Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt’s announcement that he will retire next year opens the door for former President Donald Trump to further strengthen his grip on the GOP.
Blunt becomes the fifth Republican senator to decide not to re-elect him in 2022 as the GOP tries to regain the Senate majority, which he just lost in the 2020 election cycle.
Sens Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama have also announced in recent months that they will not be running re-election campaigns. North Carolina Senator Richard Burr said during his 2016 re-election that he would not run again in 2022. Another old Senate bull – 87-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa – is retiring.
TRUMP A LIKELY FACTOR IN FLOW OF SENATE RETIREMENT
Mike Biundo, a longtime Republican consultant and veteran of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, told Fox News that the resignations “definitely” allow the former president to potentially increase his influence over the IDP.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Sunday, February 28, 2021, in Orlando, Florida (AP Photo / John Raoux)
((AP Photo / John Raoux))
Trump may be away from the White House, but he still casts a huge shadow over the party he reformed and ruled during his four years as president. Trump’s influence over Republicans from Congress remains tremendous, as his polls among GOP voters remain astronomical. Trump has promised to support Republican primary challengers in 2022 for re-election who voted to accuse or condemn him or others in the GOP who crossed him, and he is flanked by a 2024 Republican presidential effort to go to the White House try to return.
Another veteran GOP strategist noted that the retirement “definitely opens the door for a new generation of Republican candidates.”
Do you get people like Sens. Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, who adopt the Trump principles but are ultimately seen as credible legislators, or do you end up with people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a reality TV show candidate? ” asks the strategist, who wishes to remain anonymous to speak more freely. “I think it’s going to be one of the most interesting developments in this cycle.”
GOP CANDIDATES IN OHIO SENATE RACE WEDDY OVER WHAT’S MORE PRO-TRUMP
The trend appears to be most pronounced in Ohio, where the Republican rush to succeed Portman in a state that Trump won by eight points in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The two biggest Republican candidates who have already jumped on the bandwagon – former state GOP president Jane Timken and former Senate treasurer and former candidate Josh Mandel – have both made their support for Trump’s center of their campaigns.
“As your senator, I will advance the Trump agenda without fear or hesitation,” Timken stressed when announcing her candidacy. And Mandel stressed that ‘I’m going to Washington to fight for President Trump’s America First Agenda’, when he jumped into the race.
Another big Trump supporter, the Ohio businessman and the 2018 Senate candidate, Mike Gibbons, looks set to start a campaign in the coming weeks. And Representative Warren Davidson, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, came up with a bid.
In Alabama, where the GOP election in 2020 rather than the general election was the key game in deciding who would be the next senator of the state, Trump’s approval was crucial in helping former football coach Tommy Tuberville defeat the former American to defeat Attorney General and former Senator Jeff Sessions – who insulted the then president.
Rep. Mo Brooks, a permanent ally of the former president, is considering running a senate. And Lynda Blanchard, who has served as US ambassador to Slovenia for the last two years of the Trump administration, has already launched a campaign.
AN HONEST TRUMP AMBASSADOR LAUNCHES SENATE MESSAGE IN ALABAMA
“We will give the swamp a heckuva dose of common sense and the conservative principle that ‘Make America Great Again’ is necessary – just as President Trump did,” she promised when she submitted her candidacy. announce.
In Missouri, former Republican Gov. Eric Greitens – who resigned in 2018 amid multiple scandals – announced a primary challenge against Blunt before Trump’s retirement. And Representative Jason Smith, a big Trump supporter, is being driven as a possible candidate.
The Senate is currently divided between 50 and 50 between the two parties, but the Democrats have a narrow majority because of the casting vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as president of the Senate. This means that the IDP only needs a one-seater pickup to regain the majority. But Republicans are defending 20 of the 34 seats available in 2022. And the growing number of Senate GOP retirements means there will be more Republican primary elections over the next year and a half.
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Biundo noted that ‘an overwhelming majority of Republicans who vote for these offices are going to sing a similar message. There is no one I see increasing who is going to be anti-Trump because there is currently no job for it. You may have disagreements with Donald Trump, but you can not be considered an anti-Trump candidate. ‘
But Biundo warns that he thinks the former president “must be very careful and very clever about where he approves.”
And he suggested that ‘if they were to get some kind of policy agenda that everyone who got a Trump approval would have to sign, Trump would sign all these candidates the same songbook and it would be his songbook, and that’s even bigger win for him. ‘