About halfway through his rally in Texas on Saturday night, Donald J. Trump turned to the teleprompter and walked away from a meandering set of complaints to recite a carefully prepared list of President Biden’s failings and his own accomplishments.
“Let’s just compare the records,” Trump said, as supporters in “Trump 2024” T-shirts cheered behind him, perfectly framed in the television shot.
Trump, who later went on to talk about “that beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white,” has left less and less doubt about his intentions, plotting an influential role in the 2022 midterm elections and another possible run for president. White House. But a new round of skirmishes over his endorsements, fissures with the GOP base over vaccines — a word Trump didn’t say at Saturday’s rally — and new polling show how his long-standing hold on the GOP faces mounting strains.
In Texas, some grassroots conservatives are openly frustrated with Trump’s endorsement of Gov. Greg Abbott, even booing him when he took the stage. In North Carolina, Trump’s behind-the-scenes efforts to narrow the Republican field to help his preferred Senate candidate failed last week. And in Tennessee, a recent Trump endorsement triggered an unusual public backlash even among his staunchest allies, both in Congress and in the conservative media.
The Tennessee episode, in particular, showed how the Make America Great Again movement that Mr. Trump birthed is maturing to the point where it can, at times, exist separate and apart, and even at odds with Trump himself.
Trump remains overwhelmingly the most popular and powerful figure in the Republican Party. He’s the poll favorite in 2024, an unrivaled fundraising force, and still capable of packing fairgrounds with huge crowds. But after issuing roughly 100 endorsements in races across the country, Trump will face a series of indirect tests of his political strength in the coming months, just as public polls show his influence with the Republican electorate is not what it once was. it was.
“It seems like things have been changing,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster who regularly analyzes Trump’s position in the party. “It is a strong attachment. He is one who would most likely win a Republican primary today. But is it the same ironclad, monolithic, Soviet-style attachment that we saw when Donald Trump was the sitting president? No, it’s not.”
In a recent Associated Press poll, 44 percent of Republicans said they did not want Trump to run for president again, while a possible 2024 Republican rival, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, has narrowed the gap in another way. , too. Early snapshots of a hypothetical primary: new signs of potential vulnerability for the former president.
Unlike Trump’s days in the White House, an NBC News poll in late January found that 56 percent of Republicans now define themselves more as supporters of the GOP, compared with 36 percent who said they first he supported Trump.
The Trump faction had first represented 54 percent of Republican voters in October 2020. The erosion since then has encompassed all demographics: men and women, moderates and conservatives, people of all ages.
Among the biggest changes was a group widely seen as Trump’s most loyal electorate: white Republicans without college degrees, who jumped from 62 percent who identified first with Trump to 36 percent.
Frank Luntz, a leading Republican pollster, said Republican support for the former president is moving in complex ways, both rising and falling.
“Trump’s group is smaller today than it has been in five years, but it is even more intense, more passionate and more unforgiving of its critics,” Luntz said. “As people slowly walk away, which is how it is, those who are still with him are even stronger in their support.”
Trump faces further complications for his return, including an ongoing investigation in Georgia into his attempt to pressure state officials to overturn the election and an investigation in New York into his business practices.
Betting against Trump’s control of the GOP has been a losing proposition, both for pundits and Republican rivals, for the better part of a decade, and it retains broad support in the party’s own apparatus. As the Republican National Committee holds its winter meeting in Salt Lake City in the coming days, the party’s executive committee is expected to discuss behind closed doors whether to continue paying some of the former president’s personal legal bills.
Even some Trump-skeptical Republican strategists point out that any weakening in support came after a year in which Trump did not seek as much public attention as he could.
He was back in the spotlight at Saturday’s Texas rally, an event that had the feel of a music festival, complete with anti-Biden chants of “Come on, Brandon!” spontaneously exploding. Amid “Trump won” banners, however, some conservative activists have complained about Mr. Abbott’s endorsement, criticizing the governor’s early Covid-19 closures and border management..
Onstage, Abbott himself was met with shouts of “RINO,” for “Republican in name only,” and some jeers, which he overcame by leading the crowd in a chant of “Go Trump!”
In his comments, Trump appeared to be protecting his far-right flank when he declared that “if I run and win,” he would consider pardoning the people who participated in the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 last year.
A key divide that has emerged between Trump and his base is over vaccines. He has been booed in past appearances, both when he urged supporters to get vaccinated and after he said he himself received a booster shot, and now focuses on opposing federal mandates, while also trying to take credit for how quickly the vaccines arrived.
Trump notably avoided the word “vaccine” on Saturday, referring only to “Operation Warp Speed,” his administration’s effort to produce a vaccine.
Jennifer Winterbauer, who has “We the People” tattooed on her forearm, arrived at Trump’s sixth rally days early, sleeping in her truck to be among the first in line. He said he believed Trump was “sent by God to save this country.” Still, she disagrees with him about the vaccine.
“I don’t think he should promote it at all,” he said. “I had Covid and I had the flu, and the flu was much worse.”
Vaccine and covid policies have also been the subject of simmering tensions with Mr. DeSantis, who declined to say whether he received a booster shot. Trump said “gutless” politicians dodge those questions.
Mr. Ruffini polled Mr. Trump against Mr. DeSantis last October and again this month. Then Trump led by 40 percentage points; now, margin is 25. But among Republicans familiar with both men, the gap was just 16 points, and even narrower, just nine points, among those who liked both.
“His voters are looking for alternatives,” Ruffini said of Trump. While there is little evidence of any desire for an anti-Trump Republican, Ruffini said, there is openness to what he called a “next-generation Trump candidate.”
At the Texas rally, David Merritt, a 56-year-old private contractor in a cowboy hat, described himself as “more of a Trump guy” than a Republican. But what if he didn’t run in 2024?
“Ron DeSantis would probably be my next option,” Merritt said. Because he was the most similar to Mr. Trump of the Republican candidates.
In Washington, Republican congressional leaders have sharply diverged in their approaches to Trump.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Minority Leader, has been solicitous, meeting with Trump for about an hour last Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago to discuss House races and the political landscape, according to people familiar with the meeting. McCarthy is seen as keeping Trump close as he seeks to win a majority for his party this fall and the presidency for himself.
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, is not speaking to Trump, and his allies continue to court Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, an outspoken anti-Trump Republican, to run for Senate.
Beyond the polls, Trump has repeatedly held up his “almost unblemished record” of primary sponsorships as a barometer of his power. When pro-Trump media personality Lou Dobbs asked Trump last week if the GOP was still united behind him, he replied: “Well, I think so. Everyone I support almost wins.”
In North Carolina, Trump has promoted the Senate candidate he backed, Rep. Ted Budd, by trying to convince Rep. Mark Walker to drop out of the primary and run for the House again. Walker threatens to split the vote for Trump and help a third candidate, former Governor Pat McCrory, a more traditional Republican.
On Thursday, Mr. Walker announced that he would stay in the Senate race anyway.
While Trump’s endorsements have at times been haphazard, despite ongoing efforts to formalize the process, few have been more quickly pushed back than his endorsement of Morgan Ortagus, who was an aide to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and was once presented as a possible white candidate. House Press Secretary.
Ms. Ortagus, with her family in tow, met with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago last Monday and they discussed a Tennessee House seat for which she is not yet an official candidate, according to three people. familiar with the meeting; by the following night, Trump had endorsed his unannounced candidacy.
“Trump has this completely wrong,” Candace Owens, a prominent figure in the pro-Trump media, wrote on Twitter.
Ms. Owens endorsed Robby Starbuck, a rival candidate with ties to Trump’s activist movement. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was also quick to endorse Starbuck, and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, usually a staunch Trump ally, promoted one of Starbuck’s videos.
Gavin Wax, an outspoken pro-Trump activist and president of the New York Young Republican Club, who criticized the Ortagus and Abbott endorsements, said the political environment now made it possible to air such grievances. “It’s much easier for these divisions to start brewing when he’s not in office,” Wax said of Trump.
“He’s still the leader by far, but who knows,” Wax said. “It’s one of those things where a million cuts will eventually start to do damage.”
J.David Goodman contributed reporting from Conroe, Texas.
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