Trump Expected to Announce Third Presidential Run Despite Bad Polling
Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Tuesday night that he is running for president in 2024, marking his third presidential run in as many election cycles.
The announcement would come only a week after the Republican Party’s lackluster showing in the 2022 midterms — a result that many in the party have blamed on Trump — and as Trump faces a litany of legal issues in the coming months.
Trump told the crowd at a pre-midterm rally in Ohio last week that he would be making “a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.” At the time, Republicans were expected to rout Democrats in congressional races across the U.S. Instead, Democrats had an unexpectedly strong showing — the party will retain control of the Senate, and while control of the House will shift to Republicans, it will be by a much smaller margin than initially predicted.
Some Trump allies have encouraged him to delay the announcement, noting that many GOP members are upset over the midterm results and that the announcement may draw attention away from the senatorial runoff election in Georgia.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” former adviser Jason Miller said to PBS NewsHour.
Despite a noticeable splintering of support within the Republican Party, Trump appears to be moving forward with his announcement. “Hopefully TODAY will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of our Country!” he posted on his Truth Social website on Tuesday morning.
According to an Economist/YouGov poll published last week, only 29 percent of voters say they want Trump to run for president in 2024, while 53 percent say he should not. That same poll found that only 41 percent of Americans view Trump favorably, while 51 percent view him unfavorably.
Trump faces other barriers to winning the presidential election two years from now, including a number of criminal and civil inquiries relating to his businesses and actions as president. Trump is currently being charged with tax and banking fraud relating to his Trump Organization properties, and faces the possibility of indictment charges relating to his transfer of government documents (many of which were classified) from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate upon exiting office. There is also currently an inquiry into Trump’s involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building and his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results through the use of fake electors.
Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election could potentially disqualify him from running for president. The nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent Trump a letter earlier this month stating that they believed Trump was in violation of a clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that bars people who previously served in office from doing so again if they engaged in insurrection. The organization has promised to sue Trump the moment he announces a presidential run.
“The evidence that you engaged in insurrection as contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment — including by mobilizing, inciting, and aiding those who attacked the Capitol — is overwhelming,” CREW president Noah Bookbinder wrote in that letter.