Like a lot of political observers, I have been very impressed at Donald Trump’s ability to go into Nikki Haley’s home state of South Carolina and absolutely eat her lunch in elected-official endorsements. But the more you look around, the more it’s obvious that Trump is doing this everywhere, as Lakshya Jain and Armin Thomas explain in a New York Times op-ed:
In this election cycle, Mr. Trump has received endorsements from 130 House members and 31 senators, a majority of both Republican caucuses, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight. Ms. Haley, his only remaining opponent, has received just one congressional endorsement, from a House member from her home state, South Carolina. Before Mr. DeSantis dropped out, he had collected only five.
The picture is similar among governors, with 11 Republican governors endorsing Mr. Trump, two endorsing Ms. Haley, and two having endorsed Mr. DeSantis before his exit. With Mr. DeSantis immediately backing the former president after dropping out and Senator Mitch McConnell indicating a new willingness to defer to Mr. Trump’s political preferences, only a vestige of organized opposition remains among Republican elected officials and political figures.
Not bad for a twice-impeached, once-defeated, multiply indicted politician in an audience composed largely of those whose lives were threatened by the mob he summoned to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, eh? And it’s not like all these Establishment backers arrived only after Trump won Iowa and New Hampshire, either:
[The] flood of endorsements came far earlier in the race this time around. Less than a month after Mr. DeSantis announced his presidential campaign last May, Mr. Trump had already gathered over 70 endorsements from senators, congressional representatives and governors — more than any other candidate during the entire 2016 primary race.
If elected-official endorsements are one measure of Establishment support, another is the financial blessings conferred by major Republican donors. Here, too, Trump is cleaning up, as Politico reports:
The former president is set to dine with more than two dozen of the party’s biggest check-writers on Thursday evening at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of billionaire investor John Paulson, a Trump ally who has pledged to support his campaign.
And while in Las Vegas on Saturday, he met with several Republican megadonors — hotel executive Don Ahern, casino billionaires Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and aerospace tycoon Robert Bigelow, who was Ron DeSantis’ biggest donor in the primary. The former president has secured financial commitments from each, according to those familiar with the discussions and granted anonymity to speak freely.
These names may just be the tip of the iceberg. It’s no accident that Haley is having to go coast to coast in search of the funds necessary to continue her largely doomed challenge to the 45th president, or that her base of popular support is to a considerable extent limited to independent and even Democratic voters who aren’t that enthusiastic about her.
It’s a token of Trump’s political skills that he can simultaneously dominate the most staid elements of the Republican Party (who are largely doing very well in Joe Biden’s economy) while maintaining his reputation as a chaos agent and an angel of vengeance for deeply unhappy MAGA grassroots foot soldiers. Some GOP elites may privately feel that they are riding a dangerous tiger temporarily in hopes of inheriting not only power in Washington but what’s left of the pre-Trump party when he finally retires or expires. But he has their support nonetheless, and they are in a poor position to rein him in if he wins in November, or if he loses and once again refuses to accept defeat.
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