'I do not plan on endorsing': Dozens of GOP senators decline to back Trump in primary

Even as the Iowa caucuses loom less than two months away, there are still numerous Senate Republicans who have yet to formally endorse former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential primary.

According to CBS News, there are reportedly "dozens" of GOP holdouts in the US Senate who are taking a wait-and-see approach before outright throwing their support behind the 45th president of the United States. One of the Republicans withholding support is Trump's 2016 rival, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who said he would "for sure" endorse the former president if he was the nominee, but that he hadn't "made a decision yet on the primary at this point."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he had no plans to make an endorsement, as he wants the Hawkeye State to maintain its status as a competitive early state with plenty of candidates vying for local support.

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"I do not plan on endorsing, and I believe that [Iowa junior US senator] Joni Ernst has the same view I have," Grassley told CBS. "And the reason we haven't endorsed anybody is because when there were 13 candidates, we wanted everybody to come to Iowa and keep Iowa first in the nation."

Other Republican holdouts said they felt their endorsement wouldn't carry much weight given Trump's commanding lead in both national and early state polls. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who famously appeared to give a gesture of encouragement to a crowd of Trump supporters on the morning of January 6, 2021, said he doesn't "think the primary is a real contest."

"I think he's going to be the nominee, and I will absolutely support him against the current president," Hawley said.

CBS reports that Trump has so far only secured the endorsements of 13 out of 49 members of the Senate Republican caucus, counting Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) and JD Vance (R-Ohio) among his supporters in the upper chamber of Congress.

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