Republican leaders and allies are urging former president Donald Trump to delay his 2024 presidential announcement to “look at realities on the ground” amid setbacks for the GOP in midterm elections.
With counting still underway after the 2022 midterms, Joe Biden appeared to have beaten the historical odds by diminishing the Democratic party’s losses while Republicans argued with each other over their surprisingly weak performance.
Mr Trump has been eager to announce his 2024 presidential race as he sought to capitalise on preassumed Republican success in the midterms. But he was stopped by Republican leaders from announcing his candidacy at a rally in Ohio and trailed an announcement on 15 November.
His allies are now calling him to delay his planned announcement by next week as the party’s full focus needs to be on Georgia, where Trump-backed football great Herschel Walker’s effort to unseat Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock advanced to a runoff - that could determine control of the Senate once again.
Former press secretary for Mr Trump, Kayleigh McEnany, who now works for Fox News, advised on air that Mr Trump should hold off on an announcement until after the Georgia Senate runoff.
“I think he needs to put it on pause,” she said.
When asked whether Mr Trump should campaign in the state, she said: “I think we’ve got to make strategic calculations. Governor [Ron] DeSantis, I think he should be welcomed to the state, given what happened last night. You’ve got to look at the realities on the ground.”
Former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who spent the night with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, also suggested against making any announcements and holding off until the Georgia runoff.
“Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now,” Mr Miller said. “I’m not alone when I say President Trump’s best moves are to put all his efforts to get Herschel Walker elected.”
As Mr Trump appeared to lose his footing in the Republican party, Mr DeSantis, who is widely seen as his possible challenger in 2024, cruised to reelection, cementing his status as a rising national Republican star.
“I have only begun to fight,” he told supporters in his victory speech.
Mr Biden, who is facing the prospect of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years, said “my intention is that I run again” as Democrats had a better-than-expected night. But said he doesn’t “feel any hurry one way or another” about making an announcement, which could come early next year.
Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist said Republicans had a “historic opportunity” with the elections but Mr Trump’s recruitment of “unelectable candidates blew it for us”.
“Trump‘s now lost three elections in a row for the Republican Party and it’s time to snap out of this foolishness.”
The former president’s efforts to keep himself in the spotlight by teasing a run in the race’s final stretch “obviously worked up a lot of independents and Democrats to turn out and vote”, he added.
Mr Trump, however, insisted publicly he was happy with the results, calling it a “great evening”.
“While in certain ways yesterday’s election was somewhat disappointing, from my personal standpoint it was a very big victory - 219 WINS and 16 Losses in the General - Who has ever done better than that?” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social network Wednesday afternoon.
Additional reporting by agencies
