The change in tone was so intense that even political insiders who support other candidates say it’ll be difficult for any Republicans to challenge Trump for the 2024 nomination if he should choose to run again. So, in other words, the FBI raid is shaping up to be bad news if your last name is DeSantis, Pence, Cruz, Haley, or Cotton.
“It makes him pretty much unbeatable in a primary,” said a Republican strategist who worked on an opposing 2016 primary presidential campaign. “Basically, what the federal government has done, the FBI, the Biden administration, is they’ve made him into a martyr. It’s going to be really difficult to see a scenario in which he runs in and loses in a primary because of that.”
Indeed, Trump’s political action committee, Save America, saw a massive bump in donations, the Washington Post reported. Even potential Republican 2024 rivals have flocked to support him.
“If I was a campaign finance lawyer for Donald Trump, I might well report to the Federal Elections Commission this raid as an in-kind contribution to the Trump political campaign, because it is so enormously helpful to Trump,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said on his “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast that aired August 13. Cruz is a 2016 Trump primary rival who recently said he would “wait and see” if the ex-president ran again before announcing his own 2024 plans.
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