A one-time key adviser to former President Donald Trump is publicly encouraging him to delay the big “announcement” he teased the day before the 2022 midterms, fearing that it would draw attention away from the December 6 Georgia Senate runoff.
Political observers expect Trump to launch a third White House bid on November 15. While Trump has repeatedly teased that he will run, the GOP’s failure to manifest a red wave in the midterms has many questioning the appetite that Republican voters have for another Trump bid — particularly one so soon after a disappointing election and before another one that could determine the balance of power in the Senate.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” said Jason Miller, who was chief spokesman for Trump’s 2016 campaign and a senior adviser for the 2020 bid. “Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now.”
Trump-endorsed former NFL great Herschel Walker and incumbent Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock are running in the two-person race after neither topped 50% on Tuesday.
Miller, who was featured in The Daily Wire documentary “My Dinner With Trump” as a member of Trump’s inner circle, also told The Washington Post that he wasn’t aware of any Trump adviser who wants the former president to make an announcement next week.
Still, Trump told Fox News on Wednesday he still plans to make his big announcement on schedule. Although the GOP performed worse than expected, Trump touted the personal success of his endorsements and pushed back on reports that he was upset that more of the high-profile ones, such as Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, didn’t win.
“There is a fake news narrative that I was furious — it is just the opposite,” Trump said. “The people I endorsed did very well. I was batting 98.6% in the primaries, and 216 to 19 in the general election — that is amazing.”
Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, told the Associated Press, “As President Trump looks to the future, he will continue to champion his America First agenda that won overwhelmingly at the ballot box last night.”
The bulk of Trump’s winners, however, came from safely GOP districts, with 16 of the candidates actually having run uncontested. Election results also show that 13 Trump-endorsed candidates lost in highly competitive or closely watched races, while about a dozen of his preferred candidates ran in extremely competitive races.
The success of Republican candidates appears to have varied by state, suggesting local issues played a major role.
In Pennsylvania, all three toss-up congressional districts went to Democrats, yet in neighboring New York, all four toss-up races have been called for Republicans — and a fifth has the Republican leading. In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis won by nearly 20 points, Florida’s 13th congressional district — the only race that was predicted as somewhat competitive for Democrats even though it was projected to lean Republican — went to Trump-backed Anna Paulina Luna handily.
As of Thursday afternoon, a projection has not been made for which party will control the House of Representatives, although it is expected to go to the Republicans.