But within days, Blanchard’s effort to position himself as the Trump-approved candidate in the race was put at risk when it became clear that the 45th president was inclined to support Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Wing.) In the GOP primaries. to Shelby’s seat. Four people familiar with Trump’s thinking said that Brooks was his favorite candidate and would likely receive an endorsement in the near future – if not on Monday, when Brooks is due to formally launch his campaign, then at a later point in the race.
“President Trump could jump on Monday and do that, but he is also interested in waiting to make a big noise later,” said a person familiar with Trump’s thinking.
Even Brooks himself seemed confident of Trump’s support. During a phone call on Wednesday afternoon – which was heard by these two reporters when the Alabama Congressman was entering a conservative center on Capitol Hill – Brooks said to an unidentified person: “The president told me that when I announced he would say well, strong and positive things about me. Brooks’s team did not respond to a request for comment.
In fact, few in Trump’s inner circle expected the former president to ever endorse Blanchard instead of Brooks, who was one of the first Republican lawmakers to announce a challenge against the results of the 2020 elections last December and took the “road” internal “for the approval of the 45th president, according to a Trump adviser.
But what probably sealed Blanchard’s fate, according to four people familiar with the matter, was the moment when they said her team broke a fundamental rule at Trump World: they exaggerated how much she really is a Trump insider.
“The president doesn’t know Lynda very well and he and his team came to the knowledge that the people on his team were exaggerating how close they are supposed to be,” said a person close to Trump. “One of her aides was telling any donor who wanted to hear that Trump was going to support her and that made him angry.”
“They were totally exaggerating the relationship between Lynda and him,” added a Trump adviser.
A person close to Blanchard rejected suggestions that the former ambassador or his team had inflated his relationship with Trump.
“That’s bullshit. It’s someone turning on someone to help Mo. She would never exaggerate, she’s not that kind of person,” said that person. Blanchard’s team did not respond to a request for comment.
More than two months after the January 6 uprising on Capitol Hill, Trump’s blessing remains the primary form of currency in Republican politics. Potential Republican candidates and incumbent Republican lawmakers are engaged in a mad race to get their endorsement.
Some have used tried and tested methods to attract Trump’s approval, adopting access-oriented approaches or fawning over it with effusive public praise. Potential Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance, whose memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” became a Trump-era zeitgeist, has met with former Trump advisers and advisers with close ties to the 45th president. Pennsylvania MP Mike Kelly, who is eyeing a challenge against his state’s Democratic governor, told Reuters this week that he “would be able to visit the president and ask for his help” after positioning himself as a vocal advocate of the effort to Trump to overturn the 2020 election result.
But there are still barriers to successful dating. The case of Blanchard and others emphasize the former president’s notorious sensitivity to feeling leveraged for the benefit of another person, including politicians who exaggerate his closeness to him.
And if a candidate’s actions don’t match the pro-Trump brand they’re working on, securing the former president’s endorsement is likely to be much more difficult.
Two of the sources familiar with Trump’s thinking said he was urged to slow down his Senate endorsement after supporting Kansas Senator Jerry Moran, a frequent critic of Trump’s trade policies and one of a handful of Republican senators who voted against his attempt to use emergency presidential powers in spring 2019 to build their long-promised new border wall. One of those sources said that when he was overwhelmed by the contradictions of Moran’s endorsement, Trump’s disgust even in minor cases of disloyalty only intensified. As an example, they noted that Trump is currently withholding endorsement from Indiana Senator Todd Young after Young called Georgia MP Marjorie Taylor Greene “a shame” for the Republican Party last month. Young’s comments came shortly after Greene claimed he received Trump’s “full support” during a phone call with the former president.
Trump’s money and his endorsement and commitments [are] very valuable. It is political currency for many of these candidates and he plans to keep track of it, ”said a former senior Trump administration official.
For those seeking support from Trump, there is also the added challenge of contacting him. Now living in his luxurious private resort in Mar-a-Lago, Trump is only accessed by invitation to the club or by those who have his new cell phone number in Florida. It is a significant change from the days of the Oval Office, when members of Congress who expected to speak to the president had several ways to make the connection. Currently, Trump is surrounded by only a small team of advisers – many of whom have traveled from Washington to Palm Beach and hold additional positions that require his attention. A relationship with one of his political advisers certainly helps, as does a line to Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), who plays golf regularly with Trump and encouraged him to support Moran and Young.
A steady stream of Republicans still managed to visit Trump in Mar-a-Lago, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, Louisiana minority leader Steve Scalise and Florida Senator Rick Scott, who chairs the Party’s campaign arm. Republican in the Senate. Utah Senator Mike Lee, who is running for re-election in 2022, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, also ran separate fundraising campaigns in Mar-a-Lago last month, which included Trump’s cameos. .
And some candidates simply tried to flatter their way to a meeting with Trump at his South Florida residence.
“A lot of people I spoke to in Washington talk about Trump’s toxicity, but all the candidates I spoke to in Congress, the Senate, local legislatures, are all vying for a position selling themselves as the ‘conservative Donald Trump,'” said the former Trump campaign spokesman, Hogan Gidley.
Trump’s record of endorsements may offer a window into why so many Republicans are asking for approval from the former president. Despite losing re-election last fall, Trump managed to select winners in the primaries. In 2018, tracking by FiveThirtyEight found that “Trump-backed candidates went from 15 to 17 in the Republican Party primaries to the U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governments in which no candidate ran.” In 2020, all but two candidates endorsed by Trump won their respective Republican primaries.
But that success rate is because – at least so far – Trump has provided endorsements primarily to candidates or former advisers. That includes Republican candidates like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who defeated his Democratic opponent in 2016 by more than 20 percentage points, and Sen. Mike Crapo, from Idaho’s deep red state. Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is following in her father’s footsteps and running for the Arkansas government, has also been endorsed. The same was true of former White House advance director Max Miller, a Republican Party primary candidate for Ohio’s 16th congressional district who is challenging one of ten House Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment.