Trump primary challengers seek fight over future of GOP, not 2020 victory

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — President Donald Trump called the three Republicans who have announced primary campaigns against him “a total joke” Monday, dismissing their runs as publicity stunts, but experts and strategists say the candidates have serious concerns to raise about Trump’s leadership and the future of the GOP.

“I don’t know who they are,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before heading to a rally in North Carolina.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who also represented the state in the House from 1995 to 2001 and 2013 to 2019, confirmed he is running for president in 2020 on “Fox News Sunday,” stating he believes the Republican Party has lost its way on federal spending and other issues.

“I think we need to have a conversation on what it means to be a Republican,” he said.

Sanford has acknowledged he faces a nearly insurmountable climb to replace Trump on the ticket, likening it to “something of a David and Goliath story” recently, but he sounded more hopeful Sunday. Pressed by Fox anchor Chris Wallace about having no chance of victory, he responded, "I think you probably would have said that thing to Donald Trump just a matter of months ago as he faced the likes of Jeb Bush and others."

Sanford has overcome unlikely odds in the past, winning an election to Congress in 2013 even after his governorship ended in scandal and ridicule over an extramarital affair. However, after becoming an outspoken critic of Trump, he lost his primary election in 2018. The candidate who beat him with Trump’s support, Katie Arrington, lost in the general election.

"I believe competition of ideas is good, not bad, for the Republican Party and for our country," Sanford said in a statement defending his decision to run Sunday.

The former South Carolina governor joins former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh in attempting to do something no candidate ever has: defeat an incumbent president in a primary race for the party’s nomination.

Weld, who was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee in 2016, has struggled to gain traction since announcing he would run against Trump in April. Walsh, who became a conservative talk radio host after leaving Congress, has faced tough questions about his own past racist and bigoted comments as he tries to frame Trump as an extremist out of step with the party.

“2020 is about Trump and ONLY about Trump. It’s about saving this country from Trump. Period,” Walsh tweeted Monday in response to a CNN report that the CIA pulled a high-level intelligence source out of Russia in 2017 amid concerns about the president’s handling of classified information.

Further complicating the longshot bids to take on Trump, Republican parties in several states have announced in recent days that they will not hold primaries or caucuses in 2020. GOP leaders in Kansas, South Carolina, and Nevada have opted to cancel their primaries, and Arizona is expected to do the same later this month.

In California, where a controversial new law requiring candidates to release their tax returns could keep Trump off the primary ballot, the state GOP is looking into alternative methods to designate delegates to him. Republicans are confident their challenge to the constitutionality of the law will succeed, but they also want a contingency plan in case it is upheld.

Trump is undoubtedly vulnerable in the general election, but his strong support among Republicans has held steady throughout his presidency. According to Republican strategist David Payne, a serious primary challenge that undermines his electability could erode his base and endanger his general election prospects, but he is not yet facing such a threat.

“Even if Trump’s political standing weakens, his current primary opponents aren’t big enough names or formidable enough politicians to challenge him credibly,” Payne said.

The primaries themselves are somewhat beside the point, though. For Trump’s GOP opponents, this is more about making a statement about the Republican Party than winning an election, experts say.

“I don’t know that they actually care if they can beat [Trump]...,” said Capri Cafaro, a former Democratic Ohio state senator and an executive in residence at American University’s School of Public Affairs. “This isn’t about electoral success. I think it’s about injecting into the dialogue a contrast ideologically amongst Republicans and, at least in theory, providing a choice to voters”

Their candidacies also offer an opportunity for traditional Republicans who feel marginalized by Trump’s unorthodox agenda to be heard. Whether it is one year from now or five, the GOP will eventually need to decide where it wants to go post-Trump, and this is an attempt to start that conversation.

“[Sanford] is trying to show his objections, his displeasure with the president and hoping to draw attention to the issues that he thinks are important, especially related to the role of the central government and the budget deficit,” said Robert Oldendick, director of the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research at the University of South Carolina.

President Trump has no shortage of opponents, with about 20 candidates still vying for the Democratic nomination. The attacks coming from fellow Republicans will be quite different, though, and they might resonate with a new audience as a result.

“Although to most people challenges to President Trump might seem like political kamikaze missions, they will get some media attention because of the conflict they create and the critiques they raise within Republican circles,” said Robert Schmuhl, author of “The Glory and the Burden: The American Presidency from FDR to Trump” and professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame.

While Sanford, Walsh, and Weld have little hope of succeeding in beating Trump, they have already succeeded in getting the president’s attention.

“Can you believe it? I’m at 94% approval in the Republican Party, and have Three Stooges running against me. One is ‘Mr. Appalachian Trail’ who was actually in Argentina for bad reasons,” Trump tweeted on Aug. 27. “Another is a one-time BAD Congressman from Illinois who lost in his second term by a landslide, then failed in radio. The third is a man who couldn’t stand up straight while receiving an award. I should be able to take them!”

Trump claimed again Monday to have record-high support of 94% among Republicans. He has cited the 94% figure several times in recent months, but it is unclear what survey that number came from and other Republican presidents have polled higher at times in their terms. Still, most polls have consistently shown Trump’s approval rating with Republicans in the high 80s or low 90s.

Given that, experts say the president has nothing to gain from dignifying his opponents by responding to their candidacies, even if it is just to deride them as the “Three Stooges.”

“There’s no benefit in even acknowledging their candidacy from his perspective as president of the United States and de facto leader of his party,” Cafaro said.

That fact is unlikely to stop Trump from engaging with his primary challengers, especially if he hears about criticism one has directed at him that he feels is unfair.

“He is easily offended and likes to return fire,” Payne said. “So, while there are no other primary challengers that can mount a credible threat to him, the president is almost certainly going to be distracted by this. And not in a constructive way that would make him a better candidate, or a happier warrior. His playbook doesn’t include magnanimity.”

If these campaigns persist into primary season, they threaten to pull Trump off message at a time when his advisers will want to direct their energy to defining the eventual Democratic nominee.

“Any time the president might devote to primary challengers reduces the amount of fire he can train on the Democrats,” Schmuhl said.

The primary challenges against Trump have drawn a wide range of responses from the president’s critics on the right and the left. Some have welcomed the prospect of a principled debate over the future of the Republican Party, but others roll their eyes at what they see as a futile gesture by fatally flawed candidates.

“Voting for Trump in a primary is validating Trump, stripped of any pretense that he might improve or that an evil socialist is the alternative,” Stuart Stevens, a former adviser to 2012 GOP Mitt Romney who is supporting Weld, wrote in a recent USA Today op-ed. “That’s why Republicans need an active, robust primary. The 2020 Republican primary is the definitional moment for the Republican Party for a generation or longer.”

Trump is far from the first president to face credible primary opponents, and those battles have taken a toll on some of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan won 11 states against President Gerald Ford in 1976; President Jimmy Carter was defeated in several states by Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1980; and Pat Buchanan dragged out a failed challenge against President George H.W. Bush to the end of the 1992 primaries. All three presidents lost their reelection bids.

State parties canceling primaries for an incumbent president is not unusual, particularly when he is running unopposed. Calling off elections when there are prominent challengers on the ballot is less common, and the announcements have been met with some concern that a president who ran on a promise to challenge the rigged system is now rigging the system for himself.

"It’s something a mob boss would do,” Walsh complained.

Even if none of the candidates have a realistic chance of defeating Trump, experts say it makes sense for state Republican parties to attempt to head off what could become unnecessarily bitter and divisive primary campaigns.

“President Trump commands an impressive amount of loyalty among Republican state party leaders,” Schmuhl said. “The fewer the contests, the less chance of having challengers receive attention and the potential problems that might develop.”

Whether these primaries take place or not is largely inconsequential to Trump’s eventual nomination, but Oldendick said canceling them sends a signal of unwavering support for a president who places a high premium on such gestures.

“They want to show a very unified front... not have the president have to waste any time or energy combating a primary challenge,” he said.

With an unpredictable president and an uncertain future, Payne noted some states may also be looking to eliminate the potential for an embarrassing moment next spring if GOP voters turn out to be less supportive of Trump than they currently seem.

“After three-plus years of Trump, it’s quite possible that some Republicans might appreciate the chance to vote for an alternative candidate, even if they might still vote for Trump if he’s the nominee,” he said. “And state parties that are closely allied with Trump might not want to see what that possibility looks like in real life.”

However, foregoing primaries and caucuses altogether is not without costs for a political party. Holding a statewide election in the spring helps mobilize the base and lay the organizational groundwork for the national election in the fall.

“A primary does provide an opportunity to identify voters, gauge enthusiasm, do a trial run of your get-out-the-vote efforts,” Oldendick said.