The stakes will be too high for conservative Republicans to defer and allow Trump to use the election as an extended ego trip to air his grievances on 2020.
The stakes simply will be too high for conservative Republicans to defer and allow Trump to use the election as an extended ego trip to air his grievances about 2020.
I f you spoke to any plugged-in Republican in the closing weeks of the Virginia governor’s race, you would hear something along the lines of: Glenn Youngkin is positioned to win, unless Donald Trump shows up and throws a monkey wrench into things. Terry McAuliffe, on the other hand, was so desperate for Trump to plop down in Virginia and start rambling about the stolen election that when a Trump visit didn’t happen, McAuliffe lied and pretended it did anyway.
In the end, Trump largely stayed out of the race. And though Virginia turned deep blue in the Trump era and voted for Biden by ten points last year, Youngkin won impressively. What’s significant is that he did it not only by winning back suburban voters, but also by smashing Trump’s margin in rural areas that represented Trump’s base. Simply put, without Trump on the ballot or in office, the Republican candidate did significantly better.
As they look ahead to next year’s midterms and beyond, there should be an obvious lesson for Republicans. They will be more competitive if they do not have Trump leading the party. If Republicans rally around another nominee in 2024, they have a chance to secure control of Congress and retake the White House. If they nominate Trump anyway, it puts Democrats back in the ballgame.
If there was any doubt about the damage Democrats can do when given power, this year should remove it. With a 50–50 tie in the Senate and only three votes to spare in the House, Democrats are pursuing a sweeping set of social-welfare plans. Imagine what they would do if they had a few more seats in the Senate — enough to blow up the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court.
The stakes simply will be too high in 2024 for Republicans to defer to Trump and allow him to use the election as an extended ego trip to air his grievances about 2020.
Many prominent Republicans are privately hoping that Trump simply decides not to run. Sure, this is possible. But Trump is not retiring quietly to write his memoir and take up new hobbies. He has attempted to inject himself into the national conversation on a regular basis, still maintains a political operation, and still holds rallies. So, while nobody knows his eventual plans, it would be helpful for everybody to adopt the default assumption that he is going to run rather than hope that he isn’t.
Some may argue that it is far too early to discuss the next presidential election. But the reality is that the looming question of Trump’s political plans is something that people involved in politics are discussing all the time. If he does run, to overcome his built-in advantages, any opponent would have to start laying the groundwork well in advance.
If there is any chance to deny Trump the nomination, a credible conservative needs to be willing to challenge him. Anybody who tries to run the typical anti-Republican strategy along the lines of Jon Huntsman or John Kasich won’t win anything beyond a stack of glowing magazine profiles.
Such challenges would be a gift to Trump, because it would reinforce the false binary that you’re either with Trump or with the RINO wing of the party.
Instead, there needs to be an actual conservative, or several, willing to challenge Trump. This person needs to have unimpeachable credentials on the issues and should spend the campaign discussing those issues instead of jumping at every chance to hop on CNN and denounce the Trump outrage du jour. This person wouldn’t run as an anti-Trump candidate but would be willing to argue that the Republican Party needs to move on from 2020, focus on Biden’s failures, and lay out a vision for how to fight the Left and land actual conservative policy wins.
Right now, there is some understandable trepidation among potential candidates about the prospect of challenging Trump. Were he to run, Trump would start off with a significant base of support and unrivaled media attention. Anybody who runs against him would be given the typical Trump treatment, not only potentially costing that candidate the nomination but severely damaging all future prospects. Conservative politicians who are young enough may determine, if Trump runs, that they are better off averting Trump’s fire and waiting another four years rather than incinerating their reputations among the base.
While this is an understandable concern, in presidential politics fortune favors the bold. Recent history is full of candidates who took a gamble when few gave them a shot.
In 1992, Bill Clinton won in part because many better-known candidates bailed thinking Mario Cuomo would be too formidable in the primary and George H. W. Bush, coming off his victory in the Persian Gulf War, would be unbeatable in the general election. In 2008, Barack Obama took a gamble when he challenged what was seen as the indomitable Clinton machine. There were even discussions about the primary pitting Hillzilla vs. Obambi — the idea being that Hillary Clinton would trample on the naïve and inexperienced Obama and ruin his promising political career. In 2016, Trump was a political novice, and few took him seriously when he jumped into a crowded GOP field filled with well-established candidates.
While Trump would indeed hog a lot of media attention were he to run, he would also scare away a lot of candidates. So a potential challenger is likely to be able to compete in a much less crowded field than existed in 2016, providing more of an opportunity for somebody to get noticed and consolidate the Republican voters who are ready to move on from Trump.
It’s far too early to discuss which of the potential non-Trump conservative hopefuls would be the best candidate. But it’s clear that if Republicans want to experience more nights like Tuesday and avert a more empowered Democratic Party, a credible conservative will need to be willing to challenge Trump.