'It’s a bad idea': Republicans push back against RNC demand for 'loyalty pledge' in 2024

26 June 2023

If polls released in late June are any indication, the 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Polls released in late June have found Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 29 percent (NBC News), 38 percent (Emerson College) or 24 percent (Yahoo News) among GOP primary voters.

Those polls, of course, don't necessarily mean that Trump will still be the GOP presidential primary frontrunner six months from now — they are merely a snapshot of what Republican voters are thinking in late June 2023. But whoever the nominee ultimately is, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel is demanding that Republicans sign a "loyalty pledge" and promise to support that person in 2024. The loyalty pledge, according to McDaniel, should be a prerequisite for participating in GOP presidential debates.

Some Republicans, according to Axios reporter Erin Doherty, are openly criticizing the pledge as a "bad idea." One of them is presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has been Trump's most vehement critic in the primary.

Christie told Axios, "It's only the era of Donald Trump that you need somebody to sign something on a pledge. So, I think it's a bad idea."

Former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), another GOP presidential hopeful, is making it clear that if Trump is the nominee, he won't be endorsing him.

The conservative ex-congressman, on June 22, told CNN, "I won't be signing any kinds of pledges, and I don't think that parties should be trying to rig who should be on a debate stage. I am not in the business of lying to the American people in order to get a microphone."

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has told Politico that he won't endorse Trump if he is convicted in any criminal case. Trump is facing a 37-count federal prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a 34-count New York State prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.

Although much of the Republican establishment rallied around Trump in 2020, a long list of conservatives — some Republicans, some ex-Republicans — endorsed Biden that year. Biden's right-wing supporters in 2020 included, among many others, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, activist Cindy McCain (Sen. John McCain's widow), attorney George Conway, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (a former GOP congressman), former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), former Nancy Reagan speechwriter Mona Charen, and Washington Post columnists George Will and Max Boot.

Read Axios' full report at this link.

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