More than 150 interviews in pivotal electoral states show the former president maintains a bond with his GOP voters, but faces rising interest in a new standard-bearer.
, a national political reporter covering Trump and the MAGA movement, reported from the state party convention in Lansing.is a senior national correspondent for The Washington Post. She visited Northampton County, in the Allentown area, which flipped back to Democrats in 2020 and trended bluer in 2022, and Luzerne County, around Wilkes-Barre, which Trump retained in 2020.is a democracy reporter based in Wisconsin.
“There is no one else who can generate enthusiasm and excitement like President Trump, which is why he has support from top elected officials, grass roots leaders, and people from across the country,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.The bright desert sun steadily warmed the winter air outside a Phoenix megachurch where some 1,400 delegates to the Arizona Republican Party met on a recent Saturday.
Many of these die-hards said they liked what they’d seen of DeSantis and approved of his leadership in Florida. But they said he had no business challenging Trump for the presidential nomination. “I like DeSantis, but it’s not his turn,” Deanna Schreckler, of Phoenix, said. “He needs to stay in Florida.”
They sipped coffee from Styrofoam cups and ate chocolate cake on paper plates decorated with American flags. From the kitchen in back, one woman brought out a plate of fruit, deviled eggs and cheese curds. “The curds are warm,” she said. “Not in this room!” said another attendee. “Until he’s dead, I would vote for him,” said Hinke, a retired salesman in his 70s from nearby Reedsburg. “Look at the world and tell me he’s not a good leader, especially being hated by 30 percent of the population. Who can overcome that?”
At the Thursday gatherings, DeSantis is the name that most often comes up as a potential alternative to Trump. Jerry Helmer, the chairman of the county party, said he sees DeSantis as having a better chance than Trump of winning the presidency. Results in places like Sandy Springs also exposed another challenge for Trump — growing resistance in areas with above average income. Trump’s shortfall in those areas doubled in 2020 to almost 450,000 votes, too many to make up among his lower-income supporters.
“The overwhelming majority of people I talk to fall into two camps: Extreme Trump fatigue where they really want him to fade from the scene entirely, and a group of voters who are really appreciative of Trump and pay attention to what he says and does, but he’s not their preferred candidate,” Muzio, who recently posted a Facebook photo of himself with DeSantis, said of Trump. “There are very few people I talk to who say he’s their number one choice.
To be sure, Trump could still win a splintered primary in Georgia with 30 or 40 percent of the vote, operatives and strategists say. A faction of the voters and activists interviewed said they would only support Trump — with operatives and officials in the state saying he probably has a higher political floor than any other would-be GOP candidate.
Both John, 69, and Terri, 70, voted for Trump both times — they’d even voted for him in the 2016 Republican primary. But now the two Republicans were confounded by their longtime party. Terri said she had been “too disgusted” to vote in the 2022 midterms, and John had divided his ticket: for Senate he voted for Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, who lost; but for governor he voted for Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s former attorney general, who won.
“I think we needed him back in ’16,” John said. “I was just tired of politics as it was. And here was a guy saying, you know, we’re going to something different. That’s why he won.”
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