When he announced his new election campaign on Tuesday, the Mar-a-Lago event was populated with a slew of alt-right figures and die-hard Trump supporters, but almost no major politicians once thought to be in Trump’s corner, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R--GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), or Jim Jordan (R-OH), or RNC chair Ronna McDaniel - to say nothing of the party’s leaders in Congress. However, Greene, Gaetz, and several other minor GOP lawmakers have still endorsed him.
The way Trump tells it, he likes it that way. At his announcement speech on Tuesday, he cast himself not as a former head of state, but as he did in the 2016 race: an outsider running against the entire US political system.
“I don’t like to think of myself as a politician, but I guess that’s what I am. I hate that thought,” Trump said. “We will be resisted by the combined forces of the establishment, the media, the special interests, the globalists, the Marxist radicals, the corporations, the weaponized power of the federal government, the colossal political machines, the tidal wave of dark money, and the most dangerous domestic censorship system ever created by man or woman.”
Trump’s relationship with the GOP has waxed and waned since 2015, with Republicans first objecting to his campaign, then rallying behind him after his victory, then turning against him again after the failed insurrection by his supporters on January 6, 2021. While some in the GOP continued to back him, others latched on to parts of his message, such as the alleged problem of voter fraud, while keeping their distance from the former POTUS.
When asked if he would endorse Trump’s campaign, US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters: “you guys are crazy.”
McCarthy has gone back and forth on supporting Trump, and is at odds with much of the small-but loud “Freedom Caucus,” a pro-Trump cohort in the House. According to media reports, McCarthy’s bid to become House speaker has seen him trying to court some of that caucus for support, even as members like Gaetz try to undermine his campaign.
Other prominent Republican figures have spoken openly against Trump, including former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, both of whom have said since the election last week that Trump’s message, as told through the candidates he endorsed, had cost them the “red wave” they had predicted.
“I thought he was right on target in terms of his criticism of Biden’s policies, but then he drifted into the same grievances and negative tone that we have seen before that has cost us elections,” Hutchinson said of Trump when asked by The Washington Post. “I am confident that there will be good alternatives in 2024.”
"I think Trump's kind of a drag on our ticket,” Ryan said earlier this week. “I think Donald Trump gives us problems, politically. We lost the House, the Senate and the White House in two years when Trump was on the ballot, or in office. I think we just have some Trump hangover. I think he's a drag on our office, on our races."
“What’s nice is that the Republicans actually have a bench for once,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) told The Hill.
Many of the GOP figures who’ve spoken with US media in recent days said they had more immediate priorities than Trump’s campaign, such as getting Herschel Walker elected to the US Senate in Georgia’s special election next month, and various mundane legislative concerns. Many also said they found Trump’s decision to announce so close to the election, while some races are still having their ballots counted, to be distracting.
While the Republicans have won a very narrow majority in the US House of Representatives, they failed to capture the Senate, and enjoyed middling success with state gubernatorial races. The GOP had predicted a “red wave” of conservative victories due to US President Joe Biden’s lackluster term thus far, the unstable state of the economy, the Democrats’ support for issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights, and the historic trend of the president’s party faring worse in the midterms.
Many of the GOP candidates who lost their elections were backed by Trump, who gave his own endorsements separately from rival leading GOP figures, such as his former vice president, Mike Pence, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Ahead of Trump’s anticipated announcement on Tuesday, Pence told the New York Times, “I think we’ll have better choices.”
Pence notably parted ways with Trump over the president’s rejection of the 2020 election results, which he claimed Biden won through fraud. Trump supporters later erected a gallows outside the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection, in which they sought to capture key members of Congress and overturn the election results.
Trump’s attempt to influence congressional leadership contests has also fared poorly, with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Trump’s pick for Senate minority leader, getting few votes in his challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the GOP’s longtime Senate leader and longtime Trump opponent. It’s also unclear if McCarthy, who Trump has spoken in favor of, will triumph in his bid to become House speaker.