SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. — The Republican National Committee Friday moved to quell internal opposition to President Trump, overwhelmingly approving a resolution of support for his leadership to demonstrate that potential 2020 primary challengers are unwelcome.
The RNC vote occurred at its annual winter business meeting near Albuquerque. But while the measure affirmed support for Trump and his accomplishments in the White House, it stopped short of expressing support for the president’s renomination to lead the GOP in 2020 and re-election to a second term.
Carolyn McLarty, the RNC committeewoman from Oklahoma, was the primary sponsor of the resolution. Some of her colleagues would have preferred a tougher resolution that explicitly backed Trump’s renomination and re-election. But McLarty told the Washington Examiner both that it wasn’t necessary and that she didn’t want to put the RNC in the position of appearing to close down the 2020 primary.
“My reason for doing it is to support the president. As you know, there’s been so much belittling and that kind of thing going on, Washington elites attacking the president, and that’s the focus of mine, to give him support, give him encouragement. I didn’t need to go beyond that,” McLarty said.
[Opinion: The challenge for any 2020 primary challenge to Trump]
Trump enjoys the broad support of grassroots Republicans and would be heavily favored in any primary. But there is some unrest in quarters of the traditional GOP establishment, and some prominent Republicans are weighing a primary challenge. Most often mentioned are Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Motivated by recent criticism of Trump’s leadership from Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, some RNC members pushed for countering it with a stronger resolution that specifically backed the president’s renomination and re-election. But such a measure was killed in the RNC’s resolutions committee, causing some to accuse the party of quietly keeping its options open for 2020 should Trump be driven from office by legal or political scandal.
Meanwhile, some veteran RNC members were privately dismayed than any resolution was debated and passed, grumbling that it creates the appearance that Trump is in trouble.
