Trump GOP rivals on the spot to say if they’d back ex-president as 2024 nominee
David Mark
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It’s the most consistently asked hypothetical question at this early stage of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating process. Increasing queries over whether they’d support former President Donald Trump if he emerges as the GOP nominee are putting prospective Republican candidates on the defensive.
The matter is hardly academic for potential rivals of Trump, who led a monthslong fight to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. As for 2024, Trump, the first declared Republican candidate, the former president refuses to say if he would support the next GOP White House nominee if it’s not him.
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Trump has the leverage to take that stance in a way that lower-profile GOP candidates do not, which has made them squirm.
Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), who is mulling a run for the Republican nomination, recently told CNN he would support Trump, however reluctantly. Sununu also seemed to walk back his previous comment that Trump was “f***ing crazy.” Sununu dismissed the quip as a “funny joke.”
Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), who is also eyeing a 2024 GOP presidential bid, took two days to answer reporters’ questions on whether he’d back Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee.
“I fully expect to support the Republican nominee — who I don’t believe will be Trump,” Hogan said in late January.
Hogan’s political operation soon issued a more forceful, if not entirely airtight, statement about his concerns over a 2024 Trump nomination.
“I won’t commit to supporting him. I fully expect to support the Republican nominee — who I don’t believe will be Trump,” Hogan said.
Sununu was elected as New Hampshire’s governor in 2016, and he is the most popular GOP figure in a state that’s a toss-up but has increasingly elected Democrats in recent years. Maryland’s Hogan, too, is playing up his crossover appeal in a closely divided country, having twice been elected governor in a Democratic-dominated state, where Biden beat Trump in 2020 by a nearly 2-1 spread.
Sununu on Feb. 8 took his most tangible step yet toward a presidential run, setting up a political action committee similar to Hogan’s to pay for his political travel called the “Live Free or Die” committee. In both cases, the donations don’t have to be disclosed, and prospective candidates often use these political nonprofit groups as a way to gauge interest from donors.
Hutchinson gears up for 2024 bid
Another new super PAC, America Strong and Free Action, is backing former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), who looks increasingly likely to join the 2024 White House GOP scrum. The PAC will help promote Hutchinson’s prospective bid and pay for travel and other expenses, putting him in the same category, for now, as Sununu and Hogan.
Hutchinson was a U.S. attorney in Arkansas in the 1980s when Democratic Gov. Bill Clinton stood atop state politics. Elected to the House in 1996, Hutchinson became a national figure of sorts as a manager in then-President Clinton’s Senate impeachment trial, which failed to convict and remove the incumbent. Hutchinson went on to high-level roles in President George W. Bush’s administration and was elected the governor of Arkansas in 2014 after a losing bid in the Democratic wave year of 2006.
Hutchinson is a staunch conservative. He has positioned himself as an anti-Trump figure, talking up the need for civility in politics and promoting nonpartisan causes such as increasing American high school students’ study of math and science.
Hutchinson has been outspoken about his opposition to Trump, telling CBS News the former president should not seek a return to the White House — especially in the aftermath of Jan. 6.
“I do believe that he disqualified himself and should not serve our country again as a result of what happened,” Hutchinson said. “That’s my belief and conviction.”
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Hutchinson is likely to announce his decision on whether he’ll run for president in April, he said recently.
Should Hutchinson choose to run, he’d be entering a GOP primary field that is expected to grow more crowded over the coming months. Trump so far faces U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who was South Carolina’s governor from 2011 to 2017.