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Who Is Running Against Trump In The Republican Party

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Can A Dead Person Run For President

Cheney Accuses GOP Members Of Treating Trump Like A “King” In Speech

There have been times that voters have elected dead people to office. In 2000, Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash less than a month before the election. Missouri law stipulated that he remain on the ballot he went on to win.

In fact, theres a lengthy history of states having to figure out how to deal with suddenly deceased candidates, as the Congressional Research Service explored in 2002. State governments and political parties have mechanisms in place for handling pre-election deaths. Post-election deaths are a bit trickier. Consider the case of Horace Greeley, who won 44 percent of the vote in the 1872 presidential election only to die before electoral votes were cast. Some of his electors went ahead and voted for him anyway. Luckily for the system, Ulysses S. Grants victory was never really in question.

All of this, though, is quite different than getting an already dead person on the ballot.

The Constitution doesnt actually prohibit dead people from being elected as president. Its only related stipulation is that, to be president, someone must have resided in the United States for 14 years. Had the term been lived in the United States, wed have a problem. But residing doesnt require living, and both Washington and Lincoln have been present in the United States for well over 14 years.


To answer Question 1 in short: No.

In Counties With Higher White Distress Trump Tended To Receive More Of The Vote

See that medium sized circle on the far left of the chart? Thatâs Midland County, Texas, the site of an oil boom that sent incomes through the roof in the 2000s and kept unemployment well below the state average during the Great Recession. Cruz won 47.9 percent of the vote there versus Trumpâs 20.9 percent, and did well in the small neighboring Texas counties clustered around Midland on the chart. Look slightly to the right and youâll spot Alexandria, Virginia, the affluent D.C. suburb where unemployment peaked at just 5.6 percent in 2010 and where Rubio performed especially well.

Move to the upper right of the chart and youâll notice a number of counties in Appalachia where jobs are relatively scarce, poverty is high and Trump enjoyed strong support. This includes coal-heavy Knox County in Kentucky and Buchanan County in Virginia , where he secured his highest winning margin in the period covered.

As time moved on, though, Trump started picking up votes in more diverse places, including the kind of well-heeled counties that shunned him earlier on in the race. It was this late shift that allowed Trump to knock out his rivals in the final stretch.

In the simulations below, toggle between the two primary periods to see how Trumpâs appeal grew over time in counties with different distinguishing traits. To start, weâll look at income growth.


The same dynamic played out with education, as you can see below.

Victories In Maryland And Illinois With Outside Help

Dan Cox, a first-term state legislator who embraced Mr. Trumps lies about the 2020 election, handily defeated Kelly Schulz a protégé of Gov. Larry Hogan, a leader of the Republican Partys anti-Trump wing in the primary for governor in Maryland. Mr. Cox benefited from more than $1 million in advertising from the Democratic Governors Association, which hoped he would be easier to defeat in the general election.

State Senator Darren Bailey, who received a last-minute endorsement from Mr. Trump, won the Republican primary for governor in Illinois after similar spending by Democrats, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Also in Illinois, Representative, a Trump endorsee, won her House primary against fellow Representative Rodney Davis after new borders put them in the same district.

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Texas Gov Greg Abbott

Some Republicans have hopes for other GOP governors, including Greg Abbott of Texas, who has pushed conservative legislation on abortion and voting rights.

Abbott first faces re-election next year, including a Republican primary with at least two vocal conservative challengers. The governor does enjoy the endorsement of Trump himself.

Regarding the 2024 race, Abbott echoes Trump and many other Republican aspirants in saying he’ll have to wait and see, a message he has been delivering for more than a year.

You know, one thing that you know about me, I take one step at a time, Abbott told talk show host Mark Davis on KSKY-AM in Dallas a year ago. The first step is to win re-election and after that, Mark, well see what happens.

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Campaign

Rubio, once a shoo
This article is part of a series about

This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who opposed the re-election of incumbent Donald Trump, the 2020 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. Among them are former Republicans who left the party in 2016 or later due to their opposition to Trump, those who held office as a Republican, Republicans who endorsed a different candidate, and Republican presidential primary election candidates that announced opposition to Trump as the presumptive nominee. Over 70 former senior Republican national security officials and 61 additional senior officials have also signed onto a statement declaring, “We are profoundly concerned about our nation’s security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.”


A group of former senior U.S. government officials and conservativesincluding from the Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, and Trump administrations have formed The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform to, “focus on a return to principles-based governing in the post-Trump era.”

A third group of Republicans, Republican Voters Against Trump was launched in May 2020 has collected over 500 testimonials opposing Donald Trump.

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Trumps False Election Fraud Claims Fuel Michigan Gop Meltdown

The ex-presidents refusal to accept defeat is taking a toll on the party in a key battleground state.

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel a former Michigan GOP chair herself speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee in Washington. | AP Photo/Alex Brandon


Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 150,000 votes in Michigan last November.

Trump and the Michigan Republican Party still arent over it.

The outcome and the former presidents obsessive efforts to dispute it has left the state party in disarray, raising questions about the GOPs focus as it looks to unseat Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a top battleground state next year.

From a staff and leadership perspective, I dont know that top-notch professionals would want to go into this quagmire, said Jeff Timmer, a former Michigan GOP executive director who opposed Trump. Unless youre going to talk crazy talk, they dont want you there.

Much of the trouble can be traced to the 2020 presidential election results, which Trump and his allies have alleged were marked by fraud without providing evidence.


But some party officials and conservative activists continue to press for a forensic audit of the election results, encouraged by Trump, who has called on American Republican Patriots to run primary challenges against RINO State Senators in Michigan who refuse to properly look into the election irregularities and fraud.

Support From The Far Right

According to Michael Barkun, the Trump campaign was remarkable for bringing fringe ideas, beliefs, and organizations into the mainstream. During his presidential campaign, Trump was accused of pandering to white supremacists. He retweeted open racists, and repeatedly refused to condemn David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists, in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, saying he would first need to “do research” because he knew nothing about Duke or white supremacists. Duke himself enthusiastically supported Trump throughout the 2016 primary and election, and has said he and like-minded people voted for Trump because of his promises to “take our country back”. Trump was later reported to have praised Adolf Hitler to his chief of staff John Kelly, opining that “Hitler did a lot of good things,” and also reportedly kept a volume of Hitler’s speeches on his bedside cabinet when he was younger, and was often compared to Hitler in the media during his 2016 campaign.

After repeated questioning by reporters, Trump said he disavowed David Duke and the KKK. Trump said on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe: “I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK. Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.”

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Political Activities Up To 2015

Trump’s political party affiliation has changed numerous times. He registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987, switched to the Reform Party in 1999, the Democratic Party in 2001, and back to the Republican Party in 2009.


Trump first floated the idea of running for president in 1987, placing full-page advertisements in three major newspapers, proclaiming “America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.” The advertisements also advocated for “reducing the budget deficit, working for peace in Central America, and speeding up nuclear disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union“.DCCC chair Rep. Beryl Anthony Jr. told The New York Times that “the message Trump has been preaching is a Democratic message.” Asked whether rumors of a presidential candidacy were true, Trump denied being a candidate, but said, “I believe that if I did run for President, I’d win.” In 1988, he approached Lee Atwater asking to be put into consideration as Republican nominee George H.W. Bush‘s running mate. Bush found the request “strange and unbelievable.” According to a Gallup poll in December 1988, Trump was the tenth most admired man in America.

Mcconnells Next Chapter: Guiding The Post

Poll: Half Of GOP Voters Prefer Another Candidate Over Trump In 2024

Thats the conclusion that Hendren came to in Arkansas. He acknowledged that when you go from being the president pro tem in the majority party to a caucus of one, theres going to be a corresponding change in your ability to influence legislation. And he said, If my No. 1 goal in life was to win a statewide office, Id have stayed a Republican.

But Hendren, who is considering running for governor in 2022 as an independent, said, To me, its about beginning the process of building something that gives my adult kids some hope that theres some normalcy and a place for them to fit in politically, because for them, they just dont see it.

He said, I do think theres a tremendous hunger for a center lane and a return to decency.

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More: Link Transcript: Abc News’ Jonathan Karl Interviews Rep Liz Cheney

On top of that, Trump’s allies argue that he is likely to see Republican voters rally around him after this month’s unprecedented FBI search at Mar-a-Lago — and that pressure from people like Cheney could even backfire.

“The heavy-handed raid on Mar-a-Lago left anti-Trump Republicans with no hope at all to wrest control of the party from the president. Their playbook just closed,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official.

“If there was a lesson to be learned from 2016, it was, especially on the Republican side, that the voters were not going to be told by the elites who they were going to nominate,” added a former Trump campaign official. “It’s that kind of campaign against the elites, to saying, ‘No, we will decide who we nominate and who we vote for, and it doesn’t matter what the elites or the dynasties tell us.'”

And even if Trump were not to be elected back into the White House, his influence endures.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has stayed away from claiming the 2020 election was fraudulent but has adopted the same culture war battles as Trump — is seen by many as a favorite in a 2024 GOP primary without Trump. Another potential heavyweight could be Trump’s estranged vice president, Mike Pence, who has both broken with Trump over Jan. 6 and repeatedly touted their work together.


“Obviously, DeSantis might be the next president of the United States,” said Jolly, the former representative, “and I’ve now been out of office six years.”

Mixed Results In Wisconsin

Mr. Trumps preferred candidate, Tim Michels, won his primary for governor, defeating former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

But Robin Vos, the powerful speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, fended off a challenge barely from Adam Steen, a Trump endorsee who had called for eliminating most absentee and early voting in the state and for decertifying the 2020 election.

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A National Poll Found That Gop Voters Who Feel More Resentment Toward Immigrants More Often Intended To Support Trump

More ethnocentric

A March Washington Post/ABC News poll found that Republicans who saw themselves as âstruggling economicallyâ were more likely to support Trump. Even more drawn to his candidacy, however, were Republicans who felt whites were âlosing outâ compared to other racial groups. Economically-minded supporters, the Post found, backed Trump no matter their views on race, while racially-minded supporters backed Trump regardless of their views on the economy.

Pew Research conducted an online survey in April and May that produced similar results. Republican respondents who believed immigrants threaten American values rather than strengthen society, that Islam was more likely to encourage violence than other religions, and that Americaâs trend toward majority-minority status was bad for the country, were much more likely to have warm feelings for Trump in comparison to other Republican voters. By contrast, questions that tested their economic views â like whether poor people deserved more benefits or whether the country is tilted too far in favor of the economically powerful â produced much smaller splits in Republicansâ feelings toward Trump.

Arizona Primary: What One Republican’s Fate Reveals About Trump’s Future

The Take: Can Donald Trump actually be the Republican nominee?

On Tuesday, Republicans in Arizona chose between a Trump-endorsed candidate, and one who testified against the former president before the 6 January committee. The man who defied Donald Trump is now out of public office for the first time in 30 years – and his fate could be a harbinger of where the Republican Party is heading in the days ahead.

Rusty Bowers stood before a handful of supporters seated at park picnic tables shielded from the blazing Arizona sun.

The long-time politician – he’s served in the state legislature since 1993 – was on the final stretch of a gruelling campaign, and he thanked the volunteers for agreeing to brave the heat and go knock on doors in a nearby Phoenix suburb.

Don Nicoll, who has known Mr Bowers for years, raised his hand. How should he respond if asked about a flurry of recent attacks against Mr Bowers – that he condones paedophilia, or election fraud, or teaching children to hate America? What should he tell voters who think Mr Bowers has been disloyal to Donald Trump or the Republican cause?

Mr Bowers shook his head and laughed. It’s not the kind of question he’s used to.

It was before Mr Bowers travelled to Washington DC in June and testified to the congressional committee investigating the US Capitol riot. He spoke emotionally there about how he felt pressured during two 2020 phone calls to violate his duty as an elected official.

Inside the arena, the message was similar.

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Us Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene Not Sure Whether She Advocates Violence

-Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday told a lawyer for voters seeking to disqualify her from running for re-election that she did not know how to answer a question about whether she advocates violence against people with whom she disagrees.

Greene testified in a Georgia state court in Atlanta in a novel legal challenge to her candidacy accusing her of violating a U.S. Constitution provision called the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause by supporting an incendiary rally that preceded last years attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Andrew Celli, a lawyer for the voters, asked Greene during the hearing before administrative law judge Charles Beaudrot whether she has advocates political violence against people with whom she disagrees.

I dont think so, Greene replied. I dont know how to answer that.

Greene is a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump. In comments to the media, she has downplayed and justified the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault by Trump supporters in their failed bid to block congressional certification of President Joe Bidens 2020 election victory.

Trump at the preceding rally told his supporters to march to the Capitol and fight like hell, repeating his false claims that the election was stolen through widespread voter fraud. The Trump supporters attacked police, ransacked parts of the Capitol and send lawmakers into hiding for their own safety.

Absentee ballots will start to be mailed on April 25.

These Republicans Are Running 2020 Primary Campaigns Against President Donald Trump

Three big-name Republicans have launched campaigns in the 2020 presidential race. While GOP incumbent president Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee, these candidates are hoping the party will open up a primary process despitereportsthat Republicans in a handful of states will not hold primary elections as a show of support for Trump.

Where that leaves these GOP candidates is unclear, but of the more than 100 people who have officially declared Republican candidacies with the Federal Elections Commission, these three are running the most high-profile campaigns to try and take the Republican nomination away from Trump.

Bill Weld, who was the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997, announced on April 15 that he was entering the Republican primary.

In these times of great political strife, when both major parties are entrenched in their win at all cost battles, the voices of the American people are being ignored and our nation is suffering, Weld said in a statement at the time of his announcement, according to CNN. It is time to return to the principles of Lincoln equality, dignity, and opportunity for all. There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great.

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The president has taken notice of his challengers, though. In response to the news that Sanford had entered the race , Trump wrote, The Three Stooges, all badly failed candidates, will give it a go!

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