Former president Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will seek the presidency again in 2024, even as a rising number of Republicans are urging the party to look elsewhere in light of their 2022 midterm debacle.
“I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said during an announcement speech at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla.
Minutes before his scheduled 9 p.m. announcement from Mar-a-Lago, Trump filed a paperwork with the Federal Election Commission saying he was running for president in 2024, and setting up a fundraising account.
“America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump said during his speech at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump had hoped to use a ceremony at his Mar-a-Lago home to seize credit for Republican election victories; but the GOP’s failure to take the Senate and struggles in House races scotched that plan and forced Trump onto the political defensive.
Many Republicans blamed Trump and Trump-like candidates for the GOP’s poor showing in the 2022 midterm elections and noted that the party as led by the businessman also fared badly in the elections of 2018 and 2020.
“Trump’s cost us the last three elections, and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time,” Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told CNN, an example of some of the most pointed criticism from Republicans since Trump’s first run for the presidency in 2015-16.
Many Republicans looking for a new leader are turning to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., who defied anti-Republican trends by winning reelection with more than 59% of the vote. DeSantis is so popular that Trump has already started attacking him.
In last week’s midterm elections, Republicans failed to win control of the Senate – even though they only needed a net gain of one seat – and struggled in a number of U.S. House and state office races. The GOP is still on track to win control of the House, but probably by less than a half-dozen seats – a crushing disappointment for party leaders who had envisioned a “red wave” and blamed Trump for a bare trickle.
“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser,” said a headline in the normally supportive Wall Street Journal editorial page.
