'There’s a lot of anxiety': Top Republicans privately admit they’re hoping Trump will lose

04 September 2024

Dissent against former President Donald Trump is quietly growing within the ranks of the Republican Party, according to a recent report.

In the Wednesday edition of the Politico Playbook, several unnamed senior Republican officials anonymously confided to the publication that they're eager to see Trump lose the November election so the party can move on. The outlet cited "a sliver of elected Republicans and GOP thinkers" who "fear a second Trump term could take the party in the wrong direction."

“There’s a lot of anxiety about what Trump does to Republican ability to win in 2028 — and what he also may do to the party in terms of policy long-term,” an unnamed "conservative leader" told the publication. “There is just this concern that like, ‘OK, if the party just goes in that direction, then what kind of party is it going forward? And can conservatives, then, have a home going forward?’”

Among the key concerns these Republicans shared were Trump's policy proposals, which eschew traditional conservatism in favor of more free-wheeling economic ideas. This includes the former president's call to drastically increase tariffs on imported goods — which would almost certainly mean companies selling imported goods would simply make up for the tariffs by raising prices on customers.

Politico's GOP sources were also concerned about Trump's about-face on the abortion issue, which has long been a staple of the conservative movement. Last week, Trump suggested to an NBC News reporter ahead of a campaign rally that he would vote in favor of a Florida ballot question this November that would enshrine abortion rights into the Sunshine State's constitution. After intense blowback from the GOP base, Trump abruptly reversed course and said he would not in fact be voting for the measure.

These concerns echoed what Politico columnist Jonathan Martin wrote in an early morning column on Wednesday, arguing that the Republican Party would be better suited in the long term if Trump not only lost the election, but did so in a landslide. He made the case that if Trump were "soundly" defeated this fall it would make it easier for the GOP to more easily transition into a party not wholly led and controlled by one man.

"Trump will never concede defeat, no matter how thorough his loss. Yet the more decisively Vice President Kamala Harris wins the popular vote and electoral college the less political oxygen he’ll have to reprise his 2020 antics; and, importantly, the faster Republicans can begin building a post-Trump party," Martin wrote.

He further argued that if Vice President Kamala Harris was in the White House at the time of the 2026 midterm elections, it could set the GOP up for bigger gains in the House and Senate, assuming that Americans are ready for a change after six years of a Democratic White House. He specifically mentioned Governors Glenn Youngkin (R-Virginia), Brian Kemp (R-Georgia) and Chris Sununu (R-New Hampshire) as strong contenders for Senate races in 2026.

As it stands, Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in polls of voters in the key battleground states most likely to decide the winner of the Electoral College. The Wall Street Journal reported that both campaigns have their eyes on Georgia and Pennsylvania as must-win states in their path to winning 270 electoral votes.

Click here to read Wednesday's Politico Playbook in full.

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