Will Republicans back Trump again?

Thunder and Lightning have left the building.

For some Republicans, former President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he will run for the White House in 2024 came as welcome news.

For others, however, news of Trump’s desire to run again raised concerns about whether his candidacy could be damaging for a party that under-performed in this month’s midterm elections despite predictions of a “Red Wave.”

Two prominent Republicans who have left the MAGA fold: Former Pennsylvania Congressmen Lou Barletta and Tom Marino, whom Trump dubbed “Thunder and Lightning” for their prominent, vocal support during his successful 2016 bid for the presidency.

In statements emailed to the Times Leader on Saturday, both men expressed reservations about Trump’s decision to run again.

“I was one of the first elected officials in the country to endorse Donald Trump for president seven years ago; I also co-chaired his 2016 campaign in Pennsylvania and I was one of his most loyal supporters in Congress,” Barletta wrote.

“However, I will not be supporting him for president in 2024,” he concluded, without elaborating.

Marino, who now lives in Florida, also said he will not support Trump, citing the former president’s lack of “good judgement,” as well as disloyalty toward him personally.

“In fact, I will campaign against him,” Marino wrote. “Trump has no idea what loyalty means. More importantly, he is not a good person. Trump severely lacks character. Our country deserves mature leadership.”

White Haven voter stands with Trump

Some Trump voters are unwavering in their support.

Randy Hockman, a lifelong Republican from White Haven, voted for Trump twice before and intends to again. He liked what he heard when the former president gave his 2024 kickoff speech on Tuesday.

“I thought it was good, down to earth,” Hockman said of the speech. “He was said what he was going to do, and I thought he was well spoken.”

Hockman said he appreciated Trump’s efforts as president to “bring the economy back and bring wealth back to the people.”

He praised Trump as being a strong candidate who made his opponents look weak.

“I think Washington is scared to death of him Republicans and Democrats, because he can uncover all kinds of shenanigans going on,” Hockman said.

As for the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, Hockman has concerns — but not about Trump’s role, saying he has listened to the former president’s speeches and does not believe they instigated the day’s events.

“They shouldn’t have gone into capital building, I agree with that, but I think much more was made of it than it really was,” Hockman said, though he also feels that the full truth of the day’s events has yet to emerge.

“I think it’s our right to be able to protest something we don’t believe in, and there’s nothing wrong with not believing in the election results,” he said, adding “Violence is never the answer.”

Does he have any concerns about Trump’s candidacy? Some, but he still backs the former president.

For one, Hockman does acknowledge that Trump’s off-the-cuff speaking style and his tweets did alienate some.

Also, there is Trump’s age — 76.

“He’s getting up there too, although he doesn’t act like he’s old,” said Hockman, 66, adding with a chuckle: “his vitality is probably better than mine.”

Reader comments

We asked readers on the Times Leader Facebook page whether they had voted for Trump before and whether they would again. Here were some of their views, as they wrote them:

Kevin Long: Best president ever! My wallet and my 401k miss him dearly

Frank Sobeck: Yes and of course yes again in order to Make America Great Again in all ways!

GT Peterson: All trump did was play golf add 7.8 trillion dollars to the national debt con his cult members out of 250 million dollars for his Fake stop the steal fund that didn’t exist cause an insurrection and Mexico didn’t pay for the wall sure that made America Great lol!

Lee Crawford: Yes I voted for him the first time around. No I won’t vote for him again. The dems spent too much time with BS charges, and lies concentrating on impeachment instead of focusing on real problems.

Inquirer report

The Philadelphia Inquirer followed up on Trump’s announcement last week with a story looking at how Pennsylvania Republicans viewed the news.

“Pennsylvania Republicans molded in Trump’s image got routed in 2018 s Senate and gubernatorial races. Trump lost the state — and presidency — in 2020 while other, less Trump-affiliated Republicans won. And last week brought perhaps the most crushing defeat, as the GOP lost every major race in Pennsylvania, despite an unpopular President Joe Biden widely blamed for inflation,” the paper wrote.

“Six years from that 2016 victory, GOP opinions on Trump are decidedly more mixed as he launches another run for the presidency,” the story continued.

“Trump’s strategy for Pennsylvania has worked exactly once. Yet he seems ready to give it another shot.”

Among those they quoted:

• Outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, said the party needs candidates who can appeal to more moderate voters, especially those in the vote-rich suburbs.

Toomey and several other Republicans pointed to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won big on Election Day while Republicans struggled elsewhere. Toomey called DeSantis a “dream” for the GOP who has Trump’s strengths without “the baggage.”

• Pennsylvania national Republican Committeeman Andy Reilly said DeSantis showed “you can be a strong conservative and yet have appeal to the center with good governance.”

• Rob Gleason, a former GOP state chair, pointed to the 42% of the vote Doug Mastriano just got while running for governor, without almost any money for advertising or outreach to swing voters. That’s Trump’s bare-minimum baseline, Gleason said. It might not be enough to win statewide, but it’s certainly enough to dominate in a GOP primary.

• Westmoreland County GOP Chair Bill Bretz: “He’s clearly still the leader of the Republican Party.”

• Jim Worthington, a vocal Trump supporter from Bucks County, told the Inquirer only party “elites” are blaming the former president.

“The people love him, the middle class, the blue-collar worker, the people that he championed, absolutely love him and are going to want him to run,” Worthington said.

And, the Inquirer added, even some Democrats are wary of counting Trump out, noting how he surprised everyone in 2016, and came within 1 percentage point of winning Pennsylvania again in 2020.

“Republicans consistently lost presidential campaigns in Pennsylvania starting in 1992 but in the Trump era, they won one and barely lost the second,” cautioned J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist from Philadelphia.

Mitchell’s view

Veteran political analyst Ed Mitchell says he sees a split between Trump’s “true believers” and independents/swing voters.

“It’s hard to estimate this — some people say it’s 20, 30, 40%,” he said of the core MAGA supporters.

“I think if you look at something like the (Doug) Mastriano vote in Pennsylvania, which was around 40%, I would say most of that would be Trump supporters also,” he said, referencing the defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate

“They’re going to continue to push the theme about the election and the big lie,” Mitchell said of those who believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, despite any evidence of that. “They seem pretty cemented … I don’t know that those people are gonna move until he moves off the political scene.”

But then there are the “the persuadables,” as Mitchell dubbed them.

“I think he’s lost votes in terms of the persuadables — and the swing voters and the independents and the youth,” he said. “The young voters really pulled the Democrats’ chestnuts out of the fire in this election, coming out the way they did, and being as concerned as they were about things like abortion.”

Marino’s statement

One person not likely to be persuaded back into the MAGA camp is Marino, as his statement made clear.

“I thought that at some point I would be asked by the media if I would support Donald Trump if he declared himself a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Three factors determined what I would do,” he wrote.

“The first factor was could Trump grow up and act presidential and refrain from calling potential candidates derogatory names. I must admit, that I was not surprised that it did not take him a New York minute to start acting like a childish bully,” Marino wrote.

“The second factor was could he use good judgement and not be impetuous and attempt to derail (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’) time in the spotlight, in an effort to scare the Governor out of the 2024 race. Once again, Trump’s lack of ability to hold his aggression, at least temporarily, continues to haunt him,” Marino continued.

“The third factor, and the most important to me is, by far, Trump’s total disregard for loyalty, even though he constantly brags of how important loyalty is to him, even if it is only one-sided,” he wrote.

“I was the first Congressman that came out and endorsed Trump in 2016, that had not previously endorsed anyone else. In fact, my leadership told me that my political career was over. I traveled, not only throughout Pennsylvania to promote Trump, but in several other states. I was co-chair for him. Trump nominated me for the cabinet position of Drug Czar because of my 18 years as a state and federal prosecutor and for my early support of him,” Marino wrote.

“Nevertheless, Trump did not defend me when the national media criticized me for getting legislation passed that guaranteed seniors and those with terminal diseases would receive the drugs that they needed. Even though every person in the House of Representatives and every person in the Senate voted for the legislation that was supported by and signed into law by President Obama. Trump threw me under the bus without reservation.”

“Obviously, I will not support Trump,” he wrote.