In reference to the remainder of the Republican presidential race, a source close to Trump stressed, ‘there’s no reason to communicate with these individuals.’
Three of the top candidates opposing former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024 will be in predominantly Republican northwest Iowa on Saturday for a candidate discussion with conservative Rep. Randy Feenstra.
But Trump will not be there. He is not need to.
Trump, the overwhelming favorite to win his party’s presidential nominee, will be in New York City on Saturday evening to speak at the annual banquet of the New York Young Republicans.
It’s the latest example of Trump disregarding his opponents while focusing on President Biden in his third presidential bid.
From boycotting the first four Republican presidential debates to airing advertisements that highlight his record in the White House and target Biden, Trump is focusing on his likely general election opponent rather than his nomination competitors throughout the primary season.
“You just look at the numbers alone, and he is so strong with Republican voters,” said Michael Dennehy, a prominent GOP strategist based in New Hampshire. “It’s a typical strong front-runner campaign strategy.”
Dennehy, a presidential campaign veteran, stated that Trump “can run the campaign he wants without having to interact with the other Republican candidates.”
It’s a far cry from a year ago, when Trump began his 2024 campaign to mixed reviews and many Republicans blamed him for the party’s dismal performance in the 2022 midterm elections.
After a year, Trump has extremely large and formidable double-digit leads over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in the most recent public opinion polls in the crucial early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump made history earlier this year when he became the first sitting president to face criminal charges. However, his four indictments, which include ones from federal courts in Georgia’s Fulton County Court and Washington, D.C., on charges that he attempted to reverse his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, have only strengthened his support from Republican voters.
Despite Christie’s best efforts, the former president emerged from Wednesday’s fourth debate virtually unscathed.
Christie, an outspoken opponent of Trump, blasted his opponents for not standing up to the previous president. However, it didn’t seem like his reprimands were heard, as DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy largely refrained from criticizing Trump directly, even in response to a series of inquiries from the moderators about the former president.
When questioned about the campaign’s approach, a source close to Trump said to Fox News that “it’s like being the incumbent, and you don’t need to punch down.”
“There’s no need to engage with these guys,” the insider underlined, pointing to the other Republicans running in 2024.
Although Trump is focused on Biden and the general election in November of next year, his campaign is unquestionably not disregarding the primary process.
The Trump team stated that it is going into overdrive in the last weeks before the Iowa caucuses on January 15, which kick off the Republican presidential nomination calendar, as Fox News first reported earlier this week.
According to Chris LaCivita, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, “we have an extremely aggressive operation and an extremely aggressive schedule,” Fox News Digital said.
Speaking on Tuesday, LaCivita said that he went with the former president to Davenport, Iowa, where he had a town hall meeting with Sean Hannity, the primetime opinion anchor on Fox News.
At the conclusion of the town hall, Trump boasted, “We’ll be blitzing the next couple of weeks.” “We’re up by like 30 or 40 points, but we’re not taking any chances.”
According to LaCivita, the Trump team has scheduled a number of trips to Iowa, including appearances by the former president and “dozens of surrogates that are going to be storming the state campaigning… in every venue that has people.”
He stated that there were “close to 1500-1600 precinct captains throughout the state that, literally, their sole job is to run each individual caucus that takes place and making sure that the list of the targeted voters supporting President Trump show up.”
A sizable grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote team has also been established by Trump’s campaign in New Hampshire, which is home to the first primary and votes second after Iowa.
Additionally, Trump’s campaign advertising, which are airing in Iowa and New Hampshire prior to the two kickoff games, disregard his opponents for the nomination.
According to Trump’s campaign, nothing is taken for granted.
As for the last few days before the caucuses, LaCivita stated, “Our only concern is complacency.”
