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One day last month, Mike Pence secretly met with some of Michigan’s leading donors, including the reigning DeVos family, as he presented his vision of the Republican Party before flying to Georgia to campaign against it. election of former President Donald Trump as governor.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton has given a lengthy PowerPoint presentation on how previous presidential candidacies failed, and has shown this to donors and others during meetings on how to make a successful campaign.
Meanwhile, advisers and allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have discussed the margins for his 2022 re-election that would help put him in a position to run for president in 2024, with the goal of exceed the three percentage point margin that separated Trump and President Biden from the state in 2020.
With months to go before the midterm elections, the shadow campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination is underway, with at least 15 potential candidates traveling the country, drawing up plans, meeting with donors or testing messages to different preparation levels. The four-year circus, described by more than 20 people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about private machinations, has been launched despite Trump’s public insinuations that he also plans to join the scrum. ” for the third time “.
Interviews with more than a dozen GOP agents indicate that he is not clearing the field, and a number of candidates plan to take him on from different angles.
“Everyone will run against him,” said Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s longtime pollster. “If you have a former vice president running, what does that say about the loyalty argument?”
Some candidates and their teams have made it clear that they plan to campaign to move the party beyond Trump, who continues to dominate early polls, while the vast majority simply move forward without publicly addressing the Trump issue, and in some cases keep praising him. They have been encouraged by growing concern among deep-pocket Republican donors that another Trump call, especially an announcement before the midterm sessions, will help Democrats.
At least six senators have already made appearances in Iowa or New Hampshire, joining former Trump advisers and appointees such as Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Nine potential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, have spoken at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, outlining his vision for the party’s future, with Rep. Liz Cheney (R- Wyo.), A prominent critic of Trump with a national profile, who is scheduled to speak on June 29. Pompey, in particular, has been aggressive with working donors and operatives, asking many what he needs to do to win the nomination. Pompeo has told others he will run against Trump, although he has not made a final decision, say people who have spoken to him.
“They’re working hard, some more than others,” said Ron Kaufman, a member of the Massachusetts Republican National Committee, who had a set of potential candidates at home in March as part of a fundraiser for the party. of the state of New Hampshire. . In addition to Cotton, Senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Tim Scott (RS.C.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) Spoke at the event.
“There are a lot of good people who are thinking about it and would like to be president,” said Kaufman, who has been running for president since 1980. years”.
Trump and his allies have begun preparing for an onslaught of competition, as several of Trump’s closest advisers continue to demand that he not announce a campaign before the midterm elections, as they fear he will help the Democratic efforts to frame Senate and Congressional campaigns around division. ex-president.
“I would be very surprised if they showed up,” Trump said in an interview earlier this year. But he has begun to ask advisers how he should attack some of his former cabinet members and allies, as well as the candidates he had previously supported. DeSantis poses particular problems, two advisers said, because he has gained so much favor with the Trump base.
Club for Growth internal polls and other private polls show that Trump easily wins primaries right now in many early states, although these polls are historically a bad predictor of the outcome two years later.
“I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t run. All the polls show he would be the favorite for a mile of country. The day Trump makes it clear that running would be a mountain to climb to beat him,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham ( RSC), a frequent confidant. “If it is a political election, it is in good shape. It’s their main loss. “
Many potential candidates disagree, pointing to a long history of early candidates for presidential nominations who fell into disfavor. Former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was not a candidate in some 1990 polls for the Democratic nomination. In June 2006, Gallup found that 36 percent of Democratic voters supported the then-senator. Hillary Clinton (DN.Y.) for the 2008 nomination, followed by 16% by former Vice President Al Gore. The eventual winner of both the nomination and the presidency, Barack Obama, has not yet been assessed.
The same pattern has haunted Republicans. In June 2006, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani led the Republican camp in Gallup with 29 percent support among Republican-leaning voters. He would finish the primaries two years later without winning a single delegate. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who had polled the top of the group in 2015, withdrew two months after declaring his candidacy.
In Iowa, which is expected to host the first Republican caucus in 2024, political power figures such as Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the family leader, a Christian conservative group, have been telling people that although Trump there are many possibilities for a controversial campaign.
“If you get Trump from the left, for example, a Mitt Romney approach, I don’t think it will ever work,” he said. “If you came to Trump on the right, more like a Pence, a Pompeo, a Ted Cruz, or a DeSantis, I think people would be willing to listen.”
Following visits from Pence and Pompeo in recent months, the family leader has invited Fox News host Tucker Carlson to speak at his annual conference in July.
In addition to growing candidate competition, Trump faces a declining influence among the high-dollar Republican donor community that backed his 2020 campaign, as many fear the risks of another candidate for Trump, according to several people familiar with the discussions. In talks with RNC president Ronna McDaniel and others, some of the party’s main donors have suggested that the party should move forward, according to people.
“Republicans think it’s declining in relevance and want someone else,” said a close adviser to major Republican donors. “But people feel they have to calm it down. We’re in the appeasement phase.”
Some activists have privately complained that they will not talk so much about inflation, gas prices and other issues that they consider the strongest lines of attack against Biden. Christie, who is watching a race, said more and more people are talking about topics other than Trump’s favorite topic: his false claims of a stolen election in 2020.
“As I travel across the country campaigning for other Republican candidates, there is growing doubt and disinterest in the president’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. They are concerned about the issues that affect them,” Christie said. in an interview.
Pence sees South Carolina as the key to his campaign and has traveled repeatedly to meet with donors and state agents. He also met with some of the party’s richest donors and flew to Israel in the plane of megadonna Miriam Adelson. Allies await a spring announcement in 2023.
“At some point early next year, they will run away and try to discern where their vocation is and where they are being led to serve,” said Marc Short, his longtime chief of staff. to Pence and his wife. Karen. “It will not be based on anyone else.”
But some donors and even allies question whether Pence, who rejected Trump’s demands to try to overturn the 2020 election, can gain strength against his former boss and, in private and in public, has shown little desire to ‘attack Trump.
DeSantis has been quietly building its fundraising networks as it grabs national headlines for its challenges to the Biden administration and its focus on the issues of cultural warfare. Without mentioning Trump, he told donors, “No one’s nomination is inevitable,” according to one person whose comments have been relayed.
Overcoming Trump’s three-percentage-point margin by 2020 in Florida has become a key goal of the campaign, according to three people familiar with the talks. They said DeSantis’ wife Casey, a former TV presenter and in a small circle of confidants, wants her to run for president. The couple believes that the governor’s skills are only adjusted to the current political climate and are wary of waiting six years, at which point the tides may have changed. DeSantis has not indicated whether he would postpone a campaign if Trump shows up.
A spokesman for DeSantis’ re-election campaign, David Abrams, said the governor is “focused on winning a resounding re-election this fall in Florida because that’s the best thing for Florida’s future.” He called suggestions for other reasons “nonsense.”
Behind the scenes, DeSantis and his team believe they have outdone Trump with the party’s main donors, according to an ally in contact with the governor. A former aide said DeSantis has spoken …