The midterms are becoming MAGA midterms, with or without their leader, former President Donald Trump, CNN reports.
A year and a half after Trump left office, he is still unquestionably the figurehead of the Make America Great Again brigade. But some people running in this year’s midterm elections have become more effective in articulating this as a brand and dictating where it is headed.
Trump now faces a new test. Not only is it asked whether he can vault his endorsed primary candidates to victory, but also it’s about whether he can maintain control of the movement he began himself, especially as some candidates he spurned are claiming the MAGA movement anyway. His loyalists have rejected some of Trump’s chosen candidates.
Trump is sprinkling endorsements for primary elections around the nation, in an effort to prove his power before a potential 2024 White House race.
Rival Republican candidates are feuding over who it is that epitomizes “America first” as the mantle, regardless of who Trump is backing.
The battle to define the MAGA movement and its next phase reflect the huge role that Trump plays in American politics. Experts say it is especially extraordinary considering the twice-impeached former president lost after a single term, and left the office in absolute disgrace following the Jan. 6 insurrection on the capitol.
Even Republicans who admit that he lost the election in 2020 do not see his legacy as tarnished. And the dominant figure in the GOP is shaping what may become a Republican House majority after this year’s elections.
Who is Trump backing in the primaries? In the Ohio senate race, Trump backed winners in high-profile tests of his endorsement power, in the first incumbent versus incumbent House matchup of the year. His candidate did fall short in the Nebraska governor’s primary.
But these early primaries and rumblings of a potential 2024 campaign are encouraging younger, radical candidates, claiming the MAGA name, and not caring whether Trump endorses them, raising the question of whether the movement Trump invented is spiraling out of his control.
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