Donald Trump is expected to announce his widely anticipated third bid for the White House within hours.
“I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” he said at a midterm election rally last week.
Mr Trump has been stoking intrigue for months that he would run again, telling his followers to “stay tuned”.
CNN reports that one of Mr Trump’s advisers, Jason Miller, appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast recently saying that he would be announcing his 2024 presidential campaign.
Mr Miller said he spoke to the former president who told him: “There doesn’t need to be any question. Of course I’m running. I’m going to do this and I want to make sure people know that I’m fired up.”
An announcement by Mr Trump, 76, means US voters could be faced with a rematch between the former republican president and Democrat President Joe Biden, who turns 80 this month.
If you need a refresher on the Trump presidency and its aftermath, check out our timeline below.
The blame game
There have been rumours that some of Mr Trump’s advisers encouraged him to delay his announcement after the Republican Party performed below expectations during the midterm elections.
Republican hopes in the midterms were dashed after the Democrats retained control of the Senate.
Trump-inspired and Trump-backed candidates were defeated across the country.
The Republican backlash against Mr Trump has been swift.
Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, wrote that the GOP’s belief that Mr Trump would be the party’s saviour was “dubious when he was at his height and is less convincing now”.
“He picked the candidates who lost. He helped make himself an issue. He changed what should have been a pure referendum on Joe Biden into what was more of a choice between Biden and a Trumpified Republican Party that couldn’t make itself palatable enough to suburbanites and independents.”
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a republican and Trump critic, was scathing in his criticism of Mr Trump on CNN.
“People who tried to re-litigate the 2020 election and focused on conspiracy theories and talked about things the voters didn’t care about, they were almost universally rejected,” he said.
Mr Hogan said Mr Trump has cost Republicans in three straight elections.
“It’s like three strikes, you’re out,” he said.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And Donald Trump kept saying, ‘We’re going to be winning so much, we will get tired of winning’.
“I’m tired of losing. I mean, that’s all he has done.”
Mr Trump refuses to accept responsibility for the Republican Party’s failure to win control of the Senate, instead blaming the loss on Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
On Truth Social, Mr Trump said “everyone despises” Mr McConnell and claimed Mr McConnell “blew the midterms”, partly because he refused to financially back candidates he’d endorsed.
“It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault. Spending money to defeat great Republican candidates instead of backing Blake Masters and others was a big mistake,” he posted.
Mr Trump’s popularity may suffer further if the Republicans lose the Georgia run-off election.
In that race, Mr Trump has been a vocal supporter of controversial Republican candidate and former NFL star Herschel Walker.
A loss in Georgia could increase the chances of recently re-elected Florida Governor Ron DeSantis challenging Mr Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Ron DeSantis
Republican elites are desperate for Ron DeSantis to become the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, experts say.
The right-wing governor of Florida won a decisive 20-point margin victory over the Democrat candidate.
He has long been considered the heir apparent to Mr Trump. Many conservatives are keen to hand him the reins, but Mr Trump could thwart their plans.
Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis, calling him an “average Republican governor with great public relations”.
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote that the notion that the party leadership could swap Mr Trump for another candidate without losing the support of their followers rested on two assumptions.
“First, that Trump’s supporters are more committed to the Republican Party than they are to him, and second, that Trump himself will give up the fight if he isn’t able to win the party’s nomination.”
Should Mr Trump lose the nomination, it’s unlikely he would go quietly.
He may even decide to run for president anyway, pulling supporters away from the Republican Party.
Mike Pence
Mr Trump won’t find an ally in former vice president Mike Pence.
Mr Pence this week launches a memoir titled, So Help Me God, in which he criticises his former boss.
In an interview with World News Tonight, Mr Pence said that Mr Trump’s words during the January 6 US Capitol attack were “reckless”, and his actions “endangered me and my family” as well as everyone at the scene of the violent riots.
“It was clear he decided to be part of the problem,” Mr Pence said.
When asked whether Donald Trump should ever be president again, Mr Pence responded: “I think we’ll have better choices in the future.”
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