Inside Donald Trump’s Dominance of the G.O.P. Primary

The Run-Up

The New York Times

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There was a moment in early 2023 when Donald Trump seemed like a politician in decline. And it wasn’t just his political opponents who thought so. National Republicans, who blamed Mr. Trump for the party’s run of bad results in the midterms, largely agreed. But now it’s starting to set in: It appears the former president’s staying power was underestimated … again. Mr. Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee — and his supporters remain the most influential force in the party’s politics. This week, through conversations at an event with South Carolina Republicans, we try to understand why the party continues to back an embattled Mr. Trump — and how it came to feel as though this primary ended before it even began. Then, Astead talks with Jonathan Swan, a New York Times political reporter, about how the Trump team has approached this campaign with discipline and strategy, and what it is planning should he win back the White House.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Back at the beginning of the year when we started our reporting on the 2024 election
0:07.8	Donald Trump was seen as a figure on the decline by media, which largely ignored his events and
0:15.0	campaign rhetoric, by the Democrats who thought President Biden could beat
0:19.2	him easily, and by national Republicans who blamed him for the party's run of bad results,
0:25.0	considering many of Trump's hand-picked candidates in the midterms were rejected by
0:29.9	swing voters across the country.
0:32.6	But now, it's starting to set in.
0:35.7	Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee,
0:39.6	and his supporters remain the dominant force
0:41.7	in Republican Party politics, regardless of the midterm
0:44.8	results.
0:46.0	It seems the national parties underestimated Trump's staying power again. But from a grassroots perspective,
0:54.0	there were always signs that Trump's candidacy
0:57.0	was capable of finding new life.
0:59.0	Particularly over the summer,
1:01.0	when a string of criminal indictments kept Trump in the news
1:04.8	helped his fundraising numbers and cause some Republicans to rally around him
1:10.0	especially on the state and local level. So this August, a few days after Trump was indicted on federal charges related to January 6th,
1:20.0	I traveled to a gathering of influential Republicans in a key early voting state.
1:26.5	I hope they can help explain the gap between the GOP primary that everyone expected
1:31.8	and the one we're seeing right now.
1:35.0	Why have Republicans backed in the battle Trump rather than cast him aside?
	...

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