'We’re kind of tearing our hair out': Republicans frustrated they're stuck with Trump
Fearing a 2024 ballot headed by now-indicted Donald Trump will cripple the Republican Party's hopes to retain the House and win back the Senate, GOP campaign consultants and moderate Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated that they have been unable to come up with one candidate who can bump the former president off of his perch.
According to a report from Politico, conservatives fear a repeat of 2016 when Trump steamrolled his opposition by breaking all the rules of politics and, now with the dark cloud of criminal investigations hanging over him, he appears to be doing it again.
The Politico report notes that what appears to be a massive influx of 2024 GOP presidential nomination contenders, most with little to no chance of being successful, will make it easier for the former president to land his third nomination.
According to Republican Jason Osborne, the New Hampshire House majority leader, "If those people are all still in the race when January comes around, it’s going to be 2016 all over again, and Trump will win,” before lamenting, "That’s just how it is.”
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Politico reports, "For Trump, the swelling field is just the latest dose of good luck for a politician who has for years played by rules afforded to no other candidate. He has seemingly become inoculated from blowback to scandals both major and minor that would threaten to fatally wound almost anyone else. The GOP graded his own pair of rambling and lackluster announcement speeches — both in 2016 and again in 2022 — on a curve that did not apply to [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis’ shambolic Twitter launch last week."
Conservative strategist Sarah Longwell explained, "For those of us who view Donald Trump as an existential threat, we’re kind of tearing our hair out over this idea of a crowded field and a repeat of the same dynamics in 2016."
Republican strategist Gregg Keller contributed, "Every person that gets into the race helps Donald Trump be the focal point of the race. You would think it would muddy the water — in fact, it does the exact opposite. It focuses more and more attention on him, to the extent he’s beating these people, attacking these people, stealing the limelight in the way he wants to from these people.”
Former Rep. Joe Walsh claimed DeSantis is already faltering which means the party is likely stuck with Trump.
“He’s been an unlikable son of a bitch. He’s not wearing well,” he explained. “So whereas the field would have been Trump and DeSantis, really, four or five months ago, now you’ve got all these other people who are getting in or are going to get in purely because they’ve seen the same thing … They’re all going to make the bet, well, ‘F--k this. I’ll be the Trump alternative.”
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