Trump Announces Bid for 2024 Presidential Election
Image courtesy of AZcentral
By Jack Cherico
On Tuesday, November 15, former President Donald Trump announced his intention for candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump aims to be only the second president elected to two nonconsecutive terms, the first being Grover Cleveland from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897. Trump said, “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.” The former president delivered his announcement at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida property,which he plans to use as a campaign headquarters and has been the site of controversy in recent months.
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI obtained the search warrant as part of an investigation into Trump relating to three federal criminal statutes. These statutes included violations of the Espionage Act regarding unauthorized retention of national defense information, destroying or concealing records “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” federal government activity, and illegal removal or destruction of federal government records .
This announcement was teased by Trump a few weeks prior and has divided republicans once again. Since he lost his 2020 reelection, the two main republican factions have grouped into those who believe in the validity of the 2020 election and those who do not. So-called “election deniers” are the group who perpetrated the events of January 6, 2021, and will be the main voter base that Trump intends to target. However, the other group of republicans would like to move on from Trump, many having placed their faith in Florida governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis recently won reelection to the governorship with an almost 20 percentage point increase from his reelection in 2018, in which he only won by .4 percentage points.
Trump-backed congressmen and women struggled in the 2022 reelection races, with the aforementioned Oz losing to John Fetterman, Madison Cawthorn in North Carolina losing in the Republican primary, and Sarah Palin losing in an Alaskan special election for the seat of former congressman Don Young.
Trump recently spoke out against DeSantis at a rally for Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. When referencing a straw poll about 2024 presidential candidates, Trump said, “Trump at 71, Ron De-Sanctimonious at 10%, Mike Pence at 7— oh, Mike’s doing better than I thought.”
It is too early to tell if Trump will exceed his previous election numbers in 2024 or if he will even advance from the primary stage. Still, Trump’s announcement will impact the press surrounding the race as we progress toward 2024.
