WASHINGTON – Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and potential GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis are looking to fire up 2024 voters by attacking a shared target: the Republican Party.
After riding an anti-establishment wave to the presidency in 2016, Trump has amped up his attacks on Republican "freaks" and "fools" who oppose him, a continuing play for conservative voters who don't particularly like the GOP.
Others are also looking for those kinds of voters. Haley, the former Trump-appointed United Nations ambassador who has declared her candidacy, frequently attacks Republican "big spenders."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy in May or June, has described some Republicans as "potted plants" when it comes to fighting the nation's culture wars.
Candidates are "going after Trump voters," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who has conducted surveys of GOP voters.
'Anti-, anti-, anti-'
The method is called populism, an appeal to voter frustration with elites and the establishment. Analysts say it has proven effective in Republican primaries but created problems for the party in general elections, including Trump's loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 and GOP defeats in key Senate races last year.
"It's all part of this populist mentality that is anti-elite, anti-expertise, anti-establishment, anti-media, anti-immigrant .... anti-, anti-, anti-," Ayres said. "It's why most populists lose."
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Running against one's party has been a presidential campaign tactic for more than a half-century, especially among Republicans. But it has never been the pivotal issue that it is now, some GOP members said, thanks to the Trump-led insurgency of 2016.
Now it seems some Republicans are following Trump's anti-establishment lead.
DeSantis: 'Potted plants'
The Florida governor has been lower key about taking on "the establishment." DeSantis has also made clear he doesn't think regular Republicans have been tough in confronting important issues, an apparent play for Trump-style voters.
In a recent closed-door meeting with donors, DeSantis said too many regular Republicans are reluctant to fight over cultural issues, such as attempts to end race- and gender-based diversity and inclusion programs at businesses and schools.
“Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate," DeSantis said, according to a tape provided to CNN and confirmed by his allies. "They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen."
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In his newly published book, DeSantis said the party should "side with conservative Americans on issues such as the Second Amendment, the right to life, election integrity, and religious liberty. In this environment, old-guard corporate Republicanism is not up to the task at hand.”
He added: "There are folks who largely feel unrepresented by GOP leaders in D.C."
Haley: 'Big spenders'
Haley and her aides say she has long been an insurgent. In 2010, the then-state legislator rode the anti-Washington Tea Party movement all the way to the South Carolina governor's mansion.
Haley and the Republicans: Nikki Haley: Spending is out of control. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame.
Haley, who is Trump's only announced challenger so far, has focused her current Republican critique on the issue of federal spending.
"Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for America’s spending crisis," Haley said in a recent op-ed for USA TODAY. The nation needs a president who will "stand up to the big spenders in both parties."
Her target audience for this argument: Trump supporters who may be looking for an alternative.
The approaches of Trump's challengers have at least one thing in common: They are trying to link the former president himself to the Republican establishment that has failed supporters on issues like spending.
Doug Heye, a GOP political strategist, said candidates like DeSantis and Haley hit "the establishment" as a way to "criticize Trump without criticizing Trump directly," thereby alienating his big base of voters.
Some of those voters may be looking around.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll said that while 80% of Iowa Republicans still view Trump favorably, his support is down from 91% in September of 2021. Since then, negative views of Trump have increased from 7% to 18%.
A recent poll by North Star Opinion Research, Ayres' firm, said that a slight majority of likely Republican primary voters want an alternative; 52% agreed with this statement: "I supported Donald Trump when he was President, but I don’t think he can win the Presidency in 2024, and I want a different nominee who can win."
Republican targets
Candidate criticism of other Republicans also has a large target audience.
However you slice the polls, there are large numbers of potential Republican voters who aren't particularly wedded to the GOP itself.
The North Star Opinion Research survey said of GOP voters: "Fifty-three percent say they are strong Republicans, 30 percent not-so-strong Republicans, and the remainder are independents, most of whom lean toward the Republican Party."
Some voters belong more to Trump than the party; the North Star poll reported that 28% of Republican voters said they would support Trump as an independent candidate.
Trump: 'Freaks' and 'fools'
Never mind that he was president for four years; never mind that he remains the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination. Trump is still running against the Republican establishment, claiming it is still trying to thwart him.
In his speech this month to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said that before his 2016 campaign, "we had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools."
Singling out a a former speaker of the House, high-profile campaign strategist and former governor, Trump went on to say that "we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush."
Throughout his political career, Trump has tried to link campaign opponents to GOP establishment members. In the current race, for example, he has sought to link DeSantis to Ryan and his proposal to change Social Security.
Trump's campaign against the establishment could also run into legal problems. He is under investigation in Atlanta, New York and Washington for various allegations, including hush money to an ex-mistress and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Republicans vs. Republicans: A tradition
This is not a new tactic for presidential candidates, particularly Republicans.
As the federal government grew in size and power during the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War, a rising number of Republicans came to believe the government had become too expensive and too powerful.
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In 1964, Barry Goldwater won the presidential nomination as part of a backlash against "Big Government." He lost the general election in a landslide to President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who expanded the authority of the federal government in civil rights, voting rights and "Great Society" social spending programs.
Sixteen years later, Ronald Reagan led the conservative movement into the White House.
Popular gambit
Trump ran the ultimate anti-establishment campaign in 2016, his first for elected office.
"Running against the Republican Party has been a very popular gambit for conservatives," said Geoffrey Kabaservice, vice president of political studies with the Niskanen Center, a Washington-based center-right think tank.
Retribution?
The difference this time, some analysts said: The willingness of candidates to use the power of government to achieve their ends.
Trump has pledged to be an agent of "retribution" for his followers, getting back at their enemies, be they prosecutor who are investigating him, the Chinese government or more moderate Republicans.
DeSantis has built a governing record in Florida on pressuring businesses and colleges to end programs designed to promote diversity and inclusion of Blacks and transgender people.
"This is supposed to be the party of small government," said Kabaservice, author of a 2012 book called "Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party."
