Republican Chaos Could Hurt Donald Trump

The ongoing chaos in the Republican Party could ultimately hurt Donald Trump‘s chances in the 2024 election, analysts have suggested.

In the past few weeks, Republicans in both chambers have engaged in both metaphorical and reported physical fighting as lawmakers throw insults at each other, as well as take part in altercations during Senate hearings and in the corridors of the Capitol.

The current environment can be traced further back to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy being ousted from the role in a historic vote on October 3, with the party then taking weeks and several votes before it eventually decided to support Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson as his replacement.

Despite Johnson insisting after he was elected the new house speaker that the GOP Conference would now be “united,” the party has been anything but.

On Tuesday alone, McCarthy and Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett are alleged to have had a physical altercation at the Capitol, with Burchett claiming that McCarthy gave him a “clean shot to the kidneys,” which McCarthy denied.

The same day, Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin stood up and challenged Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to a fight during a Senate hearing as the long-running feud between the pair eventually boiled over.

This chaos arrives as Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to routinely insult her GOP colleagues on social media—who frequently respond with their own attacks.

Texas Representative Chip Roy gave a speech on the House floor Wednesday in which he called on his colleagues to “provide one meaningful, significant thing” the Republican Party has done since they regained control of the House in January that he could cite to voters on the campaign trail.

Christopher Devine, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said that most Americans may not link the incidents involving Mullin, McCarthy and Burchett specifically to the GOP, but that they believe that Congress as a whole is becoming “increasingly dysfunctional.”

“With both parties controlling one house of Congress, such general frustration might hurt Republicans and Democrats about equally,” Devine told Newsweek.

“Where these incidents could hurt Republicans, though, is if the American people draw a connection to Donald Trump, particularly given his history of advocating violence against political enemies and his support for the January 6 insurrection.

“Even though Trump wasn’t involved in these incidents on Tuesday, Americans might judge that his combative brand of politics and endorsement of political violence has encouraged or at least enabled such behavior,” Devine added.

Michael Binder, a professor of political science at the University of North Florida, said that the current infighting in the GOP may damage their hopes in the 2024 election, albeit with a “caveat.”

This includes the time to elapse until voters take to the polls in November 2024 and the fact that a Republican candidate may still be more “appealing” by the time the general election comes around.

“But, there’s a chance turn could be impacted, especially if the dysfunction in the party continues through the general and the Republicans don’t coalesce around the eventual nominee—i.e. Trump,” Binder told Newsweek.

Trump is the clear front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary and is the presumed main challenger to President Joe Biden in 2024, even as the Republican faces 97 criminal charges across four separate cases.

Bernard Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University in Georgia, said that it is premature to try to reliably predict if the current political climate will alter the results of the 2024 election.

“Reports of the bitter infighting within the GOP have been labeled by some lawmakers as a ‘clown show,’ and these may no doubt frustrate and influence the current opinions of independent voters,” Tamas told Newsweek.

“But these infights, unless they continue and become more intense over the next year, are likely to be forgotten by voters on Election Day, and instead, more galvanizing issues such as reproductive rights and the state of the economy will hold more weight for the small but critical percent of voters who have not already decided which party’s nominees to support.

“We should fully expect 2024 to be a very close election at the presidential level regardless,” Tamas added.

Polls frequently suggest a hypothetical faceoff between Trump and Biden would be almost neck and neck. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Wednesday showed that Trump holds a 2-point lead over Biden when potential voters were asked who they would vote for if the presidential election was held today.