FPresident Ormer Donald Trump He said Tuesday that he would launch a third campaign for the White House, getting an early start to the campaign 2024 Competition. The announcement comes just a week after Republicans’ disappointing midterm bid and will force the party to decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat pushed him back in 2020. American Democracy is on the brink.
Tonight I am announcing my candidacy for the office of President United StateTrump told an audience of several hundred supporters, club members and press gathered in a chandelier-adorned ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club, where he stood alongside more than 30 American flags and banners that read “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump enters the race at a moment of political weakness. He had hoped to launch his campaign on the heels of the GOP’s resounding midterm victories, fueled by the candidates he mounted during this year’s primaries. Instead, many of those candidates lost, allowing the Democrats to keep the Senate and leaving the GOP a path to only a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Far from the undisputed leader of the party, trump He now faces criticism from some of his allies, who say the time has come Republicans To look to the future, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis He emerged as an early contender favorite for the White House.
He will have to face a competitive Republican primary this time around
The former president remains popular with the Republican base. But other Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, are making increasingly public moves toward campaigns of their own, raising the possibility that Trump will have to fight a competitive Republican primary.
He is launching his candidacy amid a series of escalating criminal investigations, several of which could lead to charges. It includes the investigation of the dozens of classified documents it seized FBI from Mar-a-Lago and ongoing state and federal investigations into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Another campaign is a remarkable turn for any former president, let alone one who made history as the first to be impeached twice and whose term ended with his supporters storming the Capitol in a deadly attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6. , 2021.
Keen to stem the rise of his Republican rivals
But Trump, according to people close to him, has been eager to get back into politics and try to stem the rise of other potential challengers. Aides have spent the past months processing paperwork, identifying potential hires and outlining a campaign modeled on his 2016 operation, when between rallies aboard his private jet a small group of aides defied the odds and defeated far better-funded and more experienced opponents by leveraging Deep political fault lines and the use of shocking data to capture media attention relentlessly.
Even after the GOP losses, Trump remains the strongest force in his party. For years he has been constantly topping his mate republican Competitors by wide margins in virtual head-to-head matches. Even out of office, he consistently draws thousands to his rallies and remains his party’s most prolific fundraiser, raising hundreds of millions of dollars.
Donald Trump: The personality is very polarizing
But Trump is also a deeply polarizing figure. Fifty-four percent of voters in last week’s midterm elections thought he was very or somewhat ill, according to AP VoteCast, a poll of more than 94,000 voters nationwide. And an AP-NORC poll in October found that even Republicans have reservations about him remaining the party’s standard-bearer, with 43% saying they don’t want to see him run for president in 2024.
Trump’s candidacy raises profound questions about America’s democratic future. The final days of his presidency were consumed in a desperate effort to stay in power, undermining centuries-old traditions of peaceful transition. And in the two years since his loss, Trump’s constant lies – and baseless – about widespread election fraud have eroded confidence in the country’s political process. By late January 2021, about two-thirds of Republicans said they did not believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, according to the AP-NORC poll.
VoteCast showed that many Republican voters in the midterm elections continued to hold that belief.
Federal and state election officials and Trump’s attorney general have said there is no credible evidence that the 2020 election was tainted. Several courts, including judges, have also rejected the former president’s allegations of fraud trump eye.
But that didn’t stop hundreds of midterm candidates from repeating his lies as they sought to win over his loyal base and garner his coveted endorsement. In the end, many of these candidates lost their races in a sign that voters rejected such extreme rhetoric.
While some Republicans with presidential ambitions, such as former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have long ruled out running for Trump, others said he would not consider their decisions, even before his midterm loss.
They include Pence, who released a book on Tuesday, and Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, as well as the former governor of New Jersey. Chris Christiewho ran against Trump in 2016. Other possible candidates include a Texas senator. Ted CruzSouth Carolina Senator. Tim Scott and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Trump is also likely to face challenges from members of the anti-Trump wing of the party such as the governor of Maryland. Larry Hogan and Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, deputy chair of the House committee that was investigating Jan. 6.
But the person who has busied Trump and his allies the most in recent months is DeSantis, whose re-election as governor last week was a bright spot for Republicans this cycle. The former congressman, who became a popular national figure among conservatives during the pandemic as he backed away from COVID-19 restrictions, shares Trump’s instincts for fawning and picks fights on social issues with equal fervor.
Some ardent Trump supporters even say they are eager for DeSantis to run, seeing him as a natural successor to Trump but without the heft of the former president.
Trump has already begun publicly criticizing DeSantis. On Tuesday, Florida’s governor responded.
“At the end of the day I’m going to have people go check the scoreboard last Tuesday night,” DeSantis told reporters.
A crowded field of GOP challengers could finally come into play trumpadvantage, as in 2016, when he beat more than a dozen other candidates who split the anti-Trump vote.
Trump’s decision paves the way for a possible rematch with Biden, who has said he intends to run for re-election despite concerns from some in his party about his age and low approval ratings. The two men were already the oldest presidential candidates ever when they ran in 2020. Trump, who is 76, will turn 82 at the end of a second term in 2029. Biden, who will be 80, will be 86.
If he ultimately succeeds, Trump will be the second US president in history to serve two non-consecutive terms, following the victories of Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892.
But Trump enters the race facing daunting challenges that go beyond his party’s growing concerns. The ex-president is under numerous investigations, including the months-long investigation into hundreds of classified documents found in boxes at the Mar-a-Lago.
Meanwhile, Trump faces Justice Department scrutiny over efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis is investigating what she claims is a “multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign” to influence the 2020 results.
He still faces criminal tax fraud charges
And in New York, Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump, alleging that his namesake company engaged in decades-long fraudulent bookkeeping by misleading banks about the value of his assets. The Trump Organization is also on trial, facing criminal charges of tax fraud.
Some in Trump’s orbit believe the run will help protect him from possible indictment, but there is no legal statute preventing the Justice Department from moving forward — or preventing Trump from continuing to run if he is indicted.
It was no secret what he was planning.
At the White House Christmas party in December 2020, Trump told guests it had been “four amazing years.”
“We are trying to complete another four years,” he said. “Otherwise, I will see you in four years.”
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