Donald Trump’s runaway victory in the Iowa caucuses has triggered a new slew of endorsements from prominent Republicans, among them at least four former rivals for the party’s presidential nomination whom he has previously insulted.
The Texas senator Ted Cruz became the latest to jump onboard on Tuesday night, tweeting he was “proud” to back the former president “to save our country from the Democrats’ destructive agenda”.
“Lyin’ Ted”, as Trump branded Cruz in their unseemly squabble during the 2016 primary, also endured criticism of his wife Heidi’s looks and a Trump lie linking his father to Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F Kennedy.
Cruz’s endorsement came in quick succession to that of Vivek Ramaswamy, the upstart rightwing entrepreneur who suspended his campaign for the 2024 nomination following his disastrous showing in Iowa.
On Saturday Trump had called Ramaswamy “sly” and urged Iowa voters not to be “duped” by his “deceitful campaign tricks”. On Tuesday night, Ramaswamy offered Trump his unqualified backing.
“I congratulated him on his victory and now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the presidency, and I think we’re gonna do the right thing for this country,” he said in his concession speech.
The two appeared together at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Ramaswamy smiling broadly as Trump’s supporters chanted “VP, VP,” in a call for him to be named vice-presidential running mate.
“He’ll be working with us for a long time,” Trump said.
Another former candidate now stumping for Trump is Doug Burgum, the Republican North Dakota governor. Trump essentially ignored Burgum’s self-funded challenge, which failed to gain traction and was quietly concluded in December.
That indifference was rewarded with Burgum’s full-throated support on Iowa caucus day, when the governor seamlessly shifted his position from refusing to do business with Trump last summer in order not to be judged “for the company you keep”, to calling Trump “the right person” to move the country forward.
As with Ramaswamy, Trump dangled a carrot in return for Burgum’s change of heart. “He’s one of the best governors in our country, and I hope that I’m going to be able to call on him to be a piece of the administration, a very important piece of the administration,” Trump said in his Iowa victory remarks.
Perhaps the most humiliated of all of Trump’s former foes to have swallowed their pride and embraced the former president is the Florida senator Marco Rubio, who declared his backing in a tweet on Sunday.
Repeatedly demeaned as “Little Marco” during the 2016 primary race, Rubio hit back by attacking Trump’s “small hands” and orange tan. These “lowbrow taunts” backfired and he lost to Trump in his own state.
Rubio now describes the man he once labelled “a con artist” as the only candidate who can take the “extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster [Joe] Biden has created”.
Reveling in Rubio’s endorsement, along with that of Florida’s other Republican senator and former governor Rick Scott in November, Trump on Monday taunted Ron DeSantis, the current Florida governor and challenger for the presidential nomination who is still in the race.
“Nice when both highly respected Republican Florida senators endorse Trump over the missing from Florida Republican governor, Ron DeSanctimonious,” Trump wrote of Rubio and Scott in a post on his Truth Social network. “They know something that others don’t.”
Analysts broadly expect DeSantis will also fall in line and endorse Trump should he drop out of the race if, as expected, he fails to make a positive showing in next week’s New Hampshire primary or beyond.
DeSantis was challenged on his 2016 and 2020 presidential endorsements for Trump in a CNN town hall on Tuesday night.
“I’m a Republican. I know in 2016 Trump was controversial, but I looked at it as like with Hillary [Clinton, the Democratic candidate], we’re not gonna get anything done,” he said.
“I believed that with Trump … maybe we can get some good stuff. And to his credit he did have some good policies and I supported him of course for re-election in 2020, even though we had disagreements.”
The rush to fealty among top Republicans raises familiar questions about the motives and political ambitions of those bludgeoned by Trump only to step up to his side.
In a 2020 column for Verdict, Neil H Buchanan, senior professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, argued that Republicans’ support for Trump despite his bullying behavior was about “bigotry and raw power”.
“Republicans simply like what Trump is, what he does, and the depths of bigoted authoritarianism to which he would take this country, ” he wrote. “As he knocks down barriers, Republicans gleefully run in behind him.”
