NEW YORK (AP) — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is planning trips to Iowa and New Hampshire. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., is considering a rough timeline for a potential presidential announcement. And allies of Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., are openly talking up her White House prospects.
More than two years before the next presidential election, a shadow primary is already beginning to take shape among at least three fierce Republican critics of former President Donald Trump to determine who is best positioned to occupy the anti-Trump lane in 2024.
Their apparent willingness to run — even if Trump does, as is widely expected — represents a shift from previous years when “Never Trump” operatives failed to recruit any GOP officeholders to challenge the incumbent president. But with the 2024 contest almost in view, the question is no longer whether one of Trump’s prominent Republican critics will run, but how many will mount a campaign and how soon they will announce.
Those close to Cheney, Hogan and Kinzinger expect one of them, if not more, to launch a presidential bid after the 2022 midterms. While all three are nationally known to some degree, their goal would not necessarily be to win the presidency. Above all, they want to hinder Trump's return to the White House, at least compared with 2020, when his allies cleared the field of any Republican opponents and persuaded some states to cancel primary contests altogether.
“It’s there as an option, but it’s not necessarily because this is all some big plan so I can be in the White House,” Kinzinger told The Associated Press when asked about his timeline for deciding on a presidential run. “It’s looking and saying, ‘Is there going to be a voice out there that can represent from that megaphone the importance of defending this country and democracy and what America is about?’ There certainly, I’m sure within the next year or so, will be a point at which you have to make a decision.
“If it’s not me doing anything, certainly we’ll be all in for whoever can represent us,” Kinzinger said.
Republican primary voters are expected to have other options.
Several former Trump loyalists who have emerged as on-again, off-again Trump critics are also eyeing the GOP's next presidential nomination. Among them: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. But most in this group have offered Trump far more praise than criticism, leaving the likes of Cheney, Hogan and Kinzinger as the only consistent Trump antagonists in the 2024 conversation.
The range of prospects suggests an openness within the GOP to move past Trump and his divisive politics, even as many Republican voters suggest they would like to see him run a third time.
About 7 in 10 Republicans said the former president should run for president again in 2024, according to a CBS poll last month. Among the most common reasons they cited: He’s the best Republican candidate and has the best chance of winning.
Lest anyone question his intentions, Trump told thousands of supporters Saturday night in South Carolina, “We may have to run again.” He remains the most popular figure among Republican voters and plans to use the upcoming midterms to keep bending the party in his direction. He was in South Carolina, for instance, to support GOP rivals to two incumbent members of Congress who have crossed him.
But those close to Cheney, Hogan and Kinzinger insist a significant number of less vocal Republican voters are eager to move past Trump, especially after he inspired the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. After all, 10 Republican representatives voted to impeach Trump and seven Republican senators subsequently voted to convict him.