Republican lawmakers, many of whom speak to Donald Trump regularly, want the 2024 GOP front-runner to hammer a campaign message focused on immigration and the economy, saying that is where President Joe Biden is most vulnerable.
Trump weaved those two issues into the backbone of a conservative populist message during his successful 2016 White House bid. After the COVID-19 pandemic shook up every aspect of life and hamstrung the economy, then-President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign message, by necessity, was more disjointed, and Biden prevailed.
GOP lawmakers, even if they have endorsed other candidates in their party’s ongoing presidential primary, said Biden has made a mess of the U.S.-Mexico border and is not enforcing immigration laws. The same Republican members said their constituents complain daily about still-high prices, even as inflation rates have eased, and believe Biden has bungled a fundamentally strong economy that Trump left him.
