Donald Trump remains in the political arena. The former American president is back in force during the mid-term elections, which are being held on Tuesday, November 8 in the United States. On this occasion, the Americans vote to renew the elected members of the House of Representatives and a third of the members of the Senate. Not a candidate, the ex-president nevertheless multiplies the messages of support from the headliners of the Republicans. An investment far from disinterested, while the race for the 2024 presidential election is already looming.
In order to sow a few pebbles for this deadline, Donald Trump crisscrosses the United States and appears with the candidates of his party. Thursday, November 3, he was thus in Iowa, alongside Chuck Grassley. And the speech of the former president quickly deviated on his personal ambitions. “Prepare yourselves”he even declared in front of his supporters. “I will do it again very, very, very likely”he launched, quoted by the daily Des Moines Register*.
A phrase he repeats at will on each of his trips, for example in September in Pennsylvania or in October in Texas. Already in November 2021, he said in an interview with Fox News* that he would wait “most likely” after the midterms of 2022 to officially announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. But this is hardly in doubt.
To support his camp, Donald Trump is also putting his hand in the wallet through a structure called Make America Great Again Inc. which allows it to collect money from businesses or individuals and then spend it on election campaigns. According to data from ad-tracking firm AdImpact Politics, Donald Trump has spent more than $16 million to fund ads supporting Republican midterm candidates.
Trump-backed MAGA Inc. has now spent $16.4M this cycle. https://t.co/K2opGLYvCC pic.twitter.com/tlovgLXCC8
— AdImpact Politics (@AdImpact_Pol) November 3, 2022
Donald Trump still retains a large part of his “war chest”estimated at 130 million dollars (131.8 million euros), according to the New York Times*. Enough to fuel the idea that Donald Trump will campaign in 2024, keeping his funds to finance it, according to the news agency Reuters*.
Despite the temptation, Donald Trump has not yet officially declared his intention to run for president in 2024. According to the American press agency AP News*, his advisers have dissuaded him from doing so in order to prevent Democrats are not using his candidacy to turn the midterms into a referendum for or against Donald Trump. However, the former president is expected to announce his candidacy shortly after the results of the midterm elections, hoping to take advantage of the momentum given by the victory of the Republican candidates he supports.
This could also allow him to take over any charges from the Ministry of Justice. Because the former Republican president is still under several investigations: one for the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021; another about classified documents recovered from his private club in Mar-a-Lago and his residence in Florida; as well as a rape charge dating back to the 1990s. Announcing his candidacy would thus allow him to plead political persecution if sanctions were imposed on him.
The former president is already playing the victim card in the midterms, anticipating a potential Republican defeat. donald trump said Tuesday, November 1 to see the first signs of fraud in postal voting in Pennsylvania, a key state in the midterm elections. “Here we go again! Election rigging!”, he said on his social network, Truth Social. Rhetoric already used to challenge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
* Links marked with an asterisk refer to articles in English.