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The immediate aftermath of Trump’s trial has underscored how difficult it will be for the Republican Party to part ways with Trump as the party charts its way forward. The round of recriminations about Trump has Republicans tasked with taking back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections concerned that it could distract from the party’s ability to focus on defeating Democrats and regaining power. in Washington.
Trump had fewer Republican advocates during his second impeachment and trial for the January 6 riots than in his first impeachment a year earlier. But the party still walked away from a chance to break up with the former president, with just seven Republican senators voting Saturday to convict Trump, fewer than the 67 who could have rendered him ineligible to run again for office.
Despite his votes to acquit Trump, some Republicans, including McConnell, condemned his actions after the trial concluded. McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible for causing the events of the day.”
“I’m not predicting that the president would support people who couldn’t win. But I do believe that eligibility, not who supports whom, is the critical point,” McConnell said.
His determination could be tested in crucial races in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other battle states that could determine which party controls the evenly split Senate. Republican voters’ views of Trump and their interest in penalizing those who have broken up with him could also influence key gubernatorial and House elections next year.
The impeachment has already injected Trump loyalty into the 2022 House of Representatives primaries. Nearly all of the 10 House members who voted to impeach the former president now face at least one challenger, and in some cases more, for their seats. in the midterm elections next year.
Burr’s vote could also shape the race to replace him next year. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, is said to be among Republicans considering running for Senate.
“The biggest winner from this whole impeachment trial is Lara Trump,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “My dear friend Richard Burr, who I like and have been friends with for a long time, just made Lara Trump the almost certain candidate for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if he runs.”
Even within the McConnell conference, there is little appetite for a clear break with Trump.
He acknowledged that Trump’s political approach “upsets some people in the Republican Party,” but said those people are a small minority of the party’s electorate.
“I think they believe this is an opportunity to purge our movement of any semblance of connection to Trump again. They are wrong,” Johnson said.
In key decisive states, Republicans have largely argued that a total rejection of Trump and everything he stood for would alienate the party base, and that one version of his message may succeed in the 2022 midterm elections.
Jason Shepherd, chairman of the Cobb County Republican Party and candidate for president of the Georgia Republican Party, said Trump will define the party for a generation as Ronald Reagan did before him, and that the path back to party power it implies a “” softer version “of Trump’s approach.
“I think where a lot of Republicans say to move on, it’s more about Donald Trump’s personality than his politics. I think there are a lot of Republicans, and frankly, a lot of Democrats, who can’t separate politics from personality,” he said . “Donald Trump has probably one of the best messages of conservatism that we have seen in more than a generation as a party, but perhaps he was not the best messenger for him.”
Yet in Georgia, Trump could be poised to play a huge role in the state in 2022, with the governor’s office, a Senate seat and other key races on the ballot. Trump has repeatedly signaled his desire to retaliate against Governor Brian Kemp and other Republican officials who refused to back up his false claims about voter fraud.
Shepherd said there is an “immense danger” of Republicans looking back, rather than entering what have historically proven to be favorable conditions for midterm elections, when the party out of power generally wins seats.
“If Republicans are fighting each other, trying to re-legitimize the 2020 election, then we will lose focus, which should be defining what happened during two years of Democratic leadership in Washington, DC,” he said.
Others said the Republican Party is on the brink of losing national and state races on battlefields that could otherwise be won if it remains tied to an unpopular former president.
“Trumpism is not winning in the country as a whole. They are going to have a reality check when they get to the national level and realize they are not winning,” said Olivia Troye, former anti-Trump national security adviser for the former El Vice President Mike Pence and now director of the Republican Accountability Project.
She argued that the Republican Party needs a complete break from Trump, rather than trying to moderate his excesses without taking action, as the Senate might have done, to sideline him.
“What you’re really doing is ostracizing a lot of this population who are the more moderate Republicans who don’t want to be grouped with Trumpism. So until you solve that problem, you can’t pretend to stand equally, trade and smaller government. “
Yet such a breakdown seems largely impossible in the current political climate: Conservative media organizations have largely rewarded Trump advocates with airtime and figures who have openly supported Trump’s false claims about the elections, Including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: They have seen increases in fundraising.
“The path of least resistance for Republicans is to unite as the loyal opposition and hope that the natural political gravity of the midterm cycle takes hold. But the demand problem on the right makes this tension hard to evade: there is a vocal market to defend Trump, and it will be served in one way or another, turning the primaries into de facto referendums, and putting those deemed insufficiently loyal in a difficult position, “said Republican strategist Liam Donovan.
It’s too early to say whether voters will reward or penalize the few figures within the Republican Party who have unapologetically criticized Trump, including Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump. , and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict him and is set for reelection next year.
The appetite of Trump himself and his family members to campaign in person, cut ads and raise funds for the 2022 candidates is still unclear. And the course of the coronavirus pandemic, including the distribution of vaccines, the reopening of schools and more, could prove a much more important factor.
“Primary battles could spawn candidates or divisions that waste races that might otherwise be won, but much of 2022 will hinge on the macro question of whether voters feel life is back to normal,” Donovan said. “Either way, next year will give us a good indication of whether the Republican Party is ready or even willing to turn the page.”
