A first taste of the intra-party struggles is provided by the intra-party primaries, which determine the candidate who will run for the Republican in the midterm elections to Congress and a series of gubernatorial elections in the respective state.
Although these congressional and gubernatorial elections will not take place until the fall, the spring is already hard-fought and fraught with conflict. In recent weeks, primary elections have taken place in North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon, Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota and Texas. Trump suffered a major defeat in Georgia. Other states will follow with primaries before the summer.
Trump wants to cement power in the party
Nearly 76-year-old Trump has used the primary to measure his power in the party and has endorsed candidates “by the dozen” while trying to make his mark and shape Republicans like no other former Republican president , according to the New York Times. Trump wants to use it to expand and strengthen his camp in the party in order to eliminate any competition in the party’s internal race for the candidacy for the White House in two years.
Trump endorsed candidates for nearly 200 positions, from county commissioner to governor, according to the British Guardian. However, the majority of these positions are not highly controversial and will help extend Trump’s list of victories.
Partly “ruthless and vengeful”
Trump is using his power to play his part and expressing his support for candidates who are loyal to him – much to the displeasure of his internal party competition. Other endorsements have been aimed at ousting Republican incumbents who have defied Trump’s debunked allegations of voter fraud. This is where Trump’s fight will be fought ruthlessly and vindictively, it said.
Trump’s new self-imposed role as “party leader” has soured some people. His role in the primaries as a “kingmaker” has so far only met with mixed success – and that makes him vulnerable.
Georgia “Slap in the Face”
Above all, the defeat in Georgia weakened Trump. It was like a slap in the face, according to US media. Trump-backed contender for the Southern state governor, David Perdue, lost by a wide margin to incumbent Brian Kemp. The defeated Perdue had presented himself as a particularly close Trump ally during the election campaign. The former senator regularly repeated Trump-spun allegations of alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Kemp, on the other hand, had drawn Trump’s anger for refusing to tip the outcome of the Georgia election in favor of the then president. Trump therefore regularly attacked Kemp sharply and promoted his challenger Perdue. After his intra-party victory, however, Kemp avoided criticizing Trump.
Pence, Cruz and Paul not on Trump line
Within the party, the match in Georgia was not unproblematic. Former Vice President Mike Pence openly sided with Kemp – and thus against his former boss. Pence is said to have ambitions for a presidential candidacy in 2024. Pence knows that the radical Christian right is on his side, and he himself is also called an evangelical Christian hardliner.
In addition to Pence, the well-known Republican senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have “taken the liberty”, as the “Guardian” writes, to support “their” candidates in the midterms who did not enjoy Trump’s approval. They lacked the ex-president’s ‘stolen election’ seal of approval.
Aura of Untouchability “Scratched”
The mounting defeats are also allowing other rivals to put themselves in good positions on a scale not seen since early 2016, and increasing the chances that should Trump run again in 2024, he would face serious competition, the ” New York Times” further. Trump’s previous aura of untouchability in Republican politics has been tarnished, the paper concludes.
Parts of the party are trying to push back Trump’s influence. Because they fear, among other things, that Trump’s fixation on his election defeat in 2020 and the alleged electoral fraud could harm the Republicans in the next elections, taking Georgia as an example.
Trumpism without Trump as a possibility
For example, according to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the rejection of the Trump nominee is proof that whoever keeps talking about the 2020 presidential election is a loser. McConnell thus criticized one of Trump’s major issues – his apparently still undigested defeat against Democrat Joe Biden. McConnell pleaded to look forward and not back, that’s what the electorate wants, McConnell said in “Politico” with reference to the result in Georgia.
Trump has changed the Republican Party in the past five years, according to Bill Galston of the think tank Brookings Institution in Washington in the “Guardian”. The Republicans are now a solid Trumpist majority party in all politics and tone. “On the other hand, Republicans, including very conservative ones, are clearly willing to consider the possibility of Trumpism without Trump,” Galston sees the party at a potential tipping point. Voices are also growing louder within the party, including among conservatives, who see Trumpism without Trump as pointing the way forward for the party.
Authority is challenged
Trump is also threatened with hardship from the extreme right, and his authority is also being challenged here, according to the Guardian. Some accuse Trump of not being Trumpist enough anymore. As an example, they cite an event from last year when Trump was booed – he had advised his supporters to get vaccinated against CoV.
Since then, the topic of CoV vaccination has been almost completely ignored in Trump’s public speeches. Trump has never seemed more vulnerable, according to an unnamed Republican strategist in The Hill. Of course, this is noticed and the opportunity is used to put oneself more in the limelight, according to the political adviser.
Pence looking for allies
That’s why high-ranking Republicans took their own steps towards the White House. This suggests they are no longer willing to put their own presidency career plans on hold because of Trump. For example, Pence, like other Republican politicians, is already looking for allies in the states, as a trip to Iowa showed. The campaign coffers also want to be filled.
Although Trump is currently still number one for the party’s election for the White House, as the “Washington Post” writes, he probably has to share the field with a few strong candidates – including Pence, for example.
Tight field in the battle for the candidacy for the White House
The number of potential Republican camps for the 2024 presidential election is currently still very large. According to media reports, in addition to Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama as a Republican candidate in 2012, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state under Trump and former CIA chief Marco Rubio, who defeated Trump in the 2016 Florida primary lost.
Nikki Haley, ex-governor of South Carolina and former US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, is also said to have good chances. Haley initially supported Rubio in the 2016 election and only switched to the Trump camp after his withdrawal, initially reluctantly according to his own statements. Liz Cheney, daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, is one of the few women alongside Haley who could become Trump’s competitor. However, Cheney was reprimanded by the party for serving on the investigative committee into the Capitol attack.
DeSantis with a well-stocked campaign fund
DeSantis is also seen as a great hope for the Trumpism-without-Trump faction. He pursues extremely conservative politics in Florida. For example, he wants to withdraw the right to self-government from the Disney World amusement park in Orlando because Disney is opposing a state law that prohibits teaching in elementary schools about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Florida recently tightened its abortion law: After the 15th week, abortions are only possible in exceptional cases, for example if the life of the mother is in danger or the fetus has a fatal abnormality, but not in the case of rape.
According to CNN, DeSantis has filled his campaign coffers well, already in April he reached the $100 million mark for his re-election as governor in November. However, political observers also see this as a signal that DeSantis has a good chance of becoming the Republican candidate for the White House. With Trump, on the other hand, online donations have been sparse for months, as an analysis of public data by the New York Times shows. But according to estimates, he already has more than $100 million in his campaign coffers.
Christie: Not the best way to use money
In the primaries, too, not only extreme right-wing populist attitudes, but also a lot of money is involved. The Republican Governors Association (RGA) says it is spending millions with the party’s internal primaries this year, an unusual step, writes the Washington Post. It’s not the best way to use the money, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told the newspaper, and is better spent fighting the Democrats. But it is necessary because Trump has launched a campaign of revenge and the goals he has identified must be protected, Christie said.
The dispute and thus also the financial commitment came to a head with Kemp in Georgia. Trump spent money from his campaign coffers on Purdue’s campaign. And the RGA spent five million dollars on Kemp, according to the Washington Post, citing well-informed circles.