent presidency — he campaigned on building a wall to keep Spanish-speaking immigrants out of the United States; In his early days in office, he banned people from some predominantly Muslim countries from entering the country. He exacerbated racial tensions, such as when he attacked Charlottesville, Va. There were “a lot of good people” on both sides of a white nationalist protest in , where one counter-protester was killed; And he routinely exaggerated the dangers to incite anger and fear among many Americans.
“[T]rime, and gangs, and drugs that have stolen so many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential,” Trump said in his 2017 inaugural address, despite the country seeing an overall decline in violence. crime
“This American carnage stops here and stops now,” Trump said in a standing line from his first speech as president.
With violent crime on the rise in big cities, Republicans have used the issue in these midterm elections to galvanize their voters — and it’s undoubtedly a plan Trump will use again.
Trump’s policies favor conservatives
Many Republicans would say privately, on Capitol Hill, that they didn’t like Trump personally, but were still supporting him — despite the chaos they often witnessed during his presidency.
This confused many on the left, but the reason was that Trump agreed with conservatives on many policies.
He enacted tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy and corporations, installed three conservative-leaning justices on the Supreme Court and oversaw a period of economic growth — until the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe.
The appointment of those judges has yielded results for conservatives, 50 years at maturity. The court in Roe v. Overturned Wade outright, sending abortion policy back to the states and closing access to abortion for millions of women in this country. The court has also upheld the rights of gun owners and appears poised to further embrace conservative social structures in future terms that will have ramifications for generations to come.
Continuing lies about losing the election
After losing re-election, Trump refused to concede and went with the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power by leaving Washington hours before Biden’s inauguration. He invented the hoax claim, saying the “real rebellion” came in an effort to downplay the deadly attack on January 6, election day, and was inspired by his own words at a rally hours earlier.
Personally, he unsuccessfully pressured state and federal officials to take unprecedented and illegal actions to reverse his defeat.
It gave him an exit ramp without ever admitting defeat. Despite audits and reviews in many states, there is zero evidence of widespread fraud.
Even considering his role in the Jan. 6 uprising, most Republican officials have declined to criticize the 45th president for fear of the GOP base and possible retribution. Wyoming Rep. Those who did, like Liz Cheney, faced her wrath from Trump-backed primary challengers. Cheney lost his re-election bid, as did other Republicans who voted to impeach him. In fact, only two of the 10 Trump House Republican impeachments remained on the ballot.
Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump, was eliminated in the GOP primary, and ironically, a Democrat won the seat for Washington State’s 3rd Congressional District.
Trump has the money to run again — raising hundreds of millions of dollars through his political ventures.
His formal declaration for the presidency means he will consolidate Republican resources, as the former real-estate developer and reality TV star gets to retread familiar ground — a stonewalled outsider, rather than an insider president responsible for the country’s security and prosperity.