Donald Trump—Twice-Impeached, Midterm-Bruised and Facing Criminal Investigations—Announces 2024 Bid

Former President Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential bid on Nov. 15, amid increasing pushback from the GOP on his future as party leader. Credit: "President of the U.S. Donald J. Trump at CPAC" by Michael Vadon is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Donald Trump officially announced he will seek the Republican nomination for president again in 2024, amid growing uncertainty about the former president’s future as the face of the GOP in the wake of a lackluster midterm election showing and mounting controversies.

The former president, who refused to concede defeat after losing his 2020 reelection bid and vacated the White House in 2021 under a cloud of impeachment over his role in inspiring a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, launched his 2024 campaign on Nov. 15 from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. 

“In order to make America great and glorious again I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said in the prime-time Tuesday speech.

Trump—the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice, most recently for incitement of insurrection—is currently embroiled in a series of escalating criminal investigations, including federal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago. It was from the site of an FBI search warrant three months prior to recover records he took from the White House that the former president began his unprecedented comeback bid.

“I’m a victim,” Trump told the crowd, of the FBI’s search of his estate this August, saying the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice is the “gravest threat to our civilization.”

Flanked by a dozen American flags and his signature “Make America Great Again”-branded banners in a gilded ballroom, he carved out an aggressively conservative agenda in an hour-long speech before an audience of several hundred supporters, advisors and press. 

A relatively subdued former president chastised President Joe Biden, expressed grievance over the numerous investigations into him and his family and echoed 2016 campaign themes of a dystopian America falling to violent crime, drugs, corruption and the like. Setting up a potential rematch against Biden, Trump painted the country under his successor in apocalyptic terms, describing “blood-soaked streets” in “cesspool cities.”

At one point, Trump appeared to blame the GOP’s midterm underperformance on voters not yet feeling “the total effect of the suffering” under two years of Democratic control.

His announcement came at a moment of political vulnerability, just one week after a weaker-than-expected midterm for Republicans where voters resoundingly rejected Trump-endorsed election deniers in key battleground races. After Republicans failed to take control of the Senate and made far fewer gains in the House than predicted, several Republican critics renewed their push to steer the party away from Trump—though the former president maintains a devoted following. 

“It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race,” Republican Gov. Larry Hogan (Md.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And it’s like, three strikes, you’re out.” 

As Republicans grapple with the “red wave” that wasn’t, Trump has faced attacks from across the party over his influence and wavering power as GOP kingmaker. Trump’s filing with the F.E.C. kicked off what’s shaping up to be a tumultuous primary season for the party ahead of the 2024 nomination.

“He’s doing it from a place of defensiveness, of his own self-opportunity and weakness,” Republican Gov. Chris Sununu (N.H) said in an interview ahead of Trump’s much-anticipated announcement. “So he’s announcing he’s going to run for president at a low point in his political career. I don’t know how that’s going to work out, man.”

While some Republicans set out to distance themselves from the president’s political baggage, Ohio Senator-elect J.D. Vance, who emerged as Trump’s most successful endorsement this midterm, said he’s confident the former president will be the party’s nominee.

“Every year, the media writes Donald Trump’s political obituary. And every year, we’re quickly reminded that Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican party,” Vance said in a statement.

His early entrance into the 2024 presidential race comes at an unusual time. The launch marked a rejection of the counsel of advisors who reportedly cautioned against announcing on the heels of Republican losses and the subsequent blame game, and ahead of the Dec. 6 Georgia run-off. 

With speculation building around potential Republican 2024 contenders like Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.) and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (Va.), Trump has already begun attacking his likely primary rivals. DeSantis—a formidable challenger whom the former president recently dubbed “DeSanctimonious”—emerged from his landslide reelection victory as a Republican rising star. A growing number of Republicans see DeSantis as the logical successor and the safest path forward after Trump’s election denialism and other controversies dealt serious electoral blows to the GOP this midterm.

If his reelection bid is ultimately successful, Trump would be just the second president in U.S. history to win two nonconsecutive terms, following Grover Cleveland’s victories in 1884 and 1892.