Source: Politics<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long ago that many Republicans believed the party might finally be ready to move past former President Donald Trump. Nikki Haley was running for president. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was embarking on a book tour, and a raft of other prominent GOPers were visiting early primary states.<\/p>\n
But in the span of a week, the script for the earliest stages of the 2024 primary was written; and once again Trump was the axis around which it all turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Groundhog Day,\u201d said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.<\/p>\n
While Trump\u2019s approval ratings may be slipping<\/a> and Republican voters tell pollsters they are willing to look elsewhere<\/a>, a series of recent developments has kept the party fixated on him and the scandals that defined his time and office. Washington D.C. and the largest conservative news outlet have spent days reliving the Jan. 6 riot. And the specter of a Trump indictment in New York portends an early primary season spent relitigating his record.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question he\u2019s the giant in the middle of the room, and other people will define themselves in comparison to him,\u201d said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.<\/p>\n In recent days, Trump said he will \u201cabsolutely\u201d stay in the race<\/a> if he is indicted and that it would likely \u201cenhance my numbers.\u201d Far from distancing himself from the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 \u2014 a general election liability with independents and pro-democracy Republicans \u2014 Trump has suggested pardoning some Jan. 6 defendants<\/a> and recently collaborated on a song with some of them<\/a>. More traditionalist Republicans winced at that \u2014 and again when Fox\u2019s Tucker Carlson aired footage downplaying violence at the Capitol.<\/p>\n \u201cJust reliving the worst moment of the Trump presidency is probably not exactly what the doctor ordered for 2024,\u201d Ayres said.<\/p>\n For any other presidential candidate or any down-ballot Republican next year, said one Republican strategist granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics of the campaign frankly, the \u201chuge risk\u201d is that \u201cwe have to talk about Jan. 6 on the campaign trail.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod, I don\u2019t want to be on this side of that issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The primary was always going to be, first and foremost, about the former president \u2014 who remains, despite his foibles, the frontrunner in the 2024 field. But after a less-than-red-wave midterm and the first few lackluster weeks of Trump\u2019s campaign, it appeared he might not singularly set the terms of the debate. It was time for a \u201cnew generation<\/a>,\u201d Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, said when she launched her campaign. Republicans, said New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu \u2014 a potential candidate \u2014 would not choose \u201cyesterday\u2019s leadership<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem for Republicans is that Trump is making it impossible to run anything other than yesterday\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n In Washington, Carlson\u2019s relitigating of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol on Fox News forced Republicans to answer new batteries of questions about an event they\u2019d been eager to forget<\/a> \u2014 reminiscent of the Trump tweets they\u2019d been forced, awkwardly, to respond to throughout his term. It sparked intraparty debates about whether the insurrection had, in fact, been essentially peaceful and led to accusations that those in the party who called it a dark day were ideological squishes.<\/p>\n Then came news that Trump had been invited to testify before a New York grand jury<\/a> investigating his involvement in hush money payments during the 2016 campaign, raising the prospect of a bombshell criminal case that would again keep Trump as a central litmus test for the party: would fellow Republicans decry the prosecution or turn on the former president?<\/p>\n \u201cIgnore it, deflect it all you want,\u201d said Mike Noble, the chief of research and managing partner at the Arizona-based polling firm OH Predictive Insights. \u201cThis is, right now, going to be the Trump show \u2026 The oxygen is just going to be sucked out of the room focusing on Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n The effects were already evident in the nascent campaign. In announcing last week that he would not run for president, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan pointed to Trump, saying he feared a \u201cpile up\u201d of low-polling candidates preventing an alternative candidate from \u201crising up.\u201d<\/p>\n Vivek Ramaswamy \u2014 the wealthy biotech entrepreneur and longshot candidate \u2014 went the opposite way, diving right into Trump\u2019s orbit. By mid-week, he was calling for \u201cdue process\u201d for those arrested in the Jan. 6 riot<\/a>.<\/p>\n Former Vice President Mike Pence, meantime, took his biggest swing yet at Trump, telling a crowd at the Gridiron dinner on Saturday that \u201chistory will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Even DeSantis, who has largely sidestepped the former president, appears unlikely to avoid him for long. His visit on Friday to Iowa came with Trump right over his shoulder, with Trump set to follow DeSantis into the first-in-the-nation caucus state on Monday.<\/p>\n And then there are the potential candidates who, by virtue of their resumes, are already inextricably tied to Trump. Haley, Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were all part of his administration.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like candidates are trying to break away from talking about Trump, but keep getting pulled back in,\u201d said Bob Heckman, a Republican strategist who has worked on nine presidential campaigns. \u201cThat\u2019s all good for Trump for two reasons. One, it keeps him relevant, and two, I think it\u2019s what he wants. He wants to be the center of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump’s likely to stay there, too, as multi-candidate events pick up this spring \u2014 followed by debates in which Republicans will be pressed for commentary on the riot and other elements of his tenure.<\/p>\n Already, lanes in the GOP primary are constricting in ways that nod to Trump\u2019s strength, with Hogan\u2019s announcement<\/a> serving as a tacit acknowledgement of the lack of room for any outspoken Trump critic. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who became the GOP\u2019s most prominent antagonist of Trump, hastaken an appointment as a professor of practice at University of Virginia<\/a>. Former Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial, became a president … of the University of Florida<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the GOP primary, said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh \u2014 who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020 \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s going to be Trump, or it\u2019s going to be the Trumpiest son-of-a-bitch out there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d he added, \u201cis what this base wants.\u201d<\/p>\n In a normal reelection year for a sitting president, the opposition party would spend its primary at least partly focused on the incumbent \u2014 setting up a referendum on President Joe Biden in the fall. But as it was in the midterms in 2022 and, before that \u2014 in his own, failed, reelection campaign \u2014 the primary is unfolding as a referendum instead on Trump. Noble called it \u201cthe sequel, \u2026 100 percent\u201d about Trump. And his opponents, it appears, can do very little about it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe press likes him. He\u2019s the story, he\u2019s conflict,\u201d said Beth Miller, a longtime Republican strategist. \u201cHow do you not continue to write about him, since all of those issues are still at the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible, if DeSantis or some other Republican makes the primary competitive, that the singular focus on Trump will fade. Significant differences may arise between candidates on immigration, Social Security or any number of other issues.<\/p>\n It’s also possible some other candidate will get in, appealing to what former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman called voters \u201cwho have been dissatisfied, who have moved to the independent column\u201d and who \u201cmight come back if they saw a Republican they thought was viable and sane and a little more to the center.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if any names came to mind, however, she said, \u201cNo, not right now.\u201d<\/p>\n