Establishment Republicans are scrambling to find some alternative to a Donald Trump nomination this summer, but for the few congressional Republicans who have endorsed the billionaire, Trump is just the right candidate to lead the party.
Loud, public comments in support of Trump from established Republican officials and lawmakers are still relatively rare. However, some are already saying quietly that they could work with Trump, and Thursday night, each of the other GOP candidates said they would support Trump if he wins the nomination.
In the meantime, however, a small band of Republicans is openly cheering Trump, and there seem to be four main reasons why:
Outsider status
For some, Trump’s status as a non-politician gives them the greatest hope that he might be able to end the gridlock that’s been seen under President Obama for the last five years, and get something done.
Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., said this week that his own party has forgotten why it exists, and that someone like Trump needs to win the White House and remind Republicans that it’s time to focus on reducing the influence of government.
“The America I know bears no resemblance to the polite social circles and cocktail parties familiar to the news media, political and legal elites of Washington, D.C.,” he said in an op-ed in USA Today.
“Those in power have dictated to the rest of us the rules under which we have to live, often without regard to whether it makes sense in our communities,” he added. “How is that working for us? Today, we are $19 trillion in debt, and our economy leaves nearly 12 million of our neighbors unemployed.”
Marino and others also see Trump as a private-sector leader who would have success in the public sector.
“I am supporting Donald J. Trump for president because he, better than any other candidate, embraces the priorities of the America I know and love,” Marino concluded.
Bipartisanship
It’s become a dirty word, but some Republicans say that one of President Obama’s major flaws is his inability to work on major legislation with Republicans. Obama passed the stimulus bill in 2009 with just three Republican votes, no Republicans voted for Obamacare, and when Republicans took over Congress, Obama tried to impose changes to immigration rules by regulation.
Trump has said repeatedly that he’d work with both parties, a remark that has infuriated some Republicans. But others say a return to bipartisanship is just what’s needed.
“We should be giving him a standing ovation for that,” Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., told the Washington Examiner this week.
Respect for voters
Those who support Trump say it makes little sense to ignore the will of the hundreds of thousands of votes that Trump has collected in the primaries so far. They also say it’s difficult to imagine a convention process that somehow ends up with a non-Trump nominee, and somehow doesn’t alienate Republican voters across the country.
“Donald Trump is winning all over the nation with the people that matter — the voters, the Republican voters,” Collins told Politico this week. “Those are the people that we come to Washington to represent. We represent the people of the United States.”
It’s precisely that idea that has so many party leaders dancing carefully around the idea of a brokered convention, one that would see the party ignore the will of voters and nominate another candidate.
On Friday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus admitted that there’s some chance of a contested convention. But in the wake of Trump’s several state wins on Super Tuesday, several talking heads have been warning that such a move might just alienate Republican voters and split the party.
Immigration
Trump launched his campaign by promising to build a wall to keep out immigrants, and has stuck to that promise the whole way through.
His tough talk on immigration drew a long-time staffer of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to the campaign, and on Thursday, Trump announced that Sessions would advise his campaign on foreign policy and homeland security.
When Sessions endorsed Trump, he indicated that he sees in the flamboyant candidate a chance to make progress on those issues that he had to support. “A movement is afoot that must not fade away,” Sessions said.
Sessions and others who want tougher enforcement of immigration laws have also said the country needs to scale back the number of skilled workers brought in under the H-1B visa program. Trump seemed to create a rift on that issue, when he said in Thursday’s debate that he’s “changing” on whether those visas need to be cut back.
But Trump explained in a statement to the press that the H-1B visa program is not about immigration at all, and that it allows the entry of temporary foreign workers. He clarified that while he wants to end the ability of companies to use the program as a source of cheap labor, he said he wants to restore it as a program to get skilled workers into the country when American workers with those skill sets aren’t available.
