Lindsey Graham is predicting that former president Donald Trump could mount one of the most unique and successful presidential campaigns in history should he choose to run in 2024.
The on-again-off-again Trump supporter and South Carolina senator made the prediction this week in a new interview with CNBC.
“If you lose again, the history about who you are and what you did dramatically changes,” the senator says he told Mr Trump. “If you come back, it will be one of the greatest political comebacks in American history. And if you get four more years, you can do big stuff.”
Mr Graham in particular holds a place among congressional Republicans as a fair-weather friend of Donald Trump. He has opposed Mr Trump at least twice in recent memory. First, for the GOP nomination in 2016 when he warned that Democrats would defeat him in the general election and be right to do so, and once again in 2021 in the immediate aftermath of January 6.
At that time, a beleaguered Mr Graham announced on the Senate floor that he was done supporting the former president. But that latest moment of clarity only lasted a few weeks before the senator was once again touting Mr Trump as the rightful leader of his party.
Polls show that dominance over the GOP remains. Mr Trump is the only nationally-prominent Republican, other than Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, to poll in the double digits when GOP primary voters are asked about their 2024 picks. Mr DeSantis trails Mr Trump in those polls by hefty margins.
The real question for Mr Trump and his allies since January 6, and arguably since November of 2020, is whether the former president can ever again rally the kind of support among independent voters and even some Democrats that carried him to victory past Hillary Clinton in 2016. President Joe Biden reversed Donald Trump’s success in a number of key battleground states during the last cycle, claiming victory in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.
Mr Graham seems to continue to enjoy the support of his party’s de facto leader in return for his albeit shaky loyalty, and the former president has given no indication that he plans to back a primary challenger to the senator as he has with other GOPers who have earned his ire in the past. Mr Trump also appears to be largely still focused, at least in terms of the Senate GOP, with weakening the influence or toppling altogether the regime of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mr McConnell has long held an iron grip on his caucus and is probably the Republican leader least loyal to the ex-president in Washington.
The senior senator from his state, Mr Graham won reelection during the last cycle with ease despite facing a well-funded challenger in the form of Jaime Harrison, a Democrat who would go on to take over as chair of the Democratic National Committee from Tom Perez after his defeat.
