The latest federal indictment against former President Trump over his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election is sending yet another curveball into the 2024 Republican primary as the rest of the field looks to gain momentum to take on the former president.
The Hill’s Julia Manchester reports that the indictment is bad news for Trump’s Republican rivals because his legal issues are threatening to eclipse the other candidates in the race. The wall-to-wall coverage of Trump’s indictments automatically gives him more earned media, while the other candidates are left scrambling to make headlines.
“It’s an enormous challenge for every campaign, particularly those who are reliant on earned media,” Jim Merrill, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist, told Julia. “They all are to one degree or another.”
Additionally, the indictments allows the Trump campaign to create a campaign spectacle through fundraising and events.
Candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott criticized the indictment as being politically motivated, while Vivek Ramaswamy sought to make headlines of his own following news of the third indictment by suing the Department of Justice.
However, other Republicans are saying it’s time for the candidates to start making the electability argument.
“It seems to me that if you want to beat Trump, you have to take the fight to him,” said Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based GOP strategist. “You have to begin to make an electability argument.”
Nikki Haley has taken this approach, saying in interviews that Republican primary voters need to move on from Trump and the legal drama surrounding him.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, on the other hand, finds himself in a particularly tough spot given his pushback on Trump over his actions surrounding Jan. 6, 2021 and the fact that the former vice president is considered a key witness in the case. The Hill’s Brett Samuels explains how the case puts the former president in an uncomfortable spotlight.
But the 2024 candidates aren’t the only Republicans that find themselves in a difficult spot. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports that Senate Republican aides and strategists say that “the gravity of the new charges is underscored by the blistering speech Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) delivered at the end of Trump’s impeachment trial, in which he called Trump ‘practically and morally responsible’ for the chaos of that day and suggested he could face criminal prosecution.”
