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Opinion:
[email protected]Donald Trump is
trapped in the
past and losing
his grip on the
Republican Party.
He remains the
dominant force
within the GOP,
and his ideas are
widely mimicked
by many GOP
elected officials and candidates.
He continues to instill fear in
some elected officials. He might
become the party’s 2024
nominee. But the past week
showed that a growing number
of Republican voters are ready to
move on.
The strongest evidence came
last Tuesday in Georgia, where
Trump suffered a double defeat
in the Republican primaries.
These were not small losses; they
were a rebuke to a former
president who has focused
substantial attention on that
state and its elected Republican
leaders in his campaign of lies
about his 2020 reelection loss.
Trump had endorsed
challengers to Gov. Brian Kemp
and Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger, the two most
prominent Republican officials
who were vocal in dismissing
Trump’s false claims about the
2020 vote there and who
defended the certified results
that showed Joe Biden the
winner by 11,779 votes.
Kemp certified Biden’s victory
after multiple recounts
confirmed the outcome.
Raffensperger stood up to Trump
when he called the secretary of
state days ahead of the Jan. 6,
2021, attack on the Capitol and
badgered him to “find” enough
votes to overturn the results.
Trump eagerly sought their
defeat in last week’s primaries.
Instead, he ended up being
humiliated.
In the gubernatorial primary,
Trump supported former senator
David Perdue against Kemp but
backed out of an election-eve
appearance when it was clear
that his candidate was on the
skids. Former vice president
Mike Pence, a former governor
himself, broke with Trump and
supported Kemp. Pence
headlined a rally in Georgia for
the incumbent the day before the
election, declaring that there was
“no greater champion of theconservative agenda” than
Kemp.
Perdue had dismissed polls
showing Kemp with a hefty lead
ahead of Election Day, saying he
was not as far behind as some
showed. Instead, he was beaten
by an even bigger margin: 52
percentage points. Incumbent
governors are never easy to beat,
especially in a primary, but the
Kemp margin was nonetheless
stunning.
Raffensperger had a tougher
race than Kemp; it was always
clear that would be the case. But
he, too, cruised to victory against
Rep. Jody Hice, avoiding a runoff
by winning just over 50 percent
of the vote, with some help from
Democrats. Hice, like Perdue,
had run with Trump’s backing.
Trump’s endorsement record
so far this spring is mixed, with
some victories he can rightfully
claim and some defeats he
cannot run away from. Many
more primaries lie ahead. But
the longer Trump clings to his
big lie about 2020, the wearier
many Republicans could become
with the politics of the past.
In a w eek in which the
horrible slayings of 19 children
and two adults at a T exas
elementary school overwhelmed
everything, another small sign of
the problems that could lie
ahead for Trump was overlooked.
Last weekend, Wisconsin
Republicans held their state
convention. They have spent
much of the past two years
continuing to debate the 2020
results. Trump prodded GOP
leaders in the state Assembly to
launch something akin to the
flawed review of the ballots in
Arizona. Led by former
Wisconsin Supreme Court
justice Michael Gableman, the
partisan inquiry has been a
fiasco.
A review of the Wisconsin
results by a state legislativeagency found some flaws in the
state’s voting procedures but
nothing that would have
changed Biden’s narrow victory.
Still, the Gableman review
continues.
The state convention included
a 2024 straw poll conducted by
WisPolitics.com, which asked
delegates whether they wanted
Trump to run and also whom
they preferred as their nominee.
The number of people who cast
votes was minimal, and straw
polls are not in the least
scientific. But whenever Trump
has done well in such measures,
he has trumpeted the results.
Last weekend, he had nothing to
brag about.
On the question of whether he
should run again, only about 4 in
10 who cast votes said they
hoped he would, while not quite
1 in 3 said they hoped he would
not. Hardly a ringing
endorsement for the leader of
the party who has sent hint after
hint of his desire to run again.
Another 22 percent said they
were unsure. Republican
strategists say most of them
probably oppose Trump
becoming a candidate again but
are not willing to say so
explicitly.
More interesting, however,
was the question of the
delegates’ preference for 2024.
On this one, Florida Gov. Ron
DeSantis was the plurality
winner, capturing about 38
percent of the votes cast. Trump
was second, with about 32
percent. DeSantis has become a
national figure in the party and
now is being seen as a leading
alternative to the former
president.
Trump will no doubt win
future straw polls, as he has
already done in some conducted
since he left the White House. He
won the Conservative Political
Action Conference straw poll inFebruary with 59 percent of
votes cast. But in a state where
Republicans are still fighting
over the 2020 election, his
meager showing in Wisconsin is
worth noting, especially at a
gathering of party activists who
are seen as more loyal to him.
A few days after the state GOP
convention, divisions within the
GOP over Trump’s lies surfaced
again. Dean Knudson, a former
Republican legislator, abruptly
resigned from the Wisconsin
Elections Commission, which
administers election laws in the
state. In leaving the panel, he
said it had been made clear to
him “from the highest levels of
the Republican Party in
Wisconsin” that there was a
“deep desire” that he not become
chair of the commission.
Knudson had drawn criticism
from Trump loyalists who back
the Gableman review. He said his
personal integrity demanded
that he accept the truth. “In this
case, the painful truth is that
President Trump lost the election
in 2020, lost the election in
Wisconsin in 2020, and the loss
was not due to election fraud,” he
said.
Knudson went on to say that
senior elected and appointed
GOP officials in Wisconsin refuse
to believe that Trump lost and,
worse, “some have peddled
misinformation and perpetuated
falsehoods” about what
happened in 2020. He noted that
“Republicans across Wisconsin
did just fine at all other levels in
the 2020 election.”
Andrew Hitt, a former GOP
chair in Wisconsin, said in an
email exchange: “The reality is
party and legislative leaders are
listening to the very vocal wing
of the party who will always be
with Trump. I have been saying
that is a much smaller group
than people realize and even
polls pick that up.”
Trump appears trapped with a
message that has diminishing
appeal to many Republican
voters. He cannot move on
without acknowledging that
Biden is the legitimate president
and that, whatever minor
irregularities there were in the
election of 2020, they weren’t big
enough to have changed the
outcome.
Meanwhile, because the GOP
is now very much in Trump’s
image, Republican voters can
have Trumpism without having
to have Trump himself by
picking DeSantis or any number
of other ambitious Trump
acolytes as their standard-bearer.
One example of the endurance of
Trumpism is the focus on
election integrity, which will be a
rallying cry for Republicans this
fall and in 2024, regardless of
whether GOP candidates agree
with Trump’s false claim about
what happened in 2020.
Some Republicans have
simply had it with Trump as a
result of what happened when
his loyalists attacked the Capitol
on Jan. 6, 2021. Others probably
still admire him but want to
move on to more traditional
Republican issues. Others may
want him to be president again
but feel that the political
establishment, the media and
Democrats won’t let that
happen.
That’s a r ocky foundation
upon which to build a
presidential candidacy. Trump
isn’t going away. But he is in
danger of seeing his power and
influence eroded as rank-and-file
Republicans assess a future both
with him and without him as
their leader.Trump is trapped in the past, and it’s hurting him
JOHN BAZEMORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) speaks during an election-night
watch party Tuesday in Atlanta. Kemp defeated David Perdue,
whom former president Donald Trump had backed.Dan Balz
THE SUNDAY
TAKETALK SHOWS
Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows
9 a.m. FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG)
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.); Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
9 a.m. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.); Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.);
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.); Texas state Sen. Roland
Gutierrez (D).
9 a.m. THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA)
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.); Kinzinger
9 a.m. WHITE HOUSE CHRONICLE (PBS, WETA)
Morgan Varner and Kevin Hiers of the fire ecology group
Tall Timbers discuss the benefits of prescribed fires.
10 a.m. THIS IS AMERICA & THE WORLD (PBS, WETA)
Deepak Chopra discusses the pandemic and the impact of
meditation on our mental and physical well-being.
10:30 a.m. MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC)
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.); former Baltimore mayor
Stephanie Rawlings Blake; Tony Monalto, president of
Stand with Parkland.
10:30 a.m. FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA)
Murphy; Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.); Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-
Ark.); Ronnie Garza, a county commissioner in Uvalde,
Tex.; Nicole Hockley, co-founder o f Sandy Hook Promise;
Jaclyn Corin, co-founder of March for Our Lives.
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