Many Senate Republicans DON'T want Donald Trump to run for president and fear he could sink their own election hopes if he announces before the 2022 midterms
Senate Republicans have shared they hope former President Donald Trump does not announce another run for the White House – especially before the 2022 midterms, a Sunday report reveals.
Several GOP senators told The Hill that they don't want Trump at the helm of their party.
'I think we're better off when he's not part of any story,' one Republican senator, who said his view is widely shared in the GOP conference, said.
'He's a clinical narcissist,' the senator continued. 'He threw away the election in the debate with Biden and he threw away the Senate out of spite.'
The lawmaker was referring to Trump's first debate against then-candidate Joe Biden and the former president's influence on Republican voter turnout in the Georgia special election just weeks before he vacated office.
Several Senate Republicans don't want Donald Trump to run for for president again in 2024. Here the former president pumps his fist after a rally speech in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday
Many feel Trump's claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election led to GOP distrust of elections and caused them to stay home instead of going to the ballot boxes – ultimately flipping both Georgia Senate seats from red to blue.
A GOP colleague and aide said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the senators most vehemently against Trump winning the 2024 nomination. The Kentucky Republican is an often target of Trump's and this week was attacked again by the former president over his debt-ceiling strategy.
McConnell has refused to acknowledge the attacks or mention Trump by name.
Trump has not yet announced his intention to run again in 2024 after his 2020 defeat to Biden. But the former president has often alluded to an impending bid, repeatedly claiming at rallys of late that he has to wait until after the 2022 midterm election to announce due to 'campaign finance laws.'
The Hill notes there are only a few exceptions in the Senate GOP conference who want to see Trump run for president again.
Even those lawmakers who are OK with another run, don't want to see an announcement before the 2022 midterm elections as they try to retake the majority in the upper chamber after losing it in 2020.
'The 2022 election ought to be about the Biden administration and its rolling disasters so anything that would detract from the public being focused on what Democratic governance is doing to this country would be ill-advised,' Republican Senator Ron Johnson, a Trump ally, said.
Although Johnson has not yet announced an intention to run for reelection next year, he expects Democrats will make the Wisconsin Senate race about the former president.
'That's what they always want to do. They want to distract and most of the mainstream media will be trying to do that as well,' he told The Hill. 'We need to focus — not only Republicans but the country needs to focus on what a disaster the Biden administration has been.'
A senior Senate GOP aide said many Republican lawmakers view Trump as a liability for their chances in 2022 and 2024.
'Everybody would prefer he wait until after the midterms,' the aide said, adding: 'We lost Georgia because of him.'
'Once we got into a run-off, Trump said your vote isn't trusted and don't vote so it's no surprise that we lost,' they added.
Republicans feel that Trump, speaking with a group of GOP senators after a policy lunch on Capitol Hill in January 2018, would hurt their chances of regaining a majority in the 2022 midterms if he announced before then
'If Trump decides that he needs to get back in now, then it's all about Trump all the time.'
Republicans, according to the report, are feeling good about their chances in the midterm elections next year if they focus their messaging on Biden's agenda and failures as his job approval plummets, rather than trying to ride on the coattails of the former president.
'The way my colleagues see it, he's an asset in the primaries if he's with you and then it creates challenges in the general election,' a Republican senator up for reelection in 2022 said.
'He's different than any political person that I've ever known,' they added, claiming the former president's reemergence could benefit Democrats who want to make the midterm election about Trump.
