Youngkin presents what some strategists think is the most politically viable national model for Republicans in a post-Trump era. Glenn Youngkin is not running for office now - he won Virginia’s governor’s race last year - but he has emerged as an in-demand surrogate for candidates at all levels of the Trump spectrum.
(Here are four takeaways from the debate.) The Never Trumpers’ Trump
DeSantis refused to say in last night’s debate whether he would serve a full, four-year term if re-elected. While Lake has fielded questions about running with Trump, DeSantis seems more likely to run against him in 2024. It was an idea that Stephen Miller, a Trump policy adviser, had pursued while working in the White House, but that others in the administration rejected.Īnd unlike Lake, who has remained loyal to Trump, DeSantis has criticized him from the right, saying that he regretted not speaking out against Trump’s early Covid shutdowns. Last month, DeSantis prompted liberal condemnation and conservative applause when he sent two chartered planeloads of undocumented migrants from Texas - hundreds of miles from the Florida state line - to Martha’s Vineyard, the moneyed Massachusetts vacation spot frequented by celebrities and former Democratic presidents. Charlie Crist, DeSantis gave a graphic and inaccurate description of gender-affirming care for transgender children, suggesting falsely that doctors were “mutilating” minors. In a debate last night against his Democratic challenger, former Gov. It also placed DeSantis squarely in the culture-war debate over transgender rights, a theme he has continued to address. In March, he signed legislation prohibiting classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades, a law that opponents derided as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has tried to out-Trump Trump, adopting inflammatory stances that excite core conservative supporters and that position him as a 2024 front-runner. If she wins her tightly contested race, Lake will have shown that her smoother version of Trumpism can work even in places where Trump lost. (Lake insisted she would remain governor if she won.) One interviewer asked her this past weekend whether she would run as Trump’s vice-presidential nominee in 2024. She’s quick with a viral zinger and rarely says anything to upset her base. Last week, in an interview with CNN, she refused to say that she would accept the results of her election if she lost.īut unlike Trump, who is easily sidetracked - recall his digressions on topics like flushing toilets - Lake is a polished speaker, the result of a quarter century in television news. Lake is running as a political outsider, bashing the media and promising to be “the fake news’s worst nightmare.” She has called the 2020 election “stolen” and “corrupt,” and said she would not have certified President Biden’s victory. Today, I will examine three Republicans who are putting forward their own versions of Trumpism - some of which might help Trump win if he were to run for president again, and others that might someday defeat him. With only a handful of exceptions, the Republicans running for office are strongly in Trump’s camp, embracing some version of his denials of his 2020 election loss.Ĭandidates from Arizona to Pennsylvania have adopted his views, bombastic style and anti-establishment attitude and made them their own. Most of those who refused to pledge fealty to the former president lost their primaries or retired to avoid defeat. Trumpism is embedded in the DNA of the party. Two weeks before the first midterm elections since Trump left office, the answer to the first question seems clear. It is an essential question for the party and, as a result, the country: Could there be Trumpism without Trump? And what, exactly, would that look like? For years, pundits and political strategists have speculated about Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party.
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