Donald Trump may have left the White House, but he still casts a big shadow over the Republican Party, which reformed and ruled with an iron fist during his four years as president.
The ex-president’s influence on Republicans in Congress remains formidable, as his poll numbers among Republican voters remain high. Trump promised to support the main opponents to the Republicans for re-election in 2022 who voted to impeach or condemn him or other Republicans who opposed him. That’s while he flirts with a Republican presidential candidacy in 2024 to try to return to the White House.
The recognition that the Republican Party remains Trump’s party is likely a contributing factor to the increase in the number of Republican retirement announcements in the Senate.
BLUNT BECOMES THE LAST REPUBLICAN OF THE SENATE TO RETIRE
“All of these pensions you saw are from the party’s ‘establishment wing’,” Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News.
“I think there is a growing recognition that this is not the Republican Party of yesteryear, still very much Trump’s party,” said Reed. “And the senators who formed his political identity before he took the stage are seeing these signs and following the leads and heading for the exit.”
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))
The last retirement announcement came on Monday from Senator Roy Bunt of Missouri, a member of the Senate Republican leadership who spent nearly a quarter of a century in Congress.
“After 14 victories in the general election – three for the county seat, seven for the United States House of Representatives and four state elections – I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate next year,” said Blunt, of 71 years old said in a video.
Blunt becomes the fifth Republican senator to retire instead of running for re-election in 2022, while the Republican Party tries to win back the majority in the Senate it just lost in the 2020 election cycle.
Senators Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama announced in the past two months that they would not launch reelection campaigns. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said during his 2016 re-election that he would not run again in 2022.
ANCIENT SENATE GUARD REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCES 2022 RETIREMENTS
Two other Senate Republicans are also thinking about pensions – Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, 87.
Last weekend, Trump promised to go to Alaska to campaign against Senator Lisa Murkowski, the only one of seven Republican senators who voted to condemn Trump in the impeachment trial, who is running for reelection next year.
“Trump is a factor that contributes to the Capitol being a terrible place to work. Members and senators have long been unhappy in their jobs. And Trump has exacerbated that,” argued Doug Heye, a veteran Republican strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee.
Heye said the January 6 Capitol insurrection by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters trying to disrupt Congress’s certification of President Biden’s electoral victory over the then president “has massively exacerbated it.”
“I understand the simple line that ‘the Republican retires. Is Trump the reason?'” Heye added. “This is a little simple, but it is definitely a contributing factor.”
But Heye also noted that, for some of the retired senators, this “has been around for a long, long time.”
THE NRSC PRESIDENCY PREDICTS ‘EXCESS’ BY DEMOCRATS WILL HELP THE GOP WITHDRAW THE SENATE IN 2022
Brian Walsh, former communications director for the Senate Republican National Committee, emphasized that “pensions are a natural course of events for both parties”.
“After President Obama won the election in 2008, there were seven Republican Party retirements in the Senate, but that still hasn’t stopped Republicans from regaining six seats in the Senate two years later,” said Walsh.
Reed, a veteran of several Senate campaigns, noted that “whenever a party loses control of the White House and the Senate in the same election year, you tend to see a race for pensions, and that’s what we saw. In 2021 The good news for Republicans is that most of them came in red states and receiving Trumpier. “
“I would place Missouri firmly in that field,” added Reed. “And, honestly, Roy Blunt’s biggest vulnerability was on his right flank, not in the general election.”
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The Senate is split 50-50 between the two parties, but Democrats hold a minimal majority, due to the tiebreaker vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as the Senate president. This means that the GOP only needs a pickup from a seat to regain the majority. But Republicans are defending 20 of the 34 contested seats in 2022. And the growing number of Republican Party pensions in the Senate means more Republican primaries in the next year and a half.
Walsh, a former senior adviser to Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, said the pensions highlight “that if Republicans are going to regain control of the Senate in 2022, who they will nominate as candidates in these contests will be more important than ever.”
To make his point, Walsh highlighted the 2012 Senate election in Missouri, where vulnerable Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill defeated then Rep. Todd Akin, who was the favorite in the race until his controversial comments about “legitimate rape” helped to sink your campaign.