Romney, one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment, recently encouraged fellow Republicans donating to 2024 GOP presidential campaigns to pressure candidates who are not proving competitive to get out of the race so Trump doesn’t have to run against a larger field, which could give him an advantage in getting the party nomination.
“Who is a worse Senator, John 'The Stiff' Cornyn of Texas, or Mitt 'The Loser' Romney of Massachusetts (Utah?)?” Trump asked on Truth Social. “They are both weak, ineffective, and very bad for the Republican Party, and our Nation. With even modestly skilled opposition, they’ll lose their next Election. Who could ever forget Mitt proudly marching, with full mask, down a once proud Washington, D.C. street with BLM and Rioters? Likewise there’s Cornyn, always quick to surrender to the Dems, giving them anything they want?”
Trump last year strongly criticized Cornyn for negotiating bipartisan gun safety legislation, calling him a “RINO” — Republican in name only — and said he and other Republicans were helping facilitate the taking away of Americans' guns.
Cornyn said in May he will support someone other than Trump in 2024.
“We need to come up with an alternative,” he said on a call with Texas reporters. “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by and what’s the most important thing to me is we have a candidate who can actually win.”
President Biden said Thursday that he is headed to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R) district in Georgia to tout investments in manufacturing and his economic agenda.
“Since I took office, we’ve seen over 60 domestic manufacturing announcements all across the solar supply chain. One of the biggest is in Dalton, Georgia," the president said during remarks in South Carolina. "You may find it hard to believe, but that’s Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district. I’ll be there for the groundbreaking."
He was visiting the company Flex LTD to tout $500 billion in investments that private companies have made in manufacturing and clean energy during his administration.
Greene has emerged as one of Biden’s top critics on Capitol Hill and the president recently has been targeting Republican lawmakers who did not vote for his agenda but have hailed new investments in their states.
In South Carolina, Biden called out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for supporting part of his agenda while still joining every GOP lawmaker in voting against the Inflation Reduction Act last year.
While the White House did not confirm when the president will be heading to Georgia —another GOP stronghold like South Carolina — they shared that he will be showcasing how his "Bidenomics" agenda has brought jobs there.
“President Biden looks forward to showcasing how Bidenomics is bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs to Georgia,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “Bidenomics centers on growing the middle class, and is delivering the biggest manufacturing surge in decades."
"Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are attempting to repeal many of the policies that are fueling that manufacturing resurgence so they can cut taxes for the wealthy," Bates added.
The White House picked a fight with Greene, a close ally of former President Trump, last month after her hometown newspaper touted federal public safety grants the area was set to receive through the American Rescue Plan. Greene voted against the plan in March 2021 along with every other House Republican.
The Georgia lawmaker is also an ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and supported him for the top House spot, breaking with the her House Freedom Caucus colleagues that opposed him. The Freedom Caucus voted this week to remove her from its ranks.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) questioned whether former President Trump is the strongest Republican candidate to run against President Biden in 2024, even as he expressed confidence Trump could beat Biden.
“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can. The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer,” McCarthy said on CNBC on Tuesday morning. “But can somebody, anybody beat Biden? Yeah, anybody can beat Biden. Can Biden beat other people? Yes, Biden can beat ‘em. It's on any given day.”
"Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen mentioned how Trump’s legal woes are complicating his candidacy. Those include indictments over his handling of classified documents after he left office and a 2016 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The comments prompted pushback from some on the right, with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon saying on his “War Room” show that Trump made a mistake supporting McCarthy as Speaker.
The Speaker appeared to clean up his comments hours later to Breitbart News, saying that Trump is “stronger today than he was in 2016” and is “Biden’s strongest political opponent,” pointing to his poll numbers.
“As usual, the media is attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans as our committees are holding Biden’s DOJ accountable for their two-tiered levels of justice,” McCarthy told Breitbart. “The only reason Biden is using his weaponized federal government to go after President Trump is because he is Biden’s strongest political opponent, as polling continues to show.”
McCarthy on CNBC had earlier expressed confidence in Trump defeating Biden if he is the GOP nominee.
“Can Trump beat Biden? Yeah, he can beat Biden,” McCarthy said.
“The Republicans get to select their nominee. If you want to go for sheer policy to policy, it’s not good for Republicans; it’s good for America. Trump’s policies are better, straight-forward, than Biden’s policies,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy’s uncertainty about whether Trump is the strongest candidate is notable given how close the Speaker has remained to the former president. Although McCarthy said in the aftermath of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, that Trump bore some responsibility for the attack, he visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago weeks later. Last week, McCarthy backed proposals to expunge Trump’s two impeachments.
But there is skepticism about Trump in McCarthy’s conference. A few members are outwardly critical of the former president in the wake of the indictments, and others have endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
McCarthy has not yet endorsed any candidate in the presidential race, but he has said he might.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is fundraising off a late Wednesday vote by House Republicans to censure him over his comments criticizing alleged ties between former President Trump and Russia.
Schiff’s campaign for Senate in California said in an email sent out after the vote that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) took up the resolution against him for his efforts trying to hold Trump accountable.
“This is not just a political stunt to rile up the MAGA base — it’s an attack on all accountability and constitutional oversight,” Schiff said in the email. “But make no mistake: If they thought this was going to deter me from holding Trump and his accomplices accountable or delivering real results for California and our nation, they thought wrong.”
Schiff is running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) He is also facing California Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee in what could be a hotly contested Democratic primary. He has become a controversial figure among the GOP over his accusations of Trump colluding with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign and his role in leading the first impeachment inquiry against Trump in 2020.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper late Wednesday, Schiff said he plans to wear the censure as a “badge of honor.” He noted the resolution to censure him previously failed last week with 20 Republicans voting in favor of tabling it, but Trump warned after that vote that any Republican voting against the resolution should face a primary challenge.
“So basically, this is Trump and MAGA world going after someone they think is effective in standing up to them,” Schiff said on CNN.
He also said he does not have any regrets about how he handled the allegations surrounding Trump and Russia and said the investigation into Trump’s misconduct was “very important.”
The investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election concluded that Russia took steps to interfere with the election and help elect Trump, but investigators did not find evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign. Multiple Trump associates pleaded guilty or were found guilty of charges stemming from the probe.
Schiff said in his fundraising email that he will continue his work to hold “MAGA Republicans” accountable and called on his supporters to help “push back against these attacks on our democracy.”
Trump similarly tried to raise money earlier this month off the backlash to his federal indictment for the classified and sensitive documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago property last year, bringing in more than $6.5 million in the days after the charges were unsealed.
Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) announced Thursday night he will not run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, allowing Republicans to breathe easy and opening a clear path for David McCormick to take on Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) next year.
Mastriano made the news official during a Facebook Live event mere months after he lost the state's gubernatorial contest to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) by nearly 15 points.
"At this time, we have decided not to run for the U.S. Senate, but to continue to serve in Harrisburg," Mastriano said. "I know for some that will be disappointing. For others, it won't be disappointing because you're like, 'Who's going to fill his seat? Who's going to be our voice in Harrisburg?'"
"We need to beat [Casey]. While I have decided not to run, someone else will decide to run, and someone else will win the primary next year and be the nominee. Whoever is that nominee, I will support them," he continued. "We hope you will too because I don't want any other Republican candidate to go through what we went through last year when our own party betrayed us."
A bid by Mastriano, a hard-line conservative who won former President Trump's endorsement in 2022, would not have been greeted kindly by many top Republicans, who believe that in losing the governor's mansion, he hurt the party in congressional contests and in state legislature races, including the GOP's loss of the state House.
Mastriano’s decision means the road is wide open for McCormick, who narrowly lost the state's GOP Senate primary last year to Mehmet Oz, to nab the party’s nomination to take on Casey.
McCormick has yet to decide on whether to launch a second straight Senate bid, but he is expected to do so later this summer or in the fall as establishment GOP forces line up behind him.
“I thank Doug for his years of military and public service and his dedication to Pennsylvania,” McCormick said in a statement. "I am seriously considering a run for the U.S. Senate because Bob Casey has consistently made life worse for Pennsylvania families over the past 18 years, and our state deserves better."
"We need a Republican nominee who can build a broad coalition of Pennsylvanians to defeat Bob Casey and improve the lives of Pennsylvania families," he added.
The potential candidate-in-waiting has remained in the news throughout the year with the rollout of a book and an ongoing book tour. He has also kept up meetings across the state with party leaders, including at the county level.
Among those pushing for him to run is Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has made clear he believes McCormick is the type of candidate who can win a primary and a general election matchup against the three-term Senate Democrat with a legendary name in Pennsylvania politics.
“[McCormick] would be a candidate that I think unites Republicans in Pennsylvania and he’d be a very strong candidate in the primary and the general,” Daines said in March.
In addition, the Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has also signaled its backing of the former Bridgewater Associates CEO.
The Pennsylvania Senate contest is widely expected to be one of the most expensive on the 2024 map, with sources telling The Hill the nominee is expected to need at least $100 million for the potential brawl. McCormick could dip into his own bank account to help fund his efforts, though he is not expected to do so after he dropped $14 million into last year’s primary contest in only five months.
Casey won his seat in 2006 by defeating then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). He has also handily won reelection twice, having most recently defeated then-Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) by a 13-point margin.
Democrats had been salivating at the possibility of Mastriano entering the race. Shapiro’s team last year spent $3 million to boost Mastriano in a seven-candidate field and ensure he would be their general election opponent.
“Tonight Mastriano threatened that he and his supporters will continue looming over Republicans in Pennsylvania, which will make their Senate Primary dynamics in even messier — and guarantee whichever candidate emerges will be badly damaged and out of step with the voters who will decide the general election," the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said in a statement.
Mastriano’s performance last year also seemed to turn off former President Trump, who reportedly was opposed to him entering the race and did not plan to endorse him in a potential Senate bid.
Trump, of course, spoke harshly of McCormick during his Senate bid last year, likening him to former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who voted to convict the president in his second impeachment trial over his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and called him a “liberal Wall Street Republican.”
The Biden-Harris 2024 reelection campaign outlined its road to victory Thursday, a plan that includes expanding the map, building on its 2020 and 2022 coalition and breaking through the media environment.
The road to victory also includes focusing on issues Americans care about and running as a united front, according to a memo obtained by The Hill. The memo, entitled “The Road to Victory in 2024” was sent by campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez to interested parties Thursday.
In its effort to expand the map, the campaign will invest early in ad buys in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. To try to build on the 2020 and 2022 coalition, the campaign plans to focus on suburban voters “particularly motivated by Republican attacks on reproductive rights,” Rodriguez said. Additionally, they will focus on Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander voters.
To try to break through the media environment, which Rodriguez describes is fragmented, they will “use innovative strategies to break through and connect with voters where they are” by “leveraging people’s personal networks, through amplifying core messages online, and having personal conversations offline,” she said.
And in order ensure it focuses on the American people, Rodriguez said the campaign will work to highlight lived experiences. To attempt to display a united front, the campaign will leverage already-established Democratic party infrastructure.
“Democrats are most successful when we run together. Working collaboratively with candidates and state parties, we’ll build a diverse campaign that’s focused on a unified message, tailored to the communities we need to register, persuade and turn out to vote,” she said.
Rodriguez also argued that the Biden-Harris campaign entered the 2024 reelection campaign “in a markedly strong position,” pointing to the better-than-expected 2022 midterm results for Democrats.
“In 2022, Democrats won elections in spite of a turnout environment that was more Republican than in 2020. This shows that, under the Biden administration, we have gained support from Republican and independent swing voters who had not previously voted for Democrats,” she said.
Additionally, she noted that Democrats have been successful in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, special elections in Pennsylvania and the mayoral race in Jacksonville, Fla.
President Biden launched his 2024 reelection campaign April 25 through a video message. Rodriguez started her role as campaign manager this week. She previously was senior adviser to Biden and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Trump faces a tougher road to winning his party's nomination, with a field of primary challengers taking shape and expected to grow. But he so far is the clear front-runner despite a host of legal troubles, leading the pack in some polls by double-digits a few months out from the first scheduled debate.
The rematch would be a replay of one of the most negative and divisive elections in American history, culminating in Trump's refusal to concede and a riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol that forced the evacuation of Congress.
“There aren’t going to be that many people excited about a rematch because there aren’t that many people who want both of these people running for president,” said David Hopkins, an author and political science professor at Boston College.
An NBC News poll published Sunday found 70 percent of Americans and 51 percent of Democrats don’t think Biden should run for reelection in 2024. The same poll found 60 percent of Americans and roughly one-third of Republicans do not think Trump should run again.
An Associated Press poll published Friday found 65 percent of adults said they would probably or definitely not support Trump in a general election, compared to 56 percent who said the same about Biden.
Experts and strategists believe there are several factors contributing to the public’s lack of desire to see Trump and Biden face each other for a second time.
“Often, when you ask people, ‘Would you like someone else,’ it’s easy to conjure a hypothetical alternative candidate,” Hopkins said. “But when you ask people about flesh and blood alternatives, they tend to be less popular.”
For Biden, questions about his age continue to weigh on voters’ minds. Biden, who is 80, was the oldest president ever to be sworn in two years ago, and he would be 86 at the end of a full second term.
The NBC News poll found that of those who said Biden should not run again, 48 percent cited his age as a major reason.
It is not unusual for an incumbent president to seek another term. What is unusual is a former president seeking to win back the White House while retaining his hold on the party, especially one like Trump who has been at the center of numerous unprecedented controversies for the past eight years, including two impeachments and a recent arrest in New York City.
“Some people aren’t happy with that matchup because anything with Donald Trump’s name attached to it, they’re not happy,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the centrist think tank Third Way.
A Trump-Biden rematch would carry echoes of a particularly brutal 2020 presidential campaign that was set against the backdrop of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It featured vitriolic personal attacks, particularly from Trump’s team against Hunter Biden, and was marred by Trump's refusal to accept the results and the subsequent attack on the Capitol.
There have been times over the past two years when a Biden-Trump rematch did not seem as inevitable as it may now.
Republican leaders sought to distance themselves from Trump early in the aftermath of the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was fueled by the former president’s repeated claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and stolen from him.
Biden, meanwhile, faced skepticism throughout 2022 from Democrats about whether he warranted a second term given his age and concerns about rampant inflation.
Democrats have since rallied behind Biden, who is not facing a serious primary challenge, after a stronger-than-expected showing in last November’s midterms, a raft of bipartisan legislation passed last year and the president’s handling of the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, Trump has solidified his grip on the GOP, earning a slew of endorsements from members of Congress in recent weeks. Sunday’s NBC News poll found Trump leading a hypothetical GOP primary with 46 percent support, with his next closest competition Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who polled at 31 percent.
National polls have consistently shown Trump with a double-digit lead on DeSantis and other would-be challengers, though state-level polls show a closer race, and in some cases have the Florida governor narrowly leading the former president.
For Biden and his team, the possibility of a rematch with Trump is “top of mind,” said Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary, Sunday on her MSNBC show.
“A race against Trump is definitely not a battle of policy ideas … which is why the comparison that the White House is focused on is not entirely on policy differences,” Psaki said. “It’s between a competent president and a chaotic Republican Party. Competence versus chaos. As of now, that contrast is kind of playing out on its own.”
“Biden did beat Trump last time, but he still has an incredibly tough fight ahead of him,” she added.
While polls have underscored the sense of national fatigue at the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch, recent election cycles have indicated voters are as engaged as ever.
More than 158 million Americans cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, a record for turnout.
The 2022 elections saw the second-highest voter turnout for a midterm since 2002, with roughly 107 million votes cast. The highest turnout came in 2018, when Trump was in office.
With Trump a big driver of turnout for Republicans who support him and Democrats who oppose him — and issues like abortion likely to be key for voters in 2024 — it’s expected that even those who’d rather see other candidates atop the ballot will still head to the polls next November.
“Anger is a great motivator in politics, and dissatisfaction can actually stimulate people to be more engaged with politics rather than to be apathetic,” said Hopkins. “That seems to be a big part of the story of why in our polarized age we’re seeing a surge in political activity. A lot of people are very strongly motivated by their dislike of at least one of the parties or at least one of the candidates.”
Republican senators are warning that criminal charges hanging over former President Trump will give the GOP a bad look if he is the party’s eventual nominee, especially in a year when Republicans are eager for a chance to retake the Senate.
While GOP senators have accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) of waging a politically motivated prosecution of Trump, they acknowledge it nevertheless will hurt their chances in the 2024 election if charges are still hanging over Trump next summer and fall.
Trump’s next in-person court appearance is scheduled for December, which means legal proceedings could stretch well into 2024. He also could face additional charges from the Department of Justice and the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney.
“I think it’s a problem for a party to be considered legitimate by people who care about America to have someone who’s been indicted, who’s had to plead the Fifth multiple times, who’s been surrounded by individuals who’ve gone to jail, one after the other, or been convicted of felonies,” to be its nominee for president, said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who was the GOP’s nominee for president in 2012.
But Romney doesn’t think any of that will stop Trump from winning next year’s presidential primary.
“I don’t think that has any particular impact on the primary process or the likelihood that Donald Trump will be our nominee,” he said. “I don’t think the primary voters look at electability; I think they look for the person they think will pursue what they believe in.”
Last year, criminal cases in Manhattan took an average of more than 900 days to proceed from indictment to a trial verdict, according to data reported by Reuters.
Unless Trump can persuade a judge to dismiss Bragg’s case, he likely will remain under indictment and have a legal cloud over his head during next year’s election.
He also faces a possible indictment from Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith — who is investigating Trump’s role in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as his possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — and from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who is investigating allegations that Trump interfered in Georgia’s 2020 election.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) suggested Trump’s growing legal problems could take a toll on his viability as a candidate.
“Some of these things will drag out for some period of time, so I’m guessing a lot of it will be unresolved” by next year’s presidential election, he said.
“But I don’t think it’s going to deter him from running,” he added. “It’s probably not going to deter people from endorsing him.”
So far, nine Senate Republicans have endorsed Trump — Sens. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), J.D. Vance (Ohio), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), Ted Budd (N.C.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.).
Asked about Trump’s support from fellow Republican senators despite his legal baggage, Thune said Trump “will probably be a force in the nominating process so members, I think, are probably looking at their states, their constituencies and the politics around the former president and what makes the best sense for them.”
Thune said many Republicans view Bragg’s prosecution as “very politically motivated,” but he warned “all this stuff,” referring to the legal battles, will likely have “a cumulative effect to it.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate GOP leadership, told The Hill it “would be better” not to have a nominee for president who is under indictment.
He was spotted stopping by a get-to-know-you event for Trump’s possible rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in Washington on Tuesday.
Cornyn said he “went by to pay my respects, shake his hand and wish him well” but doesn’t plan to make any endorsement ahead of next year’s primary. Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) also attended the event.
Many Senate Republicans think Trump’s repeated yet unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterm election embraced, hurt their chances of winning back the Senate majority.
And they fear Trump’s ongoing legal dramas could hurt their chances in 2024, as well.
“I think there are several individuals who are looking at running for the presidency that could do a good job of uniting our country. I would prefer to look at one of those individuals — I’m looking forward to having one of those other individuals be successful in obtaining the presidency,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said of the Republican candidates who will challenge Trump in the primary.
Asked about what it would mean for the party to have its nominee for president under indictment, Rounds said, “I can’t think of anything positive about having that occur.”
One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on what Trump’s legal problems mean for Republican candidates in 2024 said if the Republican candidate for president is under indictment, it’s a problem in the general election.
“It’s a bad look,” the lawmaker added.
“An indictment means something; conviction means a lot more. That’s a finding of fact that the law was violated. Someone has been charged; they’re presumed to be innocent, but from a political point of view, you never want your candidates under a cloud of criminal prosecution,” the source said.
Yet Trump maintains a big lead in the polls over DeSantis and other potential rivals among Republicans nationwide.
A Wall Street Journal poll of 600 likely primary voters conducted from April 11 to April 17 found Trump well ahead of the field with 48 percent support compared to DeSantis, who had 24 percent support, in a hypothetical matchup. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley came in a distant third with 5 percent support.
A Wall Street Journal survey conducted in December showed DeSantis beating Trump 52 percent to 38 percent.
Trump leads DeSantis by an average of more than 30 percentage points in polls conducted since the end of March.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, wonders what Trump’s commanding lead in the polls says about the direction of the party and country more broadly.
“How can this be? What country are we in?” she asked with a laugh.
“Is it a bad look for the country to have an individual that is viewed not only as a viable candidate but the frontrunner who’s under indictment?” she asked. “I don’t know. I stopped trying to figure out Donald Trump a long time ago.”
Senate Republicans, including members of leadership and even Trump allies, say former President Trump should stay out of the 2024 Senate primaries, hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s disappointing midterm elections.
They view Trump as becoming more of a political liability in next year’s Senate races as his legal problems mount.
The Manhattan district attorney charged the former president Tuesday with 34 felony counts related to payments to two women, and he could face additional charges from federal prosecutors and Georgia's Fulton County district attorney.
GOP lawmakers and strategists fear Trump will mire GOP candidates in debates over his pet issues such as election fraud and defunding the Department of Justice instead of issues that more voters care about, such as the economy, inflation and health care.
And they worry that Trump’s endorsements again will be more driven by how he perceives candidates’ loyalty to him and his agenda than on their electability in November.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who has stood in for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) while he recuperates from a concussion, said it would be better if Trump stays out of the way.
“Sure seems like that would be helpful based on our lack of success in 2022,” he said.
Even Trump’s strongest allies would like to see next year’s Senate races play out without Trump’s thumb on the scale.
“If I were him, I’d focus on his own election, but I doubt if he’ll take that advice,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Trump announced his presidential campaign in November.
He had a mixed record supporting gubernatorial, Senate and House candidates last year.
He had a losing record in the six states where his super PAC spent money on behalf of Republican candidates gubernatorial and Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
He compiled a 1-6 record in those states, where only Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), whom Trump endorsed in the primary, won.
And the candidates Trump endorsed in the five most competitive House races lost.
Many Senate Republicans think Trump hurt Republicans’ chances in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania by endorsing candidates whom Republicans in Washington did not view as the candidates with the best chances of winning the general election.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges, said the consensus in the Senate Republican conference is that Trump would do more harm than good if he tries to play kingmaker in next year’s primaries.
“I hope he stays out because him getting involved last time led to us losing key Senate races we could have won,” he said. “I think it’s viewed [that way] by almost every single member of the caucus, if not all of them, but I think few will say it because they don’t want to get the wrath of Donald Trump.”
Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said Trump didn’t have a good record picking winners in last year’s toughest races.
“Trump has a very poor track record of backing top-tier candidates that can get elected to the Senate. It’s no wonder that Senate Republicans want Trump to stay away from the primaries as much as possible because he’s been radioactive in the general elections.”
Some Senate Republicans thought Trump dragged down candidates in the general election by making it tougher for them to appeal to moderate and swing voters.
Retired Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who twice won election statewide in Pennsylvania, blamed Trump for the loss of his seat.
“President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race and that created just too much of an obstacle,” Toomey told CNN in November, explaining why he thought celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, whom Trump backed in the primary, lost to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
Toomey was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread fraud became a litmus test in some Senate Republican primaries and came back to haunt those candidates who embraced those claims in the general election.
In New Hampshire, where at the start of the 2022 election cycle Republicans thought they had a good chance of knocking off vulnerable Sen. Maggie Hassan (D), Republican candidate Don Bolduc won the primary after embracing Trump’s election fraud claims. That turned out to be a liability in the general election, and Bolduc tried to back away from that stance after winning the primary, telling Fox News in September that he concluded after doing research on the matter that the election was not stolen. He wound up losing to Hassan by 9 points.
Mark Weaver, a Republican strategist based in Ohio, where Republicans are hoping to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) next year, said Trump’s endorsement is a liability for GOP candidates in a general election.
“In the general election, a Trump endorsement is always going to hurt because he will always be a red cape to the Democratic bull, and I don’t see independents growing any fonder of Donald Trump,” he said, referring to the energizing effect Trump has on Democratic voters.
Some Republican strategists outside the Beltway, however, see Trump as an asset for Republican candidates in battleground states such as Ohio.
Mehek Cooke, a Republican strategist and attorney based in Columbus, Ohio, said Trump’s endorsement is “a very net positive” in a general election.
“I think there’s a lot of support for President Trump in the state of Ohio,” she said. “If the Senate Republicans in Washington really want to win against Sherrod Brown, they’re going to come together and work with Trump or any other candidate, rather than continuing the division we see in our country."
Trump carried Ohio in 2016 and 2020 with 51 percent and 53 percent of the vote, respectively.
Now, Trump is dividing Republicans over another controversy: his call to defund the Department of Justice and FBI in response to federal investigations of his role in the incitement of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
A Senate Republican aide told The Hill that idea won’t get any significant traction in the Senate GOP conference, while House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says Congress should use its power of the purse to push back on federal investigations of Trump.
Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz, who formerly worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, citing Congress’s interest “in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former presidents by elected state and local prosecutors.”
Bonjean, the GOP strategist and former leadership aide, said that Trump shifts the debate in Senate races away from the topics that GOP leaders want to emphasize: inflation, gas prices, crime, the border and federal spending.
“When Trump injects himself into these primaries, then our candidates have to talk about Jan. 6, Stormy Daniels, stolen elections and those are not matters that Main Street voters really want to hear about,” he said.
“They want to know how you’re going to solve their problems and if you’re actually relatable as a politician, as an elected official, and those issues aren’t very relatable to general election voters,” he added.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) endorsed Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) for Senate on Thursday, marking the Arizona Democrat's third endorsement from a House lawmaker as he vies for the seat currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
“Now, more than ever, our country needs elected officials who stand firm in the face of extremist Republicans who are threatening our legal and democratic institutions,” Goldman said in a statement. “As a Marine veteran who fought for our democracy overseas, Ruben understands the importance of the rule of law and, more importantly, that no one is above it —not even a former president.”
“Ruben is exactly the kind of elected official and candidate this moment demands and I am proud to endorse his campaign for United States Senate,” he added.
Sinema, who changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in December, has not yet indicated if she will run for reelection next year. Her strong fundraising, however, suggests she may — the senator will report $9.9 million on hand following the most recent fundraising quarter, according to Politico.
Gallego is currently the only candidate in the race from any party.
Despite Sinema not yet entering the race, Gallego has gone on the offensive. In an interview with The Associated Press around his launch, the congressman said, “I’m better for this job than Kyrsten Sinema because I haven’t forgotten where I came from.”
“I think she clearly has forgotten where she came from. Instead of meeting with the people that need help, she meets with the people that are already powerful,” he added.
Gallego has picked up a number of endorsements since launching his bid, including from Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). He welcomed Goldman’s support on Thursday.
“I’m deeply honored to have earned the trust and support of my friend and colleague Dan Goldman,” Gallego said. “From leading the first impeachment inquiry against Trump to fighting for his constituents and our country in Congress, he is a champion and critical voice in our fights for democracy and justice.”
“I’m grateful to have his endorsement as we fight for the future of Arizona and our country,” he added.