Posted on 02/28/2023 6:13:36 AM PST by cotton1706
Chris Sununu, the New Hampshire governor and potential presidential candidate who once joked that former President Donald Trump is “fucking crazy,” backpedaled and pledged recently to support Trump if he’s the nominee in 2024.
Nikki Haley, offered a similar chance to distance herself from the former president, insisted she doesn’t “focus” on him. Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke entrepreneur and most recent entrant into the race, went so far as to say he’s “not running against President Trump” at all.
He is, of course. Every candidate in the emerging GOP field will be.
That they can’t quite acknowledge as much underscores one of the defining features of this very early primary and, more generally, GOP politics over the last six years: Trump’s base remains rigid, and even his critics believe it may be fatal to annoy them.
Despite his difficulties since he left office, about a third of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters still consider themselves supporters more of Trump than the Republican Party, according to a recent NBC News poll. Many of them aren’t going anywhere. Fully 28 percent of Republican primary voters are so devoted to the former president that they said they’d support him even if he ran as an independent, according to a national survey last month from The Bulwark and longtime Republican pollster Whit Ayres. Indeed, the “Always Trump” component of the party is so pronounced that it’s affecting how Trump’s opponents operate around him.
“All these folks are just hoping that Trump’s going to have a heart attack on a golf course one day, and that’s going to solve this problem for them,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chair. “Not much of a strategy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Similar to 2016, when their only hope was Ted Cruz.
They must be shaking in their boots, as their grip on the party further loosens.
Trump’s support is as big, and perhaps even bigger than in 2016 and 2020. With Biden’s horrendous performance in office, Trump will seem like a miracle coming to the rescue, which he had already done in his first term.
Those primary competitors are seeing the writing on the wall, and are preparing to bow to Trump.
The Backstab Sellout Party ain't dictating to me any more, after 30 years of voting straight Republican ticket.
Why it’s YUGE!!!
If you’re not with Trump, you’re with the communists!
Trump supporters have increasingly disassociated themselves from that organization and (if like me) will never resume ANY association with them as a group or with any individuals who continue identifying as ‘Republican’.
Agree! Go Trump Go! The Peace President!
Fully 28 percent of Republican primary voters are so devoted to the former president that they said they’d support him even if he ran as an independent,
The stupid party fully on display. I guess they love Biden.
We are NOW the MAGA party, the republicans are Dem lite they are RINOS!!
Well it was the ineffectiveness of the Stupid Party that led to the rise of Trump in the first place.
Cruz and Desantis are NOT MAGA. Ctuz (and wife) are Globalists. Desantis will be one because he takes money from them.
MAGA voters are populists, true Constitutionalists and eternal enemies of most of the current members of the Republican Party. Bull on these polls.
I already think we are at the point where we cannot vote ourselves out of this mess, and we need to start looking for solutions outside of the two parties.
The JoeTatoe will get eleventy million ballots in 2024.
By Any Means Necessary.
The GOP will work very hard to get a Democrat elected in 2024. The GOP will block either Trump or DeSantis — they won’t be able to stop them in the primaries and I’m sure Trump will be the nominee. But the GOP will make sure he doesn’t win.
That’s true. Sadly nothing was done to stop the cheating from 2017 to 2021. Obviously nothing has been done since then either.
I don’t believe it’s about “always Trump” but about always a “People s President”.
No matter how many Trumpers come out, the Dem’s phantom voters will be bigger.
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