As Trump Mulls Future GOP Moves On

Donald Trump, as his foe-turned-supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham recently noted, flourished with an uncompromising policy: Don't cross him or you'll get burned. Republican candidates who were seen as insufficiently loyal to their leader. Trump would endorse their primary opponents, forcing the Trump-skeptical candidates to step aside or be defeated. And administration officials who didn't toe the Trump line. They'd get pink-slipped – in the case of former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, hours before he was to retire voluntarily with a pension.

But with Trump out of power for a year and a half, and under investigation by a select House committee that is unearthing damning evidence about the former president's role in the insurrection at the Capitol, the fear factor is diminishing.

Republicans who served in Trump's White House or on his campaign have been testifying before the Jan. 6 committee, in many cases defying their former boss in colorful language and brutal terms.

Trump's own daughter acknowledged to the committee that she respected former Attorney General Bill Barr's assessment that the 2020 election was not "stolen" from Trump, as the defeated former president insists. And Trump's own lawyer, Pat Cipollone, is set to testify behind closed doors before the committee Friday after rejecting requests by the panel to talk.

"When Watergate happened, ultimately, it wasn't even so much when the tapes came out" that former President Richard Nixon began a swift fall from grace and power, says Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University. "It was when Republicans who had been defending Nixon realized he had made them lie for him. They realized they had been lying for a liar."

With Trump, the shift is more likely to be a steady "dribble" than a wave, Engel says, but it's still damaging to him. Nixon, forced to resign during his second term, was not eligible to run for president again.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential wannabes aren't waiting around for Trump to make a decision about running in 2024. At first, GOP hopefuls were cautious – some saying they would not declare a candidacy unless Trump decided not to run. But with the midterm elections approaching and the 2024 presidential campaign season not far behind, a slew of Republicans has been traveling to early primary states in an apparent prelude to a formal campaign for president.

Some of it is worries about the Jan. 6 inquiry, whether it's speculation that Trump will be indicted or just a more pragmatic concern that he has too much baggage, experts say. Some of it is a desire to move forward, instead of re-fighting a 2020 battle Trump already lost.

"People don't want to get caught up in 2024 with debating the past," says Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent conservative leader in Iowa and president of the social conservative group The Family Leader. "They really want 2024 to be debating the future. They're not being disrespectful of the president. At the same time, I think they think we probably need to move on."

Trump's appeal has also waned as it has become clear that his endorsement is no longer solid gold for Republican candidates.

Trump endorsees have won some high-profile primaries, notably for the Senate seats in Pennsylvania. But both GOP nominees face tough general election fights this fall, even though the retiring incumbents in those states are Republicans.

Meanwhile, Trump's aggressive effort to defeat GOP nemeses in Georgia failed miserably, with Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger winning renomination easily, and without a runoff. State Attorney General Chris Carr, whose opponent Trump endorsed, won with 73% of the vote. Trump has had a mixed record in other states.

"People in the political world have backed away from being as concerned and afraid of Trump than they were a year ago, because they see people who did not run under the Trump banner run and win," says Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

In Pennsylvania, nine prominent current or former GOP officials this week publicly endorsed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro for governor, a major slap at Trump and his endorsed GOP nominee, Doug Mastriano. A loss in Pennsylvania would be especially damaging to Trump, who has made the Keystone State a central part of his strategy to challenge election results that don't go his way. The Pennsylvania legislature is GOP-controlled, and a Democratic governor could thwart any efforts in that direction.

As for his own political future, Trump has dangled the prospect of running again in 2024, a musing that typically gets a rousing round of applause when he speaks to conservative groups or at his rallies. But that has not put the brakes on other Republicans testing the political waters for 2024.

Trump's former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, was in Iowa late last month for a fundraiser for GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra. She said she would run in 2024 "if there's a place for me" but didn't address whether the outcome of the Jan. 6 hearings would be a factor. Trump's former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has been to Iowa five times. Other Hawkeye State visitors include Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, and Trump allies Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

"If anybody really has an interest in running in 2024 from the Republican side, they can't just simply wait until Trump makes a decision," says Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa.

A number of candidates have been making pilgrimages as well to New Hampshire. Notably, one potential 2024 contender – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – has not been traveling to the obvious early-primary states. But he's emerging as Trump's biggest challenge in statewide polls.

DeSantis has sometimes tussled with Trump – not least by refusing to rule out a presidential run until Trump decides – but has sought to embrace Trump's message and style without the attendant legal troubles.

DeSantis has pushed against mask and vaccine mandates, even refusing to reserve government vaccines for the under-5 crowd. He's signed a controversial "Don't Say Gay" bill for public schools, fought with the Disney corporation over its support for LGBTQ rights and signed a very restrictive abortion law. When he signed a state budget recently, DeSantis turned the document around to photographers to show his work, much as Trump ostentatiously did when he was president.

"People in the political world have backed away from being as concerned and afraid of Trump."

While Trump is way ahead of the pack in national polls, DeSantis bested Trump in a recent Granite State Poll in New Hampshire. DeSantis drew 39% support, compared to 37% for Trump. That shows big backsliding for Trump, who had 43% support to be the party's 2024 nominee in the Granite State Poll's October, 2021 survey, compared to 18% who preferred DeSantis.

In a straw poll at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, DeSantis got support from 71% of attendees, compared to 67% for Trump (voters were allowed to choose more than one candidate). In May, DeSantis won a straw poll in Wisconsin, receiving 38% support of Republicans, compared to 32% for Trump.

So much of the early polling is based on name recognition, Smith says, explaining why DeSantis – who is in the news more than other candidates – is at the top.

And Republicans are still reading the tea leaves on Trump's intentions, which involve not just his political future but his finances and brand.

Should Trump announce he is not running, contributions to his leadership PAC – which now operates "basically as a slush fund" for the would-be candidate, says Adav Noti, vice president and legal director of the Campaign Legal Center – may well dry up.

If Trump does file for candidacy for the presidency, he'd be limited in how he could spend donations to his campaign fund, Noti says.

"The rules around campaign money are really much stricter than the rules around leadership PACs," Noti says. "It's probably a significant factor in the timing of any announcement."

A formal Trump candidacy also gives him a new platform and counterargument if he is indeed charged by the Department of Justice or the district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County, who is investigating whether efforts were made to reverse the election results there. If Trump were indicted, he might well claim the move is political to thwart his campaign to return to power.

But while Trump mulls his political and legal future, Republicans are starting to move on without him, analysts say.

"I think he's already a liability," Smith says. How broad a liability he becomes may well be determined in the coming weeks.