Former President Donald Trump may announce his reelection campaign unusually early, a move some worry may impact November’s midterm election.
Detractors contend that Trump hopes throwing his hat in the ring so early will counter unflattering testimony about him being presented during House J6 Committee hearings. If so, that would be one great salesman taking the advice of another.
Don Draper, the quintessential Madison Avenue advertising executive, closed many big accounts in the fictional series “Mad Men” by advising clients:
“If you don’t like what is being said, then change the conversation.”
The former president has also witnessed recent primary election losses by candidates he backed. Those losses have increased hopes among potential Republican presidential competitors that Trump may no longer have an iron grip on GOP voters.
Trump may want to reassert himself as the head of the Republican party and steal attention from potential opponents, including Governor Ron DeSantis, R-Fla. The Florida governor is a rival viewed favorably by many party donors and voters.
However, while DeSantis has not explicitly ruled out running for president in 2024, he said during a September Fox News interview he had no plans to seek that office.
“I’m not considering anything beyond doing my job,” DeSantis told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “We got a lot of stuff going on in Florida.”
“I’m going to be running for reelection next year.”
Republicans close to the 45th president have said he believes a formal announcement would support his claims that the J6 investigations are politically motivated, according to the New York Times report.
Trump would be the clear front-runner if he runs for president — with an approval rating of approximately 80 percent among Republicans. But the office of president is too big a prize for ambitious politicians to meekly walk away because Trump enters the race. Also, he burned a lot of bridges while he was in office.
Trump was an effective president with many national and international policy wins, but the pugnacious leadership style that got things done also bruised egos. A prime example was saying early in his campaign that former Arizona Senator John McCain was not a war hero.
“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
That off-the-cuff remark came back to haunt him when McCain cast the deciding vote against ending Obamacare, turning to give a dramatic thumb-down gesture on the Senate floor. It seemed a very personal revenge on Trump’s belittling his Vietnam captivity.
The J6 hearings have voters concerned whether Trump could prevail if he ran in 2024, according to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “People are concerned that we could lose the election in ’24 and want to make sure that we don’t nominate someone who would be seriously flawed,” Christie said.
Governor Larry Hogan, R-Md., who is rumored to be considering a run for president in 2024, also suggested Trump is liable to lose the election.
“His approval among Republican primary voters has already been somewhat diminished,” Hogan told the Associated Press. “Trump was the least popular president in American history until Joe Biden.”
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