Republican lawmakers planning to run for president in 2024 have spent weeks in urgent talks with advisers as they called for bets on whether to support objections to certification at this week’s congressional victory of President-elect Joe Biden .
Why it’s important: Republican sources tell Axios that these lawmakers consider Wednesday’s vote to be potentially crucial to their political viability, as are the 2004 Democratic candidates set in the 2002 Iraq war vote.
What we are hearing: Messrs. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz bet that objecting will win them the support of MAGA loyalists; Meaning. Tom Cotton, Mike Lee and, to some extent, Vice President Mike Pence is concerned about the long-term damage to American democracy. They expect Republican Party voters to value their general thinking.
Aside: Other 2024 aspirants, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, have the luxury of maintaining that fight, as they have no role in Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.
A split screen of Lee and Cruz campaigning in Georgia during the weekend a division stood out.
- Sources present say Cruz used much of his time to detail his plan to oppose the Electoral College results: a deviation from the impetus the Texan was supposed to give Republican candidates David He lost Kelly Loeffler.
- Lee, who announced today that he will not oppose, kept the focus on the candidates. Utahan shunned any conversation about election fraud.
Cotton statement Sunday against protest reflected another stain: pro-Trump dissent. Arkansan and an undisputed supporter of Trump argue for the short-sightedness of this movement and are confident that the base will seize it.
- While Trump routinely slanders his opponents, Cotton is a veteran and hawk who has been directly in the president’s corner all his term, so far.
- Cotton is betting that Republican primary voters will recognize that a challenge doomed to electoral certification could offset the party.
- It’s a risky gamble, like him already taking heat from the president and his followers.
Pence is in a harder place, and may establish a third template for pro-Trump dissent while certifying Biden’s victory.
- Pence, who will preside over Wednesday’s proceedings, has not said whether he will oppose any results.
- A statement Saturday from his chief of staff, Marc Short, only stated that the vice president “shares the concerns of millions of Americans about fraud and electoral irregularities.”
- The comments were seen as more fun while the posture was being performed.
The summary: Top Republicans are concerned that Georgia voters will not run for Perdue and Loeffler, although they are accused of making false claims that Biden “stole” the election, because they do not trust the integrity of the election.