Madison — Republican candidates trying to leave incumbent Governor Tony Evers did their best to win Donald Trump’s support, but their potential running companions support the former president. I took a more cautious approach.
Of the eight Republican vice-governor candidates, only three explicitly supported the second Trump bid for the White House in Thursday’s debate.
State sense. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) and Roger Ross (R-Appleton) refuse to support Trump’s 2024 candidacy, leaving Testin in the presidential election and the potentially controversial Republican Party. He said he was not focusing on the primary elections.
“I want to skip August 9th before I start talking about 2024,” Testin said.
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Ross not only evaded 2024’s support and refused to openly support Trump’s candidacy, but he ran even if the former president remained an undisputed leader in the Republican Party. If so, he hinted that he would face a split primary.
“There will be many good presidential candidates here on the Republican side,” Ross said. “Our bench is so deep that if Donald Trump wants to throw his hat into the ring, that’s fine, but he’ll be in a tough competition.”
Ross wasn’t the only candidate to suggest that if Trump ran for president, he could miss an unopposed primary.
Lancaster Mayor David Varnam also referred to a potentially large group of ambitious Republican aspirants who are eager to start bidding for the president, regardless of the intentions of the former president.
“There is a deep bench on the Republican side, and if he wants to get involved, that would be a very interesting run,” Burnham said.
Small business owner Kyle Udes and government consultant Wil Martin also did not support Trump’s bid. Martin emphasized that he was “focusing on Wisconsin,” and said Udes would consider a presidential candidate “after we regained freedom.”
Of the three candidates who openly expressed their support for another trump bid, God Squad founder David King also accused the former president of the controversial social media, “his. “I liked politics,” he said, but what he tweeted was “I didn’t like everything.” Small business owner Jonathan Witchman added that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also thinks it’s a perfect fit.
Only Ambassador Cindy Warner of the Frederick Douglass Foundation seems willing to fully support Trump without mentioning other candidates or moving away from his incendiary rhetoric. did.
“Thanks to President Trump’s policies, I would say so,” Werner said. “He helped many people.”
The reluctance of Republican candidates to give Trump full support not only opposes efforts by major poll partners to seek his approval, but especially in 2024. This is especially true when national polls suggest that he will maintain dominant control over the party’s voters. ..
This week, Trump-backed candidate Dan Cox won the Republican primary in Maryland, replacing the conservative anti-Trump incumbent Governor Larry Hogan.
However, there are signs that Trump’s firewall is cracked.
This summer, polls found that 71% of those surveyed chose DeSantis as the president’s first choice, while 67% favored Trump. Two more polls show that DeSantis leads Trump by 18 points in his hometown of Florida and is just over 3 points behind the important Rust Belt battlefield in Michigan.
According to a Republican survey across the country, nearly half of voters want someone other than Trump to run for president in 2024.
Despite being reluctant to mobilize bravely behind Trump, none of the candidates said they wouldn’t support him if he was nominated as a Republican candidate in 2024. ..
The Vice-Governor’s Primary will take place on August 9. The Democratic Party will also serve as prime minister between Madison’s Penher and Brookfield’s Congressman Sararodriguez on August 9.