By Dan
McLaughlin
Tuesday,
July 18, 2023
Conventional wisdom
would seem to dictate that, if you’re running for president in a contested
primary, you probably want to remain on good terms with popular and successful
members of your own party. You would particularly want to seek the favor, or at
least avoid the open enmity, of governors who have a lot of leverage within the
state party and are typically well regarded even by those voters who do not
closely follow events in Washington. You’d be especially careful when those
governors have repeatedly won elections in key early-primary states such as
Iowa and New Hampshire.
But if
you think this way, you’re not Donald Trump.
Trump
has engaged in an apparently never-ending war against Republican governors for
a variety of reasons, some of them not particularly obvious.
Making
Enemies
Some of
Trump’s most famous feuds with highly successful Republican governors date back
to the previously red states Trump lost in 2020. Trump vowed to defeat Brian
Kemp in 2022. Kemp had long been a reliable Trump ally and supporter, but he
declined to call a special session of the Georgia legislature to attempt
(entirely improperly) to have Trump declared the winner of Georgia in 2020. For
that offense and no other reason, Trump in September 2021 claimed that Kemp was “a disaster,”
that “the people of Georgia must replace” him, and that the arch-progressive
Democrat Stacey Abrams “might be better than having your existing governor, if
you want to know what I think, might very well be better.” Campaigning against
Kemp in March 2022, Trump branded him “a turncoat, a coward, and
a complete and total disaster,” and said that beating him was the first step to
“defeat the RINO sellouts and the losers in the primaries this spring.”
Trump
put up former senator David Perdue to primary Kemp. Perdue was well liked in
Georgia before Trump’s break with Kemp: He won by more than seven points in
2014, got more votes than Democrat Jon Ossoff on Election Day 2020, and even
after Trump’s post-election tantrum, he didn’t lose all that badly to Ossoff in
the runoff. But matched against Kemp, Perdue got massacred by more than 50
points, as Kemp drew 73.7 percent of the vote to Perdue’s 21.8 percent. Threats
that Kemp would be unelectable due to his alienating MAGA voters proved hollow:
He won by 7.8 points in November, earning 200,000 more votes on Election Day
than Trump’s handpicked Senate candidate Herschel Walker.
Trump’s
grievance with former Arizona governor Doug Ducey is the same as his feud with
Kemp: Ducey wouldn’t do Trump’s bidding to overturn the 2020 presidential
election in Arizona. Ducey spent the 2020 presidential campaign advertising his closeness to the Trump
White House, and at the time, Trump reciprocated: At an August 2020 event with Ducey, Trump said “we
know him well, and we’ve had a tremendous relationship.” “He had a tremendous,
big, very big election victory, and he has done an incredible job on Covid, and
he was hit very hard, and he’s — and he hit back even harder,” Trump added.
“You’ve done a fantastic job. We’re very proud of you. We love the people of
Arizona, and they are very proud of the job you’ve done also, Doug.”
Even
after Ducey took abuse from
Trump for not
going along with the scheme to overturn the election, he did not go
fully public about
the extent of Trump’s efforts to bully him. It didn’t matter. When there was
speculation that Ducey might run for the Senate in 2022, Trump warned that “MAGA will never accept
RINO Governor Doug Ducey.” Trump, of course, got his wish; in place of Ducey,
who had won 53.4 percent and 56 percent of the vote in 2014, Trump-backed
nominees Kari Lake and Blake Masters ran and lost their bids for
Arizona governor and senator, respectively.
Primary
Misfires
Besides
Kemp, the other incumbent Republican governor directly targeted by Trump in
2022 was Idaho governor Brad Little. Trump endorsed Lieutenant Governor Janice
McGeachin only a week
after calling Little “a
terrific gentleman” when Little had attended the America First Experience &
Gala at Mar-a-Lago. The outcome wasn’t close: Little won the primary by 21 points,
52.8 percent to 32.2 percent, and paid no price in November, winning reelection
by 40 points (a larger margin than Trump’s in the state in either 2016 or
2020).
In
Alabama, Trump’s bad blood with Governor Kay Ivey stemmed from a canceled
event. In 2019, Trump called Ivey a “high-quality woman,”
but after Alabama canceled a 2021 Trump rally at Battleship Park on the grounds
that it was an inappropriate site for a partisan event, Trump reportedly blamed Ivey and aimed to
recruit Lynda Blanchard to primary her. Blanchard at first ran for the Senate
but dropped out of the race and faced off against Ivey, losing by 35 points,
54.5 percent to 19.3 percent. Despite his much-discussed role in recruiting
Blanchard — which she tried to leverage on the stump — Trump never formally
endorsed her.
Trump
was likewise cagier in Ohio. In November 2020, the day after Mike DeWine said that Joe
Biden had won the election, Trump tweeted, “Who will be running for Governor
of the Great State of Ohio? Will be hotly contested!” Former Trump campaign
manager Brad Parscale stepped up to advise the campaign of former
congressman Jim Renacci, who challenged DeWine in a primary. But (according to
Renacci) Trump
cited the presence of a third candidate in the field as a reason not to endorse
anyone. DeWine won the primary by 20 points and cruised to reelection by 25
points with 62.4 percent of the vote, running far ahead of Trump-endorsed J. D.
Vance in the Senate race.
In
Nebraska and Maryland, Trump backed primary candidates for governor other than
the handpicked successor of the incumbent Republican. The term-limited Nebraska
governor Pete Ricketts backed Jim Pillen; Trump backed Charles Herbster, whose
candidacy was marred by charges of sexual misconduct. Pillen won a narrow
victory over Herbster, 34 percent to 30 percent, won the general election by 23
points with 59.7 percent of the vote (more than Trump got in the state in
either 2016 or 2020), and repaid Ricketts by appointing him to replace Ben
Sasse in the Senate.
In
Maryland, Larry Hogan’s electoral record was as solid as Ducey’s, as he had won
51 percent of the vote in 2014 and 55 percent in 2018. Trump butted heads
publicly with Hogan in 2020, saying in April 2020 that Hogan
“didn’t understand too much about what was going on” regarding coronavirus
testing. After the election, Trump used the issue to bash Hogan, tweeting: “Report: Maryland Gov. Larry
Hogan, Anti-Trump Hero, Paid for Flawed Coronavirus Tests from South Korea via
@BreitbartNews. This (Republican In Name Only) will never make the grade. Hogan
is just as bad as the flawed tests he paid big money for!” To be fair to Trump,
Hogan has been a vocal Trump critic and probably benefited politically from
being at odds with him, given Maryland’s political tilt. But Trump wasn’t about
to see another Larry Hogan in charge: When Hogan endorsed state commerce
secretary Kelly Schulz in 2022, Trump backed Dan Cox. Democrats loved the pick,
plowing more money into ads supporting Cox than Cox’s own campaign did. Cox won
the primary with 52 percent of the vote to Schulz’s 43.5 percent, then
proceeded to lose the general election by 32 points.
The
New Enemies List
It is,
of course, no surprise that Trump has relentlessly attacked Ron DeSantis, his
chief rival (and, at present, his only plausible rival) for the nomination.
Trump has been after DeSantis since it became clear during the Florida
governor’s 2022 reelection bid that he was going to cruise to victory without
needing to ask Trump for anything, and he would likely use that as a
springboard to run against Trump. Trump’s rage-“Truths” included slamming
DeSantis immediately after Election Day 2022 for his supposed lack of “loyalty
and class” for not having ruled out a presidential bid.
Hardly
any Republican in the country scored a bigger political upset in recent years
than Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin. Most Republicans considering entering
the presidential race have been warmly welcomed by Trump, who openly sees them
as obstacles to DeSantis. But he also seems to genuinely fear Youngkin. In
November, when there was still talk of Youngkin getting in the race,
Trump took to Truth
Social in one
of his more surreal bursts of race-baiting:
Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?)
in Virginia couldn’t have won without me. I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump
Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have
come close to winning. But he knows that, and admits it.
Being
governor of an early-primary state hasn’t immunized Iowa’s Kim Reynolds or New
Hampshire’s Chris Sununu.
Reynolds
has been a great political success since taking over for Terry Branstad; she
was reelected with 50.3 percent of the vote in 2018 amidst a tough climate for
Republicans in the Upper Midwest and won handily with 58 percent in 2022, five
points ahead of Trump’s best performance there. But while Reynolds has not made
an endorsement for 2024, Trump is hypersensitive to the appearance
that Reynolds has been favorable to DeSantis, who seems to be openly considering her as a
potential running mate. Trump is undoubtedly also still worried about a state
he lost to Ted Cruz in 2016 after having insulted its
voters and suggested that they were brain-damaged because of a poll that had shown Ben
Carson ahead of Trump.
The
result of that insecurity is a fusillade of attacks on Reynolds. Trump told a
stone-faced crowd that “I hate to say it, without me, you know, she was not
going to win [in 2018], you know that, right?” He went off on
her on Truth
Social:
I love Iowa, protected & expanded Ethanol, got 28 Billion Dollars
from China for our great Farmers, ended the Estate (Death!) Tax on farms, made
the best TRADE deals in history (USMCA, China, & many more), introduced the
World to our FARMERS, & kept Iowa’s “First in the Nation” status. I opened
up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED
her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain “NEUTRAL.” I
don’t invite her to events!
Other
Republican contenders rallied to Reynolds’s defense. One
Iowa state senator who had previously endorsed Trump, Jeff Reichman, switched to supporting DeSantis in
response — DeSantis’s 38th endorsement from an Iowa state legislator.
Sununu,
like Hogan, has offered his share of criticisms of Trump. Still, Sununu is
broadly popular in New Hampshire, having won four consecutive gubernatorial
elections, and having earned 52.8 percent in his first reelection bid in 2018,
65.1 percent in 2020, and 57 percent in 2022 — all in a state Trump has lost
twice and where independent voters make up a large share of the primary
electorate. In a New Hampshire interview, before Sununu ruled out a
presidential bid, Trump called Sununu “a little bit cuckoo” and said “he
couldn’t be elected now.” At a rally, Trump asked the
crowd of
Sununu, “Isn’t he a nasty guy?”
Why
Trump Can’t Stop
Why does
Trump persist in doing this? Why is he constantly seeking out new enemies among
prominent, popular, and successful people within his own party, in defiance of
everything two centuries of experience tells us about American politics? Why
does he apparently give no thought to when it will blow up humiliatingly in his
face, as did his confrontations with Kemp, Little, and Ivey?
Trying
to work out what Donald Trump is thinking is a famously futile endeavor, but
there are two possible explanations. The first is simply that Trump’s fans
enjoy watching him in conflict, and Trump himself thrives on conflict and the
attention it brings, to the point where it never really matters who Trump is
fighting or whether he wins. The fighting is the point.
The
second explanation is Trump’s need to assert his dominance by showing that he
will hit back at anyone who slights him in any way (real or perceived) or
stands in his path. From this perspective, rhetorical grenades are a form of
deterrence, and the fact that they frequently land as duds doesn’t change the
message: I will give you a headache and make it your problem if you
come at me.
Of
course, if you’re a Republican voter who wants to see the party and its agenda
succeed rather than be subordinated to whatever serves Trump’s impulses at any
given moment, none of this does the least bit of good. The question of the 2024
primary, however, is whether Republican voters actually want to win, or whether
they just enjoy fighting and don’t care against whom — even if it’s their own
leaders and interests.
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