The former chair of the GOP in Georgia resigned after the party voted to censure Kemp, a Trump critic. The new definition of a RINO is anyone who isn't willing to follow Trump 100 percent or question him.
A year after the riot at the Capitol, a majority of Republicans still think that Joe Biden won the presidency because of voter fraud, according to a poll. The Republicans have lost interest in litigating the events of January 6. According to a survey, nearly 8 in 10 Republicans want Trump to run for president again.
The founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition said it was extraordinary. He is in a better position within the Republican Party today than he has ever been.
The Republican Party may be moving in a more conservative direction with Trump out of office than it would have been if he had been reelected.
It seemed that Trump had lost his grip on the GOP. Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, said after the riot at the Capitol that Donald Trump was incapable of running for president in 2024. Nancy Mace, who worked on the Trump campaign, said that Trump's legacy had been wiped out. Republicans who supported Trump before were urging him not to run again.
He is not the leader of the Republican Party according to Scott Jennings, who worked for Bush.
Trump is the leader of the party. His political committees have raised more than 100 million dollars. His allies have expanded their reach in the states. They are running Trump-critical Republicans from the fold.
Two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump have already announced they will not seek reelection this year. In Wyoming, state Republican Party leaders voted not to recognize Liz Cheney as a member of their party. There are Senate and gubernatorial primaries in the upcoming election.
Bob Heckman, a Republican consultant who worked on nine presidential campaigns, said that if you are a Senate candidate or a House candidate, you don't want Trump endorsing against you.
One long time Republican strategist said, "He will torture everyone, and campaigns will have to have a segment of their strategy based on Trump and how he's going to react."
The same dynamics that are lifting Republicans this year are also helping Trump, as the out-party historically performs well in a president's first midterm. A unique one-to-one comparison with his successor is helping Trump. The deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a terrorist attack and the ongoing coronaviruses epidemic have hurt Biden's public approval ratings.
The chair of the Republican Party in Pima County, Arizona, described Trump as leading the way in comparing and contrast. There is little daylight between them. According to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, Trump's favorability rating is not strong in normal political terms, but it is nearly identical to Biden's job approval rating.
Randy Evans, a Georgia lawyer who served as Trump's ambassador to Luxembourg, said that President Biden has helped the president more than anything. The bad year of Biden has re-energized the Trump base.
The events of Jan. 6 last year appeared to temper Republicans enthusiasm for Trump. There is no longer any evidence that the case is the same. A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think it's important to prosecute people who rioted at the Capitol. A majority of Republicans say too much attention is paid to the riot, and that percentage has fallen more than 20 percentage points.
The rear view of the riot has improved for Trump. A majority of Republicans don't see the Capitol riot as an attack on government, and 77 percent of them don't blame Trump for the storming of the Capitol. In a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, more Republicans said that congressional Democrats were to blame for the events of January 6 than said that Trump was to blame.
Trump is not shying away from that day. He announced his news conference last month and wrote that the insurrection took place on November 3rd and that the protest of the rigged election took place on January 6th.
When you are fighting political correctness, everything you do is on your brand, said a Republican strategist who managed Ted Cruz. It is hard to screw it up because he is always fighting.
While out of office, Trump can still maintain support and generate crowds. It's crazy. It is almost like we have gotten used to it, but you stand back from it.
Donald Trump is protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as president.
Trump could decide not to seek the White House again in 2024. He will be 78 by the time of the general election, and though he is expected to run again, a weak performance in the midterms could damage him. Some of his preferred Senate candidates have failed.
The Jan. 6 select committee investigating Trump's attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election is still working, with the potential that its findings will spark criminal prosecutions. In December, the committee released a series of text messages from lawmakers and Fox News hosts urging Trump to do more to end the violence.
Heckman said that the Jan. 6 committee will have an impact on how people view Trump. The emails and texts that were going to Trump have rattled a lot of people on the Republican side.
Few are confident that anything could replace Trump in the party because he has rattled them before.
The most hardcore supporters of Trump were surprised by what happened after January 6, according to Joe Walsh. They regrouped by the end of the first week.
Walsh said that Trump is more influential in the GOP than he was in the last month of his presidency.
Walsh said that he survived that. He is stronger than ever.
