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ATLANTA – Donald Trump has long been the dominant force in Republican politics, but as he has faced a series of setbacks in recent weeks, marked on Tuesday night by the defeat of his favorite candidate for governor here in Georgia, the former president has been privately concerned. who could challenge him.
Trump has asked advisors and visitors to his South Florida resort complex about his emerging rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including former vice president Mike Pence and Gov. Florida Ron DeSantis (R).
Among his questions, according to several advisers, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations: Who will actually run against him? What do the polls show? Who are your potential enemies with?
He also revived talks on the announcement of a presidential exploratory committee to try to deter rivals, they say, although some party officials and advisers continue to urge him to wait until after the midterm elections to announce that presents.
Trump’s deliberations follow this month’s major defeats for elected candidates in Idaho, Nebraska, North Carolina and now Georgia, where former Sen. David Perdue was defeated on Tuesday by Trump’s archenemy, Governor Brian Kemp. , who rejected his pleas to annul the election he lost. in the state in 2020. Defeats were fueled by rival Republican power centers amid a growing sense that Trump may not have held the dominant dominance he once had over the party.
Across Georgia, Republican voters said they simply rejected Trump’s sharp criticism of Kemp and chose the incumbent governor in an overwhelming manner, giving the former president a notable repudiation by giving Kemp a victory of about 50 percentage points. .
“I voted for him twice. Would he do it again? No!” said Vijah Bahl, a 65-year-old developer who attended Kemp’s election night party at the University Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday. “Trump’s division hurt Perdue here and his endorsement was counterproductive. It really wasn’t his content but his delivery. And Trump can be a very demanding person.”
Faced with the noise of a lone singer on stage, Jim Braden, a 62-year-old developer, stood near the front of the makeshift indoor soccer field and said it was an easy choice to choose Kemp as governor.
“We are not like the rest of the country that will follow the lie,” he said of Trump’s false claims of winning the 2020 election.
In his victory speech, Kemp did not mention Trump and barely mentioned Perdue. “Even in the midst of difficult primaries, the conservatives in our state did not listen to the noise. They were not distracted,” he said. “The Republicans of Georgia went to the polls and overwhelmingly endorsed four more years of our vision of this great state.”
That Trump spent more than $ 2.5 million on behalf of Perdue, held a rally in Georgia and attacked Kemp non-stop but was still defeated was the last sign that his influence on the Republican Party, although considerable, it has shrunk somewhat in recent months. In another Trump defeat, Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state who resisted Trump’s call to “find” votes in 2020, was far ahead of his opponent, Trump-backed MP Jody Hice.
The Republican Governors Association directed $ 5 million to defeat Perdue after backing the winners against the Trump election in Nebraska and Idaho. The emerging field of rivals in 2024 has become increasingly bold in its willingness to campaign against its interests. And in the U.S. Senate, all but 11 Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats in a recent military aid bill for Ukraine, despite Trump’s criticism of the measure as a wrong priority given the scarcity of baby formula.
“Donald Trump is really the leader of the party right now, but there are a lot of people, especially those in elected office, who are also calling for the ‘America First’ agenda,” Trump’s former White House spokeswoman said. Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday during a live Washington Post event when asked about growing dissent within the party.
The former president has also found himself fighting in races in Ohio, Alabama and Pennsylvania against the Club for Growth, a deep-pocket conservative group that once advised him. His Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, is stuck in a tight run for a recount after the May 17 primary there and has ignored Trump’s repeated calls for victory before all the ballots are counted. . And Trump’s election as governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, found that his main victory was marred last week by an RGA statement suggesting the group did not see him as a competitive candidate.
The changes add to Trump’s biggest self-image challenge: “The King of Guarantees,” he boasted recently, since his role in the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol sparked his party. in a temporary chaos. Few party members still oppose or publicly criticize him as he seeks an elected office, but a growing group has been working overtime to show that it can be ignored and not infallible.
Trump has publicly dismissed those concerns as he has promised allies that he plans to run for president again.
“I looked at the polls and I’m 60 or 70 points ahead,” the former president said in a recent interview with The Post in Mar-a-Lago when asked about his Republican opponents for the 2024 nomination. , without citing. a specific survey. He repeatedly boasted that he had “done” several or argued that he owed him loyalty.
When asked about other Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Who have repeatedly campaigned against his endorsements, Trump said he was watching him closely.
“That’s his prerogative,” he said. “People can do it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
But in private, his team is increasingly waiting for Republican challengers – potentially including DeSantis, Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, along with others – to come in 2024. Among his advisers, the biggest concern is that DeSantis, who has dominated the talk between Republican operatives and donors, assumes Trump.
“I guess a lot of people are running against him,” Tony Fabrizio, his longtime pollster, said if Trump announces he’s running.
This view is now widespread in Republican circles.
“I think there is a very real and growing feeling, albeit in quiet tones, private conversations and rarely in public, but more publicly now than ever, that people say maybe it’s not a paper tiger, but its power is very small. “said a person close to him. “In private, no one around Trump, and when I say no one, I mean no one except the handful of people who would have no professional existence without him, wants him to run again.”
Another Republican agent who recently met with Trump said it is now clear that Trump will have to compete to win the 2024 GOP nomination, for which the former president remains heavily favored.
“It won’t be a clear field for him. There are a lot of people who want to go against him,” he said. Who knows what DeSantis will do? These guys are working, they’re hitting every donor they can find, they want to run. “
Pence’s decision to campaign for Kemp, whom Trump has called a “disaster” for not overturning the 2020 election results, is especially noteworthy, a clear first sign of separation between longtime allies. Pompeo, another potential candidate in 2024, has also become increasingly vocal, criticizing Oz after Trump endorsed him and calling for a “count of valid absentee ballots” in Pennsylvania after Trump suggested Oz declare victory. about his rival David McCormick before counting the primary ballots.
In Georgia, the results arrived before 9pm because Kemp and Perdue had already yielded. There was little suspense between the two crowds.
Advisers have repeatedly dissuaded Trump from announcing the presidency before the legislature, which Republican strategists fear will offer a shock to Democratic prospects by diverting attention from frustrations with President Biden, the rate of approval of which is around 40 percent. Trump has been furious in private against some of his former allies, such as Pence, and has been discussing how to attack potential enemies in 2024.
On the ground in key states, Trump’s intervention has caused friction with some of his local supporters.
“You have Republicans willing to go down there and campaign for Kemp, you have 30, 40 or 50 state party presidents in these places criticizing Trump, you have people like [former state GOP chair] Rob Gleason, who handed us Pennsylvania in 2016, was against him, “said a longtime Trump adviser, who noted the anger that followed Trump’s endorsements in Oz for the Senate and Mastriano as governor.
In Alabama, Rep. Mo Brooks (R) lost just two of his 67 county seats after Trump withdrew his endorsement in March, according to an adviser. Both were later registered as Brooks continued to campaign arguing that Trump had been deceived by his advisers around him. Brooks’ share of the vote in public polls more than doubled in the weeks after Trump withdrew his support, as the other candidates in the race set fire to each other.
In the Senate, minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Whom Trump has identified as an enemy in recent months, publicly celebrated in an interview with Politico the recent overwhelming vote to send more support to Ukraine as a repudiation. of “some free talk during the Trump years” about the hesitant Republican engagement with allies in Europe. Trump had made a statement a week earlier, describing the $ 40 billion effort as a move …