Trump 2024? What does this mean for Republicans?
Aidan Woods
He/Him
Staff Editor
11/22/22
Tuesday, November 15th, former president Donald J. Trump announced he would be running for president for the third time, in the wake of what many Republicans would deem a less than satisfactory first half of the Biden administration. But what does this mean for the party going forward? While many Americans groan at the mere thought of seeing Trump’s face glued to their TV screen for the next two years, others still are more excited than ever to push forth his “Make America Great Again” rhetoric. Regardless of the common voter’s stance, this third bid for the Republican nomination will undeniably be met with some unforeseen consequences.
John Lappie, professor of political science at Plymouth State, explained what some of these may be. Expectations going into the midterm elections were that there was going to be a resounding “red wave” in which the Democrats would lose their majority in both the House and the Senate. However, regardless of the result of the run-off election in Georgia, the Democrats will retain their control of the Senate. Lappie explains that this is “single-handedly due to Donald Trump, his conspiracy theory about 2020 being stolen, that cost the Republicans two seats during the Georgia run-offs in 2020. They should have won those seats and they lost because you depress turnout by telling voters that the elections were rigged.” Many of these voters were Republicans who fell into the pit of believing that the elections were fraudulent and decide not to vote because of it; this is damaging to the integrity of U.S. Democracy and the party as a whole. Lappie would go on to say that “The mainstream Republican candidates like Sununu for example, or Kemp in Georgia, won on election day, and they won by pretty solid margins. It’s Republicans like Don Bolduc, Dr. Oz, and Blake Masters in Arizona who are the ones embracing Trump’s conspiracy theory about 2020. McConnell is correct that they spooked swing voters. It’s not enough to say the situation in the country is bad, with high inflation and gas prices being ridiculous, Biden’s not popular. It’s not enough to just say things are bad, you at least have to give your swing voters a palatable alternative, folks didn’t do that. If they run with Trump in 2024, they’re gonna have the same problem, which is that a lot of people really like him but a lot of people really hate him, and there are more of them than there are his fans.”
As far as alternatives, many voters are turning their eyes to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a potential Trump competitor. Although he has yet to announce a run for the Oval Office, Lappie had this to say about his would-be candidacy, “If you’re looking for a challenger to Trump in the Republican primaries, he has the best shot. He’s definitely smartened up as a candidate, he had a lot of Trump’s policy positions, but he has greater self-control, he doesn’t have that automatic hostility toward someone that Trump does.” For many voters, this may be the alternative they so desperately need, as Trump’s attitude was a concern to many Americans.
Unfortunately, as Lappie pointed out, all does not end well if DeSantis manages to pull off a win in the primaries. “Is there anyone out there who thinks that Donald Trump’s reaction to that is going to be to give a speech and say ‘well this is really disappointing, but I respect the will of the primary voters, the most important thing is to beat Joe Biden, and I encourage everyone to rally around Ron DeSantis?’ He’s not going to give that speech, that’s not how he’s handled any defeat in his political career.” This makes light of the fact that what comes with Trump’s fraudulent claim that the 2020 election was stolen, is that it causes a party divide, as he won’t back down and humbly endorse the winning candidate. Lappie reinforced this by saying, “The Republican party is actually in a really bad palace right now going into 2024, either you nominate Trump, and he likely loses, or you don’t nominate Trump, and his defeat in the primary splits the party causing them to lose. This is a self-inflicting wound, definitely.”