Donald Trump announced his intention to run for President again this past Tuesday (15th November) at his country club, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. His last Presidential term, plagued with controversy and ending in a overwhelming loss to Joe Biden, has seen Trump’s political stock amongst his own party drop. This will not be helped by many of the candidates he backed in the recent midterm elections losing to their Democratic rivals. Mehmet Oz and Blake Masters, two Trump-endorsed Senatorial candidates for Pennsylvania and Arizona respectively, lost their races, although JD Vance and Ted Budd, Senatorial candidates for Ohio and North Carolina, won. Overall, analysis undertaken by Sky News showed that candidates backed by Trump had a far harder time winning than those that were not, indicating that the ‘Trump brand’ has become more unfavourable.
Trump is also facing legal trouble, which could further slow momentum for his campaign. He is facing investigation for leaving top-secret state documents at Mar-a-Lago, his role in the January 6th, 2021 storming of the White House by his supporters and his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election, including asking the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn electoral results in the state.
Before a political party picks a candidate for President, they must go through a process known as ‘primaries’. Both parties do this, and the rules vary between them as well as on a state-to-state basis. Essentially, prospective candidates put their name forward and voters who are affiliated with the party vote in state primaries. The winner of this process is then nominated as the candidate for that party and put on their ‘ticket’.
This means Trump would have to face other proposed candidates just as he did in 2016. His main competitor, although he has not confirmed that he is running yet, seems to be Ron DeSantis. DeSantis successfully defended his gubernatorial position in Florida in the midterms and has proven he can galvanise both money and voters. He has boasted that Florida is where ‘woke comes to die’, standing against inclusive education and taking on Disney, a major employer in the state, over LGBT rights, particularly trans healthcare. Trump has launched attacks against DeSantis, including his typical tactic of giving him the derogatory nickname ‘DeSanctimonious’, indicating that he sees DeSantis as a major threat.
Another name bandied about is Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virginia, who won the position in 2021 in a state where Republicans had been struggling. During the race, he sought to distance himself from the more enthusiastic elements of Trump’s base but still takes an ‘anti-woke’ position as governor. Like he did with DeSantis, Trump insulted Youngkin on social media despite the fact that Youngkin affirmed his support for Trump during the elections and was reluctant to say that Biden won the 2020 election legitimately.
Establishment Republican figures, such as Chris Christie, have been critical of Trump and now see him as a liability rather than an election winner. The poor showing in the midterms, where the forecasted ‘red wave’ did not come to pass, will solidify this belief. However, any opposition to Trump in the primaries would face the challenge of having to overcome the popularity Trump still enjoys in the party’s base, where ideas of a ‘stolen election’ are popular, as well as Trump loyalists in Congress and the party machinery. Whether Trump can win the Presidential election is another question all together. Although Biden is not a particularly popular President, he still easily won the popular vote against Trump and Trump’s petulant response to losing in 2020 as well as the January 6th attack on the White House has motivated the opposition against him.
