When Donald Trump Jr., himself a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, called out “2024 GOP hopefuls” after the election for not being more supportive of President Trump’s post-election claims, several immediately snapped into action. And in the weeks since, most Republicans typically spoken of as future presidential candidates have more or less fallen in line.
Even if they may not go as far as President Trump in saying the election was stolen, they have managed to indulge the sentiment that Trump has aroused and have been reluctant to accept President-elect Joe Biden as the winner.
As an example, Sen. Josh Hawley has been talking about the need to address election integrity. That allows him to scratch the itch of those who believe there was widespread election fraud while allowing him to say he just wants fair elections. He has also tweeted out things such as, “The media do not get to determine who the president is. The people do. When all lawful votes have been counted, recounts finished, and allegations of fraud addressed, we will know who the winner is.”
Sen. Ted Cruz has said, “I believe President Trump still has a path to victory, and that path is to count every single legal vote that was cast, but also not to count any votes that were fraudulently cast or illegally cast, and we have a legal process to determine what’s legal and what isn’t.”
This is a similar line as taken by Sen. Tom Cotton, who said, “The media doesn’t determine election results. Legal voters do. The same Dems who for 4 years refused to admit that Hillary lost now demand the President rush to concede.”
As far as I can tell, Sen. Ben Sasse is the only Republican on the informal list of people assumed to be potential candidates to have come out and congratulate Biden as the winner.
The calculation that most of the 2024 candidates are making is pretty clear. Right now, Trump has convinced most would-be Republican primary voters that the election has been rigged. Any candidate who hopes to win the primary will have to win over voters who are behind Trump. And anybody who now congratulates Biden will be singled out by Trump as a traitor and be subject to the Trump Treatment, from which it is difficult to recover.
Trump has incredible power to persuade Republican voters. John Bolton, a staunch conservative since the days he volunteered for Barry Goldwater’s campaign as a high school student, was once a hero to conservatives, particularly for the way he took on the moral corruption of the United Nations as ambassador. Trump turned him into a deep state traitor and a leftist tool, and has conservatives tossing the same “warmonger” accusations at him that liberals once used. Jeff Sessions was once considered among the most reliably conservative senators, but because of his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, he became an enemy — losing a primary for his old Senate seat to an ex-football coach who can’t name the three branches of government. Pro-Trump crowds gathering in Washington over the weekend were chanting, “Fox News sucks,” all because their once-favored news network had the temerity to call Arizona early and ultimately declare Biden the next president.
Cruz knows what it’s like to be burned by Trump. He was badly damaged by Trump’s insults during the 2016 primary, and also from when he urged Republicans to “vote their conscience” during his convention speech rather than clearly endorse Trump. It has taken Cruz years to recover, and he likely still has not returned to the sort of rock star status he enjoyed during the 2013 Obamacare defunding fight.
So, it is understandable why 2024 hopefuls would be reluctant to break with the party line on Trump. Doing so could kill their candidacies before they got off the ground.
However, there is another possibility that they need to consider. What if Trump runs again in 2024?
As I already wrote, it is difficult from this vantage point to imagine who would be able to beat Trump in a GOP primary.
But one thing is for sure. If Trump has one weakness in 2024, it would be that he lost the 2020 election to an aging Biden even as Republicans made gains down ballot. That’s a sure sign that many voters who weren’t on board with Democrats on policy decided to hold their noses and vote for Biden simply because they could not stand Trump. Do Republicans want to renominate Trump in 2024 and risk another defeat?
The problem for Republicans is that this argument only works if Republican voters think that Trump lost. If they think he actually won and the election was stolen, that argument no longer works as well. And the more 2024 Republicans dig in behind Trump right now, the more difficult it will be to defeat Trump in any primary.
The coming weeks are going to be telling. There will be a point at which Trump has exhausted all legal options, and Biden still remains ahead. There will be a point at which Biden will be certified as the winner by the Electoral College. Assuming Trump still refuses to concede at that point and that he claims that he actually won but it was stolen from him, Republicans will have another opportunity to stand up to Trump and acknowledge that Biden is the legitimate winner. They will no longer be able to hide behind the idea of letting the legal process play out or to say that Biden was only declared the winner by the media. If they back Trump at that point, it could come back to haunt them in 2024.
