After Midterm Election Disappointment, GOP Faces Leadership Choices
By: Alex Leary and John McCormick (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—Republicans face a week that will be crucial in deciding the future direction and leadership of the party in the wake of disappointing midterm elections.
Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce another bid for the White House at 9 p.m. Tuesday in Palm Beach, Fla. House Republicans are scheduled to vote the same day on whether to choose House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) as their candidate for speaker. Some Senate Republicans are pushing to delay beyond this week a decision on whether to hand Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) another term as their leader.
Those moves will come after elections that many Republicans believed would deliver the party a sizable majority in the House and control of the Senate. Instead, they failed to capture the Senate majority and appear headed for only a slim edge in the House .
Some Republicans contend that Mr. Trump’s influence and endorsement choices cost the party winnable races in key states, partly by repelling some independent voters . Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, a Republican who previously supported Mr. Trump, said on Fox Business that she couldn’t do so again after the midterm results .
“The voters have spoken, and they’ve said that they want a different leader,” she said. “And a true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage.”
In response, a spokesman for Mr. Trump said: “Winsome Sears rode a wave of President Trump’s voters to election victory in 2021. Her comments are a slap to the face to all of the grass-roots Republicans that worked so hard to get her elected. They won’t forget this, and there will be a reckoning.”
About 170 miles north of Mr. Trump’s planned announcement, Republican governors will be meeting Monday through Wednesday in Orlando, Fla., for their annual gathering. The session comes after the party had a less than stellar showing in elections for governor in 36 states.
Several GOP candidates backed by Mr. Trump lost, including in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Republicans failed to beat incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in Kansas, a state that traditionally leans toward the GOP, while coming up short in moderately close races in Oregon and Minnesota. Republican Joe Lombardo, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, won the gubernatorial race in Nevada, while in Arizona, the governor’s race remained too close to call between Kari Lake, a Republican allied with Mr. Trump, and Democrat Katie Hobbs.
The Republican Governors Association meeting will be followed by a high-profile GOP gathering that is attracting numerous potential 2024 presidential candidates.
The annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas of the Republican Jewish Coalition is expected to draw a visit by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who easily won a second term and is seriously contemplating a White House bid . Mr. Trump has spoken to the group in the past, but isn’t on this year’s schedule.
Other possible presidential hopefuls scheduled to speak at the leadership meeting include former Vice President Mike Pence , whose book is set to be released Tuesday , as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, who has criticized Mr. Trump’s influence on the party, said last week on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Mr. Trump’s early move wouldn’t clear the 2024 field. “You’re still going to see eight to maybe even a dozen other candidates jump in the race,” Mr. Sununu said.
Hypothetical 2024 GOP presidential primary polls have typically shown Mr. Trump with a wide lead over any potential foes, with Mr. DeSantis ranking second. But a YouGov poll taken after Tuesday’s election found that 42% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents preferred Mr. DeSantis in a two-way matchup, while 35% chose Mr. Trump.
On Capitol Hill, ahead of House GOP leadership elections, some lawmakers have said that Mr. McCarthy is the wrong choice for speaker or that the party should delay making its picks. Mr. McCarthy only needs a majority of Republicans present to win Tuesday’s vote, but in January he would need 218 votes on the House floor to secure the speaker role. No public challenger has emerged so far to run against him.
In the Senate, some Republicans believe this week’s leadership elections should be postponed until after the outcome of the Dec. 6 runoff contest in Georgia between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.
A petition led by Sens. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Rick Scott (R., Fla.) called for a delay, saying, “We are all disappointed that a Red Wave failed to materialize” and “need to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.” Mr. Scott, who ran the Senate GOP campaign arm this cycle, clashed repeatedly with Mr. McConnell over campaign strategy and whether the party should have had a more specific policy agenda .
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is seeking maximum exposure by making his announcement Tuesday in prime time. He is likely to try to summon not just the stagecraft of his 2015 announcement, where he rode an escalator at Trump Tower in Manhattan, but also the antiestablishment spirit of the sprawling primary fight that ensued.
By declaring early, Mr. Trump would reject calls from advisers to wait until after Georgia’s Senate runoff election. A loss there by Mr. Walker, who was touted by Mr. Trump against the wishes of many Republicans in Georgia and Washington, D.C., would raise more criticism of the former president’s role as kingmaker.
Mr. Trump is seeking to lock in grass-roots support, which remains avid. He has maintained a strong fundraising pace but has seen some major party donors line up behind other possible candidates, most prominently Mr. DeSantis.
Recognizing the threat, the former president has begun lashing out at Mr. DeSantis, casting him as disloyal and previewing a brutal primary fight should the governor get into the race. On Friday, he went after Mr. Youngkin, saying his name sounded Chinese. The Virginia governor kept a distance from Mr. Trump in his 2021 election, as did Mr. DeSantis this year. Regarding the former president’s recent criticism, the Florida governor has so far chosen to ignore him.
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