Can Trump make a comeback — or are Republicans moving on?

Much has been written in recent weeks about the future of the Republican Party Anno Donald Trump. Will Trump run for the presidency again in 2024? Can he run? Does he even want to? And if he doesn’t, who will?

In the statement Trump released following his acquittal, he promised “our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement has only just begun” and that he has “much to share” in the coming months. And it’s surely the case that the man who survived two impeachments and Covid-19 would love to stick it to his opponents and become the first impeached President to be re-elected. 

And yet, the reports which have emerged of Trump post-presidency are that he is “truly relaxed” and “much happier” in the sun of Mar-a-Lago, planning his presidential library and playing golf. Jubilant supporters flocked to the streets of Florida following his acquittal and a video of him handing out $50 bills like candy went viral.

Trump, of course, is 74, and not only has just spent four years as the leading man in perhaps the most dramatic presidency in US history but now, as a private citizen once more, faces a avalanche of lawsuits, ranging from his involvement in the Capitol insurrection to his attempt to overturn Georgia’s election result, to investigations into his business dealings and tax affairs. 

Even if he did want to run, he no longer commands the support he once did. Recent polls have confirmed two things: that most Americans think both that Trump was the worst president ever and that he should have been convicted by the Senate. In the event, he received the largest bipartisan vote for an impeachment conviction in US history. 

But the truth is that the Republican Party is now the Trump Party. He is also the most voted for Republican presidential candidate in history and has ended many a political career with as little as a tweet. Just the suggestion that Trump might set up his own Patriot Party – which he has not even endorsed – has triggered a flurry of polls showing how it would decimate Republican support. 

Of course, now that Trump has lost his social media platform, his influence has been curtailed. But in the last few days the conservative social media platform Parler has been restored and it seems highly unlikely that Trump won’t have found a new platform by the time of the next election cycle. Thanks to his campaign to overturn the 2020 election result, he also has a war chest of nearly $200 million. It is often said that an elected politician is “in office but not in power”; Trump is the opposite. A recent article in Politico compared him to a medieval “antipope”, Mar-a-Lago the Avignon to Washington’s Rome.

But if Trump is not on the ticket in 2024, then who might be? Mike Pence lost Trump’s supporters the moment he agreed to certify Joe Biden’s victory – as the graphic scenes at the Capitol demonstrated. However, since leaving office he has established a think tank and podcast, indicating that he is still keeping a hand in the game. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio allied themselves with Trump, despite their scurvy treatment from him in the 2016 primaries, no doubt with an eye on another presidential run.

But there are also new kids on the block. Nikki Haley (pictured) was Trump’s UN ambassador and is a self-proclaimed “friend” who nonetheless denounced him last week: “He let us down.” She has been touted as a candidate who could bridge the establishment and populist wings of the party and win back suburban women. She has already set up a Political Action Committee (PAC), a sure sign of a presidential run. Then there are even more fervent anti-Trumpers like Ben Sasse and Liz Cheney.

What is certain is that whoever succeeds Trump will need his seal of approval. For that they will almost certainly need to be what he believes to be a “strong” character, fully support his MAGA agenda and, perhaps most importantly, have demonstrated unwavering loyalty to Trump himself. Lara and Ivanka Trump have set their sights on Senate seats and Don Jr will campaign to unseat Liz Cheney in Wyoming. America is a proud republic, but it is also no stranger to dynasties. 

Otherwise, Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, Tommy Tuberville, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley and, of course, the conspiracy theory-touting Majorie Taylor Greene, are the most prominent of Trump’s loyalists. But it is perhaps Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, who is the one to watch. A Hispanic Republican from a key swing state with chiselled good looks, he has been nicknamed the “Mini Trump” and has won plaudits for his response to Covid-19. Florida also happens to be the location of Mar-a-Lago.

Ultimately, however, the question of who succeeds Trump is intertwined with the direction of the Republican Party. Do they go back to the neoconservative, free-market tradition of Reagan and Bush, or do they continue with Trump’s protectionist, isolationist and populist politics? To regain the White House they will have to find a way of holding onto Trump’s gains with blue-collar voters and minorities whilst winning back the suburbs, where they were decimated in 2020.  

It’s worth remembering, however, that the Republicans are a formidable political machine – there have been more Republican presidents than Democrats. Since the Obama years they have controlled the majority of state governments and, as a result, are set to control the boundaries of nearly half of the entire House of Representatives in this year’s redistricting process. Likewise, they will almost certainly make gains in the 2022 midterm elections and, thanks to Trump, there is also now a clear conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Perhaps more alarming for Democrats is the fact that the Grand Old Party (GOP) is no longer the Grand Old, White and Male Party. They secured record levels of support with African and Hispanic Americans at the last election and almost every House Republican that defeated a Democrat was either a woman or a person of colour. The potential runners and riders for 2024 are a long way from their seventies; they include women, Hispanic and African Americans. 

And despite talk of a Republican “civil war”, Joe Biden’s first few weeks as President have only served to remind conservatives of their unifying creed. As well as issuing a record-breaking number of executive orders, Biden terminated the Keystone XL Pipeline (and with it thousands of blue-collar jobs), mandated a host of “woke” policies and is bypassing Congressional Republicans to pass his eye-watering stimulus package. 

If they can iron out their differences, the Republicans are in a strong position to contest the 2024 election. The question is, will they be able to?

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