Former US president Donald Trump is expected to officially launch another White House bid today, refusing calls from within his own Republican Party to fade away after his loyalists underperformed in this year’s midterm elections.
The 76-year old, whose 2016 win shocked the US and the world, has summoned reporters to his Florida mansion for a “very big announcement” at 9pm today.
“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he’s running for president,” said Trump adviser Jason Miller, who added that the speech would be “very professional, very buttoned up.”
Photo: Reuters
Known for his unpredictability, Trump could still change his mind, but for months he has barely hidden his desire to vie for the presidency again in 2024.
Delaying the announcement, as some of his advisers have reportedly suggested to him, would be highly awkward for Trump because he has billed it as “perhaps [to] be the most important speech given in the history of the USA.”
A 2024 White House bid would be Trump’s third presidential campaign and — if he wins his party’s nomination — the fifth national election with him as the Republican Party standard-bearer.
After leaving office in chaos shortly after his partisans stormed the US Capitol last year, Trump chose to remain in the political arena, continuing to raise funds and hold rallies.
Leading up to the midterm vote, in which the Democratic Party had been expected to lose handily, Trump made denial of the 2020 election results a key litmus test for candidates to win his influential political endorsement.
The predicted Republican “red wave” failed to materialize, and Democrats are to maintain their control of the Senate. In the still-undecided House of Representatives, Republicans seem likely to eke out only a razor-thin majority.
The results have emboldened Trump’s Republican detractors and sapped most of his political momentum heading into the campaign launch.
“It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it’s like, three strikes and you’re out,” Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a vocal Trump critic, said on CNN on Sunday.
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