President Donald Trump is bringing back 2020. Many Republicans wish he wouldn’t.
Conversations with nearly a dozen GOP state and county chairs and strategists reveal a party largely eager to move on from relitigating Trump’s election grievances, which they’re worried may detract from an economic message that actually motivates voters. But the president won’t let it go, subpoenaing 2020 election records and putting pressure on lawmakers to pass legislation to overhaul voter registration laws.
As Republicans stare down a treacherous midterm landscape, there’s a growing view inside the party that focusing on “stolen election” claims and voter fraud will kneecap them in the general election: That messaging might play well with the MAGA base in the primary, but it could alienate moderates tired of rehashing an election from nearly six years ago.
“I’m always one to believe you should look forward, not backward,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist and Trump convention delegate who hosted a meeting of fake electors in 2020 at his Harrisburg-based public affairs firm. “It would be better if the midterms focused on the recovery of the economy and all the good things the Republican administration and Congress are doing to move the economy forward.”
In recent weeks, Trump has turned his sights on Maricopa County — Arizona’s largest county — subpoenaing records just weeks after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta. He has revisited grievances that the 2020 election was “rigged,” suggested Republicans should nationalize elections and is demanding that lawmakers make passing the SAVE America Act, which would put in place stricter voting requirements, their “No. 1 priority.”
“Part of me understands it, and part of me just wants to move forward,” said Todd Gillman, chair of the Monroe County Republican Party in Michigan.
“Focus on the things that matter to everybody throughout the whole country,” he said, “or we’re going to have a problem in a few months.”
Trump does have backing from a number of Republicans, including some battleground-state GOP chairs who are not only embracing the president’s election probe, but openly encouraging his administration to audit their states’ records as they continue to push allegations of fraud from 2020.
Bruce Parks, the chair of the Washoe County, Nevada, GOP, said he would “absolutely” welcome a probe into his county and Clark County, the two largest in the state. And Jim Runestad, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, suggested a review of records in Detroit, long a focal point of Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies.
“There’s no problem at taking a look at this and making sure everybody’s comfortable,” Runestad said.
Still, others say the risk is that voters simply don’t care — or have moved on. Republicans, including Trump’s own advisers, increasingly want him to focus on the economy ahead of the midterms.
That comes as polling repeatedly shows that economic issues — not election issues — top voters’ list of concerns. In a February POLITICO Poll, more than half of all Americans — 52 percent — said the cost of living was a top issue facing the U.S. By comparison, less than a quarter — 23 percent — said a top issue was the U.S.’ democracy being under threat, a view held predominately by Democrats.
Those cost of living worries are now being exacerbated by Trump’s war in Iran, which is driving up gas prices and wreaking global economic havoc as it enters its third week.
The White House said Trump’s efforts are aimed at restoring confidence in elections and reiterated the importance of passing the SAVE Act.
“[Trump] is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
Buzz Brockway, a GOP strategist and former state representative in Georgia, called election issues a “huge distraction,” adding: “Nobody outside of a small dedicated group are talking about this, they’re talking about the economy, they’re talking about, now, the price of oil.”
In Georgia, long an epicenter of Trump’s repeated efforts to litigate the 2020 election, some Republicans say voters are now largely “immune” to the issue that’s been rehashed endlessly for the past five years.
Some state-level GOP officials are hoping Congress passes the SAVE Act — despite the reluctance of many Republican lawmakers — so it will give them enough cover with MAGA voters but allow them to avoid talking about election issues themselves.
While Trump’s “stolen election” claims may still be a driving force for some primary voters, the general electorate is focused elsewhere. And if Republicans make those grievances central to their midterm message, they risk falling into a similar trap Democrats confronted during the 2024 presidential election — when former Vice President Kamala Harris’ warnings about democracy won over already loyal Democrats but failed to sway enough of the swing voters she needed to clinch the presidency.
“You’ve got to at least touch that base,” said one Georgia-based GOP strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But “once you’ve got the nomination, then I think it really collapses down into economic issues.”
That dynamic can create a political conundrum for Republican candidates.
“A savvy Democrat will put a candidate on the spot and say, ‘You agree with [Trump], don’t you?’ and make a mess,” Brockway said. Republicans have “got to figure out a way to deflect that question somehow, in a plausible way that doesn’t alienate this loud minority.”
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