Republican primaries 2024

“President Trump is my friend,” his former UN ambassador Nikki Haley declared on Fox News after announcing her candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Trump, who says he spoke with Haley before she announced, seemed unthreatened by her, avoiding the invective he has reserved for his strongest potential challenger, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. And although he later posted comments linking Haley to Hillary Clinton and Paul Ryan, he also said he is “glad” she is running. Trump has little to worry about from Haley. In all the national polls, she is languishing in the single digits. Some 41 percent of Republicans either have no opinion of her or don't know who she is.

Manchester, New Hampshire Sorry fellas: GOP girlboss Nikki Haley is going to be the next president. At least according to former New Hampshire candidate for Senate Don Bolduc, who knows a thing or two about calling elections. Bolduc introduced Haley at two New Hampshire town halls in the week she entered the 2024 Republican primary. The second was held Friday at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, a regular stop for candidates visiting the early primary state. The packed room was treated to a soundtrack of late-boomer classics from Blondie, Tom Petty and the Detroit Spinners. On her way in, Haley stopped by the overspill area in the foyer to thank the surplus guests for coming. "Next time we'll have a bigger room," the candidate promised.

The biggest open secret in Texas politics is now public knowledge. For months, it's been known that Ted Cruz will run for re-election to the Senate in 2024, skipping the presidential contest. It's a smart move by Cruz for a number of reasons, and will likely benefit the potential candidacy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who would have had to compete with Cruz in the conservative lane for the GOP nomination. Those who come in second in presidential primaries, as Cruz did in 2016, tend to run again. The fact that Cruz is passing on the opportunity leaves a major opening for others. Since 1976, every competitive presidential primary on the Republican side has had one thing in common: at least one candidate has hailed from Texas.

Why would a candidate for the presidency purposefully undermine his greatest achievement in government — one that required the movement of heaven and earth, one that his opponents deemed impossible, but one that he ultimately delivered to the broad benefit of the American people? It seems ridiculous. Yet that is what Donald Trump seems to be doing, in his typically scattershot way. You have to ask: why? Trump, via his TruthSocial account, has been posting at record pace criticizing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — whom he maintains he voted for — as a "globalist," knocking DeSantis for favoring lockdowns (which he didn't) and for pushing people to get vaccinated (which he did).

The field of 2023 Republican presidential contenders may soon get larger: commentator Larry Elder said he may jump into the race as soon as March. Cockburn is skeptical that this will make much of a difference in a race that is already largely defined by the two biggest fish in the pond: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Elder made the surprise comments on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show on Monday January 30. Elder said that he is not considering a run “because I want to derail Trump or DeSantis or anybody who decides to run.” He also mentioned the two main concerns that he wants to focus on, should he opt to run: “the centrality of having fathers in the home”, and “debunk[ing] this lie about systemic racism.

Donald Trump is expected to announce that he is running for president again next week on November 14, according to multiple reports and chatter near the Trump Organization. The only question is whether he does it even earlier — listening to allies like Matt Gaetz who think he should announce as soon as tonight to take credit for what Republicans anticipate will be a clear red wave. This seems like an uncharacteristic mistake on Trump's part. The announcement, whether it comes this week or next, is premature. It's unlikely to forestall any significant potential competitors — and might actually serve to embolden some. The most powerful tool Trump has is the ability to jump in as a former president overwhelmingly popular with Republican voters and instantly clear the field.

Some people are expending a lot of emotional energy on the excerpt in the Atlantic from Maggie Haberman’s new book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. It’s anti-Trump, of course, so it feeds a certain well-formed habit. But it strikes me as pretty thin gruel. The essay is based on three interviews that Haberman, White House correspondent for the New York Times, conducted over the spring and summer of 2021, the first two at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach Residence, the third at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. A tag line for the Atlantic excerpt tells readers that the former president “tried to sell his preferred version of himself, but said much more than he intended.” Did he? A lot has been made of two statements.

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to write about Liz Cheney again. After she was crushed by the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman last week in the Wyoming GOP primary, I figured the self-obsessed crusader would retreat to her boudoir to dress up in top hats once worn by Abraham Lincoln while guzzling a brand of whiskey favored by Ulysses S. Grant, both of whom she invoked in her petulent non-concession concession speech. But Cheney is not quite done making a spectacle of herself. A couple of weeks ago, the Trump-deranged congresswoman sniffed that she would find it “very difficult” to support Ron DeSantis because he had aligned himself with Donald Trump. That remark garnered some portion of the contempt it deserved, but it was nothing to her latest foray on to the public stage.

I think that Michael Anton is correct that “the people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.” “The people who really run the United States”: that would be denizens of the Swamp, the bureaucratic elite, their media and academic mouthpieces, worker bees in the ambient welfare jelly and the nomenklatura who win elections and circulate in and out of the corridors of power. It’s a powerful, nearly monolithic force, a monument to special privilege and two-tier justice — and the prospect of dismantling it is daunting to say the least.

I regret to inform you that America’s decrepit media commentators are once again attempting to play a game of rope-a-dope with Republican voters. This time around, their choice is Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, who has experienced increased media attention of late as a potentially less divisive alternative for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, compared to the supposedly more controversial potential of Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty writes: There are plenty of Democrats who believe the man who campaigned as a sunny suburban dad in a zippered vest is really a Trump in fleece clothing. But Virginia — which was trending blue until his victory — is clearly warming up to Youngkin.

I’d like to state for the record that I’m officially sick of Donald Trump. Last Wednesday, Corey Lewandowski took to the airwaves with a bizarre announcement: Donald Trump is looking for someone to primary New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu. Lewandowski, who briefly ran Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was speaking to Boston radio host Howie Carr. “The president is very unhappy with the chief executive of the state of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu,” said Mr. Lewandowski. “And Sununu, in the president’s estimation, is someone who’s never been loyal to him. And the president said it would be really great if somebody would run against him.” First of all, Sununu has always been fiercely loyal to Trump — much to the Eastern Establishment’s dismay.

Last weekend, the Wyoming GOP Central Committee voted not to recognize Liz Cheney as a member of the Republican Party by a margin of 31-29, a vote that was much closer than those taken in some county committees, a number of which made the unanimous decision to disavow her. The action does nothing to reduce Cheney’s power and position as Wyoming’s sole congressional representative, and in any case it seems increasing likely that the lady no longer cares what her constituency Way out West thinks of her. Last weekend Cheney, together with Representative Jim Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, and Chris Wallace of Fox News, each accepted a Jefferson-Lincoln Award bestowed by the Panetta Institute for Public Policy on Dr. Wallace’s Sunday show.

It went virtually unnoticed in April when Donald Trump recruited Susie Wiles to oversee his fundraising operation and create a system for issuing endorsements. Wiles is a veteran political consultant in Florida, having worked for Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis and helped with Trump’s campaigns there. 'The president tells everyone around Mar-a-Lago that Susie is now in charge,’ an adviser told Politico. Despite media narratives of Jared Kushner’s withdrawal from Trump’s affairs, one source with knowledge of Mar-a-Lago’s inner workings said Wiles serves a 'buffer to give Kushner distance’. Wiles currently works with Kushner confidant Bill Stepien on endorsements. According to broadcaster Stew Peters, Wiles isn’t taking a paycheck for her work.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is carrying an enormous burden, whether he knows it or not. As of right now, he is single-handedly carrying the GOP and its still somewhat loyal Trump base on his back and away from Donald Trump in four years. There is a buzz around DeSantis and a possible 2024 presidential run that hasn’t been seen or felt since perhaps Chris Christie circa 2010. Everyone saw how that worked out. DeSantis would find himself in a precarious position by crossing Trump, who as of now seems to be refusing to retire quietly and settle into a role as the GOP kingmaker. The king wants his crown back.