Early this morning, noting Trump’s sojourn to East Palestine today, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Theodoric Meyer and Tobi Raj, wrote that, though Ohio went for Trump comfortably both times he ran, the state’s congressional delegation isn’t on his team, at least not yet. Freshman Senator JD Vance wouldn’t dare not endorse him but the only Ohio congressmen to do so were his former roadie Max Miller, sociopath Gym Jordan and a guy named Mike Carey— and “none of them are coming to his event today, according to their spokespeople, who cited trips and scheduling conflicts. Rep. Bill Johnson, whose district includes East Palestine, will be there, but he hasn’t endorsed Trump. The relative lack of Trump endorsements is striking because Trump— who once described himself as ‘the king of endorsements’— endorsed all but one of the Republicans in Ohio’s delegation last year.” Not on Team Trump so far: Brad Wenstrup, Bob Latta, Bill Johnson, Warren Davidson, Mike Turner, Troy Balderson and David Joyce. Some say that if Trump doesn’t walk away with an endorsement from Johnson today, it will send a message that he’s weak, weak, weak. And I doubt any of this lack of support for Trump has anything to do with "favorite son" Vivek Ramaswamy.
Bessides, Ohio isn’t an anomaly. The 3 Washington Post reporters wrote that “Trump endorsed 164 Republican senators and representatives now in Congress during last year’s midterm elections, whether those lawmakers asked for his backing or not. Only around 30 of them have returned the favor since Trump announced his campaign more than three months ago, according to a list compiled last week by our colleague Aaron Blake. (We’re not counting Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), whom Trump quasi-supported by endorsing ‘Eric’ in Schmitt’s race against former governor Eric Greitens.)”
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) last week became the first Republican lawmaker to endorse someone other than Trump for president when he announced he would support Nikki Haley. Norman, who last year said he was “honored” to receive Trump’s endorsement, wrote on Facebook that “the Republican Party has entered a season of change” and it’s time for “new leadership with a new vision.”
The Republicans who’ve withheld their endorsements include lawmakers who might owe their seats to Trump’s backing as well as longtime lawmakers who won reelection easily.
Freshman Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) won a crowded primary last year with Trump’s endorsement. But he has yet to back Trump for president.
“I’ve been very supportive of him and I'm going to end up with lots of friends in this race,” Budd said last week when asked if he'll endorse Trump.
…Marco Rubio (R-FL), on the other hand, didn’t need Trump's endorsement to win reelection last year, but he got it anyway.
“He’s a Florida resident,” Rubio said of Trump. “Gov. [Ron] DeSantis is Florida. [Sen.] Tim Scott’s [R-S.C.] one of my closest friends up here. Nikki Haley supported me. So I'm just going to let that play out for a while.”
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), who Trump endorsed for reelection last year, remains uncommitted but said he’ll be “supportive” of Scott’s likely presidential ambitions.
“I think he’s a wonderful human being,” Moran said of Scott, before adding, “We do have a Kansan in the race”— a reference to Mike Pompeo, Trump's former secretary of state, who is not in the race yet but is widely expected to run.
Freshman Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL), who traveled to Mar-a-Lago last year to seek Trump’s endorsement, said in a statement that she can’t endorse Trump or anyone else because her work on a Republican National Committee board requires her to remain neutral in the race.
Other lawmakers have cited their admiration for DeSantis, who is laying the groundwork for a campaign, in their decision to hold off.
“There’s no denying that Ron DeSantis’ political star is on the rise, and that’s why you have a primary process,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), who Trump endorsed last year but who hasn’t endorsed Trump’s campaign, told the NBC station in Dallas in December. “I’m looking forward to that process, and I think the two heavyweights right now are Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.”
While Trump helped defeat several House Republicans who voted to impeach him by endorsing their primary challengers last year (think the “Impeachment 10”), Republican lawmakers seem unafraid that they’ll lose their seats if they back another candidate for president.
Alex Conant, a Republican consultant who worked for Rubio when he ran for president in 2016, said Trump’s relative lack of congressional endorsements demonstrates the realities of a new era.
“He is not a lock in the nomination and these members are not feeling a lot of pressure to weigh in at such an early stage,” Conant said. “His candidacy doesn't have a lot of momentum at the moment.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who has said he won’t run for president in 2024 and will be up for reelection next year, said he’d welcome Trump’s endorsement.
But will he endorse Trump in return?
“I haven't endorsed anybody,” Hawley told us last week. “So I just I'll stick on that.” [Blue America has endorsed Hawley’s opponent, Lucas Kunce, and anyone for any reason is welcome to contribute to the anti-Hawley effort (or pro-Kunce effort) here.]
I have a feeling that none of the reluctant members of Congress shying away from endorsing Trump are doing so because of their support for Vivek Ramaswamy, “the multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur and self-described intellectual godfather of the anti-woke movement, announced on Tuesday that he is running for president.” General all-around hustler and scam artist, Ramaswamy calls himself “The CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc.” He announced his campaign last night on Tucker Carlson’s show. He was born in Cincinnati and has contributed $20,000 to the Ohio Republican Party but most of his 250 political contributions have gone to Democrats, starting with $100 for Obama in 2012. Sam Stein reported that “Though he filed forms with the FEC declaring he would be running on the Republican side of the aisle, his announcement video made no mention of the party itself— an indication that he hopes to frame his candidacy as outside the conventional political framework.”
“We are in the middle of a national identity crisis,” he declared in an online video launching his campaign, offering that the current political climate constituted a form of “psychological slavery.”
Speaking straight to the camera, with an American flag draped in the background and a flag pin on his lapel, Ramaswamy framed his campaign as a broad counteroffensive to what he called the “woke left”— describing it as a threat to open speech, the free exchanging of ideas and American exceptionalism itself.
…He has already done barnstorming in early nominating states, including Iowa, where he was well received even as some of the state’s political bigwigs professed to not having familiarity with the planks on which he was running.
Last cycle he wanted to run for the open Ohio Senate seat but ultimately decided the field was too crowded for a relative unknown like himself… so he’s running for president instead— and on DeSantis’ platform.
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