How 'Trump and his people' took 'over state parties across the country': GOP consultancy analyst

13 May 2024

Editor's Note: This headline has been updated.

The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, a Never Trump conservative and former Republican strategist who is rooting for President Joe Biden, was extremely skeptical about the possibility of anyone other than Donald Trump winning the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. And Trump, just as Wilson predicted, is now the presumptive nominee.

Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party, according to The Guardian's Richard Luscombe, is evident not only at the Republican National Committee (RNC) — where his daughter-in-law Lara Trump is now co-chair — but also, at state GOPs all around the United States.

Dan Judy, a senior analyst for the Virginia-based Republican consultancy firm North Star Opinion Research, told The Guardian, "The big, sort of under-the-radar story in American politics over the last couple of years was the way Trump and his people had taken over state parties across the country. Even early in the primary process, a year and a half ago when (Florida Gov.) Ron DeSantis was riding high and leading a lot of the polls, I was always thinking: Trump has control of the state parties."

According to Judy, state GOPs have been thoroughly taken over by Trump loyalists.

"He's got his people in, and they are, for lack of a better word, going to attempt to rig the process in favor of Donald Trump," Judy told The Guardian. "If you look at it, that's exactly what happened. A lot of state parties changed their rules to make their primaries winner-takes-all, which absolutely helped Trump — especially as it came down to a one-on-one with Nikki Haley."

Judy continued, "It was clear that she was going to have to win some of these things outright to get any delegates at all, and she couldn't do it. The fact that the Florida GOP has also been completely taken over by Trump folks is really indicative of a trend that has happened everywhere."

Judy cites Gov. Ron DeSantis' unsuccessful presidential campaign as as example of Trump's influence on the Florida GOP.

DeSantis was reelected by a double-digit landslide in 2022, but his followers were disappointed by how badly he performed against Trump as a presidential candidate. And DeSantis eventually ended up dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump.

"As high as (DeSantis) was riding after his huge reelection victory," Judy told The Guardian, "just any hope that he would have had of continuing to be top dog in the Florida GOP went out the window when he failed to get any traction at all in the presidential race. He's not the kind of person who cultivates relationships, who builds relationships, who builds a party, an organization, and an apparatus. He's just not that guy, and if you're going around Florida looking for Ron DeSantis people, there are shockingly few of them."

Judy continued, "But if Donald Trump is reelected, there might be a place in the administration for (DeSantis). If he wants to have a future in the current Republican Party, he cannot be an enemy of Donald Trump. And you're seeing him do the things that he needs to do to remain in good standing.”

Read The Guardian's full report at this link.

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