A look ahead — to 2024:
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Former President Donald Trump talks to supporters at Mar-a-lago on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump urged to delay 2024 launch after GOP’s uneven election
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was supposed to be a red wave that former President Donald Trump could triumphantly ride to the Republican nomination as he prepares to launch another White House run.
Instead, Tuesday night’s disappointing results for the GOP are raising new questions about Trump’s appeal and the future of a party that has fully embraced him, seemingly at its peril, while at the same time giving new momentum to his most potent potential rival.
Indeed, some allies were calling on Trump to delay his planned announcement next week, saying the party’s full focus needs to be on Georgia, where Trump-backed football great Herschel Walker’s effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is headed to a runoff that could determine control of the Senate once again.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” said former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who spent the night with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now,” he said.
Trump sought to use the midterms as an opportunity to prove his enduring political influence after losing the White House in 2020. He endorsed more than 330 candidates in races up and down the ballot, often elevating inexperienced and deeply flawed candidates. He reveled in their primary victories. But many of their positions, including echoing Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and embracing hardline views on abortion, were out of step with the political mainstream. Full story:
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AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
Incumbent Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis holds his son Mason as he celebrates winning reelection, at an election night party in Tampa, Fla, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
Planning for DeSantis 2024 bid takes off after resounding Florida win
Amid growing chatter about his political future and in the face of recent outbursts directed his way from an increasingly agitated Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rarely engaged in the speculation or mudslinging. He insisted a statement victory in his bid for a second term needed to precede any discussion of 2024.
On Tuesday night, that statement came in the form of a 19-point landslide win over Democrat Charlie Crist — the most lopsided victory by a Republican gubernatorial nominee in Florida history and a gap that dwarfed Trump’s own Sunshine State win in 2020. Within minutes of the polls closing, DeSantis’ Tampa election night party burst into euphoria as the totality and breadth of his resounding performance began to crystalize. DeSantis had turned once-solidly blue counties red, won over a majority of Latino voters and carried on his coattails Republican candidates up and down the ballot and in every corner of the state.
“We not only won election, we have rewritten the political map,” DeSantis declared to his supporters before confetti rained down on him and his family. Some in the crowd urged him to consider a White House bid by chanting, “Two more years!”
The outcome in Florida was a bright spot for Republicans, who otherwise waited for a red wave that never arrived and watched Trump-backed candidates flounder in key battlegrounds. And the reaction within the GOP has only further fueled momentum for DeSantis to run for president and take on Trump head-on next year.
“DeFuture,” read Wednesday’s front page of the New York Post, owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Within Florida, DeSantis allies are already huddling about what comes next. Even before Election Day, there was a strong sense among those in his orbit that DeSantis would likely launch a presidential campaign regardless of whether Trump did the same. Multiple sources told CNN that DeSantis in recent months has privately suggested to donors that Trump’s divisiveness is a hindrance to enacting conservative priorities, a marked shift in how the governor has discussed his former ally.
After Tuesday, more Republicans have gone public in suggesting that the former president’s influence is dragging down the GOP. One source close to DeSantis’ political operation told CNN that he expected the governor to make a decision “soon after inauguration” in January, though he may not publicize it.
DeSantis, the source added, “must take action” and capitalize on Trump’s midterms setback.
“There’s no way to deny Donald Trump got fired Tuesday night,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who has been critical of Trump, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday. “The search committee has brought a few names to the top of the list and Ron DeSantis is one of them. I think Ron DeSantis is being rewarded for a new thought process with Republicans and that solid leadership.” Full story:
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Here’s a ranking of potential 2024 candidates from earlier this year
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10. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas: I wrestled with who should get the final spot on the list -- considering Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley among others. I eventually settled on Cotton because a) I think he is the smartest politician of that group b) he represents the sort of muscular conservatism that I think very much would appeal to Trump voters if the former President isn't in the race and c) he will outwork almost any one else in the race. Cotton's challenges are clear: He would have to prove he could raise money to be competitive and he would have lots of work to do to raise his name identification among GOP base voters.
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9. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida: Scott has been perennially underestimated in his political career. First, people said that he couldn't win the governorship. He served two terms in the job. Then they said he couldn't get elected to the Senate; he knocked off longtime Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to do just that in 2018. Scott's ambitions are clearly national in scope; his decision to release a policy agenda that he wants to implement if Republicans retake control of the Senate in 2023 is proof of that.
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8. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Two things are true about the Virginia governor: 1) He was just elected to his first public office in 2021 and 2) He is term limited out of that job in 2025. That second point means that Youngkin, necessarily, is already keeping one eye on his future. His successful win in Virginia in 2021 was widely touted as evidence that the GOP can keep the Trump base of the party happy while also appealing to critical swing, suburban voters. I tend to think Youngkin is more VP material in the end but the success and notoriety derived from his 2021 campaign means he can't be ignored if he goes for the top job.
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7. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gets the most 2024 buzz among the Republican state executives -- more on that below -- Abbott has effectively used his perch as the top elected official in Texas to position himself for a presidential race as well. Abbott has been open about his interest in the race -- "We'll see what happens," he said in the wake of the 2020 election -- but has to win his reelection bid against former Rep. Beto O'Rourke first.
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6. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley: You can count on one hand the number of high-profile Trump appointees who left the administration on good terms with the former president. Haley, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, is one of them. "She's done a fantastic job and we've done a fantastic job together," Trump said when Haley left in 2018. "We've solved a lot of problems and we're in the process of solving a lot of problems." But, Haley has also publicly flip-flopped on Trump; she was openly critical of him in the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol before falling in line behind him once it became clear that the party's base didn't view January 6 as disqualifying for the former president.
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5. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas: Don't forget that the Texas senator was the runner-up to Trump in the 2016 presidential race. And that, after a rocky relationship with Trump during the fall of 2016, Cruz has gone out of his way to make nice with the man who suggested his father might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Cruz's stronger-than-expected 2016 run should not be discounted -- he has organizations in early states and a national fundraising base that is unmatched by those below him on this list.
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4. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina: Like a number of people on this list, it's hard to imagine the South Carolina Senator running for president if Trump is in the field. (Scott is on record as saying he would back a Trump 2024 campaign.) But, in a Trump-less field, Scott is deeply intriguing: He is the first Black senator elected from the Deep South since Reconstruction and the first Black Republican to serve in the Senate since 1979. He's built a reliably conservative (and pro Trump) record during his nine years in the Senate while showing a willingness to work across the aisle when possible. If Republicans decide they need a new face to lead their party, Scott is at the front of that line.
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3. Former Vice President Mike Pence: I really struggled on where the former vice president belonged on this list. On the one hand, he has been disowned by Trump (and the former president's loyalists) for refusing to overturn the 2020 electoral college results. On the other, Pence has tons of residual name identification from his four years as vice president and retains a solid base of support among religious conservatives. The New York Times reported last month that Pence is trying to edge away from Trump as he considers running in 2024. That's going to be a very delicate dance.
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2. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: There's a clear gap between the Florida governor and the rest of the Republican field not named "Donald Trump." DeSantis even managed to beat out the former President in a straw poll conducted at a Colorado conservative political conference over the weekend. DeSantis can't take his eye off the ball -- he is running for a second term this fall -- but he has, to date, very effectively used his day job as a way to boost his national profile.
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1. Former President Donald Trump: If you want to find cracks in the Trump foundation, you can do it; his endorsed candidates in governor's races in places like Georgia, Nebraska and Idaho lost primaries earlier this year. But, that would miss the forest for the trees. The simple fact is that Trump remains the prime mover in Republican Party politics. If he runs -- and I absolutely believe he will -- he starts in a top tier all his own. The nomination is quite clearly his to lose -- which doesn't mean he can't lose it.
