One day last month, Mike Pence secretly rallied with some of Michigan’s top donors, including the DeVos royal family, as he set his vision for the Republican Party before flying to Georgia to campaign for the presidency. for governor. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, has developed a powerful PowerPoint presentation on how previous presidential nominations have failed – and shown it to donors and others during meetings on how to run a successful campaign. Meanwhile, advisers and allies of Florida Gov. Ron de Sandis discussed the margins for his re-election in 2022 that would help him run for president in 2024 – with the goal of surpassing the three-point margin that separated Trump and Trump. President Biden on the situation in 2020. With months to go before the midterm elections, the shadowy campaign for the Republican anointing of 2024 is under way, with at least 15 potential candidates traveling the country, drawing up plans, meeting donors or testing messages at various levels of preparation. . The four-year-old circus – described by more than 20 anonymous individuals who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private machinations – has begun work despite Trump’s public hints that he plans to join the scrum “for the third time” . Interviews with more than a dozen GOP executives show that he is not clearing the pitch and a number of candidates are planning to approach him from different angles. “Everyone will come out against him,” said Tony Fabricio, a longtime Trump researcher. “If you have a former vice-presidential candidate, what does that mean for the argument of loyalty?” Some candidates and their groups have made it clear that they plan to campaign to move the party beyond Trump, who continues to dominate the early polls, while the vast majority simply go ahead without publicly answering Trump’s question and in some cases he continues to praise him. They have been encouraged by growing concern among Republican donors that another Trump nomination – especially an announcement before the midterm – would help Democrats. At least six senators have already made appearances in Iowa or New Hampshire, including former Trump advisers and appointees such as Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former UN Ambassador Nicki Haley. Nine potential candidates, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, outlining their vision for the party’s future. .), a prominent Trump critic with a national profile, scheduled to speak there on June 29. Pompeo has been particularly aggressive with working-class donors and officials, asking many what they need to do to win the nomination. Pompeo has told others that he will be a candidate against Trump, although he has not made a final decision, say people who have spoken to him. “They’re working hard at it, some more than others,” said Ron Kaufmann, a Massachusetts Republican National Committee member who had a number of potential candidates at his home in March as part of a New York state party fundraiser. 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 think about it and would like to become president,” said Kaufmann, who has been running for president since 1980. “Former presidents who can serve another term always have a special place for at least the first two years “. Trump and his allies have begun preparing for a rivalry, as several of Trump’s closest advisers continue to urge him not to campaign before the midterm elections, fearing it could help Democrats’s campaign efforts. of the Senate and Congress around the divisive. former president. “I’m very surprised if they run,” Trump said in an interview earlier this year. But he has begun asking advisers how he should attack some of his former cabinet members and allies, as well as candidates he has previously backed. DeSantis is causing particular problems, two advisers said, because he has won such favor with the Trump base. Internal polls by the Club for Growth and other private opinion polls show that Trump is easily winning the primary election in many of the top states right now, although such polls are historically poorly predicted two years later. “I will be shocked if he does not run. All the polls show that he would be the pioneer in a country mile. “The day Trump makes it clear he’s going to run – it would be a mountain to climb to win him over,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (RS.C.), one of the confidants. “If it’s a political election, it’s in good shape. “It is his primary concern to lose.” Many potential candidates disagree, citing the long history of the first presidential candidates who fell out of favor. Former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was not a candidate in the 1990 Democratic primary. In June 2006, Gallup found that 36 percent of Democratic voters supported the then Sen. Hillary Clinton (DN.Y.) for the 2008 nomination, followed by 16 percent for former Vice President Al Gore. The final winner of both the candidacy and the presidency, Barack Obama, has not yet scored. The same pattern has haunted Republicans. In June 2006, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani led the Republican constituency in Gallup with 29 percent support among Republican voters. He would finish the qualifiers two years later without winning a single representative. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was polled after hearing the top of the package in 2015, resigned two months after announcing his candidacy. In Iowa, which is expected to host the first Republican caucus in 2024, political power brokers such as Bob Vander Platz, chairman of the Family Leader, a Christian conservative group, are telling the world that even if Trump is a candidate, there are many chances of a controversial campaign. “If you come to Trump from the left – say, Mitt Romney’s approach – I don’t think that would ever work,” he said. “If you come to Trump from the right – more like Pence or Pompeo or Ted Cruz or De Sandis – then I think people would be willing to listen.” Following visits from Pence and Pompeo in recent months, the Family Leader invited Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson to speak at his annual conference in July. In addition to the growing competition for candidates, Trump is facing declining influence among the high-profile Republican donors who backed his 2020 campaign, as many fear the dangers of another Trump nomination, according to many people familiar with the debate. In conversations with RNC President Ronna McDaniel and others, some of the party’s top sponsors have suggested that the party should move forward, according to the people. “Republicans believe it’s declining in relevance and want someone else,” said an adviser close to major Republican sponsors. “But people feel they have to calm him down. We are in a phase of appeasement. “ Some activists have complained privately that they will not talk so much about inflation, gas prices and other issues that they consider to be Biden’s strongest lines of attack. Christie, who is looking forward to a candidacy, said people are talking more and more about issues other than the one Trump preferred: his false claims about a stolen 2020 election. “As I travel across the country campaigning for other Republican candidates, there is growing skepticism and indifference to the president’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They care about the issues that affect them,” Christie said in an interview. Pence sees South Carolina as the key to his campaign and has traveled extensively to meet with donors and state officials. He has also met with some of the party’s richest donors and flown to Israel on the jet of the giant Miriam Adelson. The Allies look forward to an announcement in the spring of 2023. “At some point early next year, they will leave and try to discern where their calling is and where they are headed to serve,” said Marc Short, his longtime chief of staff, referring to Pence and his wife. Karen. “It will not be based on any other person.” However, some donors and even allies question whether Pence – who has refused Trump’s demands to try to overthrow the 2020 election – can win over his former boss and has shown little private or public desire to attack Trump. . DeSantis is quietly building its fundraising networks while gathering national headlines for its challenges to the Biden government and its focus on cultural warfare issues. Without naming Trump, he told donors: “No one’s candidacy is inevitable,” according to one person whose comments have been leaked. Exceeding Trump’s three percentage point margin for 2020 in Florida has become a key goal of the campaign, according to three people familiar with the talks. They said that DeSantis’s wife, Casey, a former TV presenter and among a small circle of secrets, wants to run for president. The couple believes that the governor’s abilities are uniquely suited to the current political climate and is wary of waiting six years, by which time the tide may have changed. DeSantis has not indicated whether he will postpone a campaign if Trump is a candidate. A spokesman for DeSantis’s re-election campaign, David Abrams, said the governor “is focused on winning a resounding re-election this fall in Florida because it’s best for Florida’s future.” He called the proposals for other motives “nonsense”. Behind the scenes, DeSantis and his team believe they have overtaken Trump with the party’s big sponsors, according to an ally in contact with the governor. A former assistant said that DeSantis spoke …
