Donald Trump Is Set to Announce Third Presidential Run Despite GOP Turmoil

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is barreling ahead with plans for a third White House run even as a growing number of Republicans abandon the former president over the dismal GOP showing in midterm elections that many in the party blame on him.

After teasing for weeks his entry into the 2024 presidential race, Trump is poised to make a “very big announcement” Tuesday at 9 p.m. New York time that would make him the first major contender from either party to formally declare.

Yet the timing could not be worse for Republicans. Candidates endorsed by Trump floundered in key races in last week’s mid-term elections, as voters rejected election-deniers and others with extreme positions on social issues like abortion rights and education.

That cost Republicans their chance to reclaim the US Senate and left them well short of the significant majority they had hoped to win in the House, though they were within one seat of gaining control on Monday night, nearly a week after the close of polls across the country.

Trump received more bad news when the Associated Press reported Monday night that Kari Lake, a telegenic and relentless election denier whom he had enthusiastically promoted, had been defeated in a close race for Arizona governor. 

Over the past week, Trump has tumbled from virtually unquestioned party leader, whose endorsement carried enormous symbolic importance for down-ballot candidates, to an anchor dragging down the GOP. Many key Republicans and donors now want him to make way for a new standard-bearer like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was re-elected in a landslide last week.

“The party’s just tired of losing,” former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, an ex-Trump aide-turned-critic who himself plans to decide early next year whether to run in 2024, said in a telephone interview. “I remember Donald Trump was the guy who said we were going to do so much winning that we would ask him to stop winning because we were tired of winning. Well, that’s hardly been the case.”

President Joe Biden has said he plans to seek re-election in 2024, but he has yet to make a formal announcement. On the day after Election Day, he said he would make his decision known early next year, after conversations with his family and taking his health into account.  

Trump had sought to use his early announcement as a way to freeze out other Republicans who might have entertained campaigning for the White House. Yet now, after the disappointing midterms, potential Trump challengers will be emboldened, according to Republican strategist and pollster Frank Luntz.

Other potential Trump challengers besides DeSantis include Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin; former Vice President Mike Pence; former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo; Senator Ted Cruz of Texas; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Trump’s 2024 campaign will be led by a cadre of strategists, including longtime GOP operative Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles, chief executive officer of Trump’s Save America PAC and Brian Jack, a former political director in Trump’s White House, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal decisions.

Wiles was a former top adviser to DeSantis. LaCivita ran the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that damaged John Kerry’s 2004 Democratic presidential campaign. Jack worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign before taking a White House role.

Polls show the former president retains the devotion of about a third of the GOP base and he still will enter the 2024 primary race as the clear favorite to win the nomination. But in Washington, Republicans are suggesting they delay their selection of new congressional leadership while they sort out whether the party would continue on its populist, culture-focused course or return to its pre-Trump path.

Trump is trying to shift blame onto Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the GOP’s defeats, while lashing out at potential rivals in what some analysts said suggests he’s been pushed into a corner. He’s mocked DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonius,” threatened to reveal unflattering information about the governor should he run for president, and manipulated Youngkin’s name to make it sound Chinese.

On Tuesday, DeSantis finally shot back at Trump during a news conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. 

“When you’re leading, when you’re getting things done, you take incoming fire, that’s just the nature of it,” DeSantis said.

“At the end of the day I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” DeSantis said, a veiled reference to his resounding win and Trump’s midterm endorsement record. 

The ex-president’s own aides unsuccessfully lobbied Trump to postpone the announcement until after the Dec. 6 run-off election for a Georgia US Senate seat, fearing he would distract from GOP efforts to win, as many believe he did in the state’s Senate runoffs in 2021.

“Trump’s announcement before Georgia will go down as down as one of the most self-serving political moves anyone’s ever made in national politics,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed, the former chief political strategist for the US Chamber of Commerce.

Trump fondly recalls his descent down a golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York to proclaims his entry into US politics in 2015, and he had envisioned that Tuesday’s event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida would be even more dramatic, with a slew of election victories behind him. 

Instead the announcement comes amid chaos and finger pointing in the Republican Party.  

The record of Trump’s endorsed candidates who were on the ballot last Tuesday was 236-38, with eight races still being decided, according to a Bloomberg News compilation. But the former president’s hand-picked candidates lost at least six US Senate races, 12 House races and 11 governorships -- many that Republican strategists considered winnable with less extreme candidates.

Trump complained in social media posts that he’s not getting enough credit for the number of victories by his candidates. But 18 of them ran unopposed, and only 33 ran in contests the Cook Political Report rated as toss-ups or competitive -- with more than half losing, according to the Bloomberg News compilation.

Moreover, it’s unclear how Trump’s legal situation affects a potential candidacy. He faces multiple investigations into his removal of classified documents from the White House, as well as his role in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that resulted in the deadly insurrection. Trump and three of his children have also been sued in New York for allegedly inflating the of his real estate company’s assets.

In an interview broadcast on ABC News Monday night, Pence said he angered by a Jan. 6, 2021 tweet from Trump criticizing him while rioters stormed the US Capitol chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” and “it was clear he decided to be part of the problem.” Pence said he’s considering a 2024 run even if Trump is in the race and “I think we’ll have better choices” than the former president.

Despite the GOP losses, Trump has a hard-core group of supporters who think he fights for them and will back him no matter what, said Republican strategist Alex Conant, a senior adviser for Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential primary campaign. Conant estimated those voters accounted for about 35% of the electorate in the 2016 GOP primaries, allowing Trump to win the nomination with a crowded field.

“No matter what, Trump’s the front-runner because if you start with 35%, it’s hard for somebody to beat you, especially in a crowded field,” Conant said.

(Updates with DeSantis remarks beginning in 15th paragraph)

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