Former Tea Party Congressman Reportedly Planning To Challenge Donald Trump For Republican Nomination In 2020
Donald Trump’s first big challenge to re-election could be coming before November.
Former Tea Party Congressman and former Trump supporter Joe Walsh is expected to launch a primary bid hoping to unseat Trump and steal the Republican Party’s nomination, the New York Times reported. Walsh is a former representative from Illinois and now one of the most vocal critics of Trump from the right, frequently taking aim on his talk radio show and on Twitter.
The report noted that Walsh has been quietly assembling a campaign team that includes a senior political adviser and has been holding meetings with a number of Trump’s chief critics.
Walsh was asked directly if he had plans to run against Trump, and would not deny the report.
“If I do it, it’s going to be before Labor Day,” he said.
Though a president has never lost a primary battle after being elected, it is looking increasingly likely that Trump will have to go through some high-profile Republicans in order to be back on the ticket in 2020. While Joe Walsh has yet to formally announce any decision, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld had already launched a primary bid and has been active in criticizing Trump.
Walsh has been particularly harsh in calling out Donald Trump’s racially charged rhetoric, including a statement widely decried as racist in which Trump told four Democratic congresswomen of color to go back to their “original” countries. Three of the four were born in the United States, while the fourth is a naturalized citizen who emigrated from Somalia.
Walsh had also taken aim at Trump on Wednesday, just hours before the report that he planned to take on the president in the 2020 primary.
“You wake up this morning reminded again that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be President,” Walsh wrote on Twitter. “But what’s most disappointing once again this morning is the continued cowardly silence of Congressional Republicans in the face of this overwhelming truth.”
Joe Walsh tells us that if he runs he’d wage a “bar fight” with Trump, hitting the incumbent daily on morality and competence. “He’s a bully and he’s a coward. Somebody’s got to punch him in the face every single day.” https://t.co/hIKI5NBfNh
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) August 21, 2019
Though Trump will likely face at least one primary opponent, anyone looking to steal the Republican Party’s nomination from him would likely face an uphill battle. Donald Trump remains massively popular among Republican voters, and the Republican National Committee took the unusual step back in January of pledging its undivided support for Trump, ABC News reported
“The members just wanted to underscore, underline, highlight that we are here to reelect President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot,” the RNC’s national press secretary, Cassie Smedile, said.
