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When it comes to Republican politics, it’s tempting to divide the party into two camps: A giant contingent fighting with great enthusiasm to return Donald Trump to power, and a smaller faction of fierce opponents of the former president.
But it’s not quite that simple.
Some in the party — such as former Attorney General Bill Barr, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chris Sununu — have been sharply critical of Trump, but they’ve nevertheless endorsed his bid for a second term. Others in the party, such as former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, have said they’ll write in the name of a different Republican on their 2024 ballot.
There are still plenty of other GOP partisans who’ve made clear that they don’t want Trump in power — former Rep. Liz Cheney, former Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Mitt Romney, former Vice President Mike Pence, et al. — but they haven’t yet announced what they intend to do in the fall.
And then there’s the most interesting group of them all: Republicans who’ve taken the extra step of announcing their support for the Democratic incumbent. As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones noted this week:
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a frequent critic of Donald Trump’s lies about how election fraud cost him the 2020 election, endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. In an op-ed Monday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan’s remarks read like a clarion call, urging sane conservatives not to align themselves with a self-centered wannabe authoritarian.
“Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Duncan wrote.
“[T]he GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden,” the Georgian added. “The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character.”
Duncan’s name might sound familiar. He was, after all, recently considered as a top contender for the No Labels operation’s presidential nomination, before he withdrew from consideration and the third-party initiative collapsed. Duncan also made headlines in 2020 for fighting back against Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, and a year later he publicly denounced his own party’s efforts to impose new voting restrictions on Georgia’s electorate.
The larger question, however, is how much company Duncan will have in the GOP’s pro-Biden bloc.
By any fair measure, it’s an exceedingly small group. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson has encouraged people to vote for Biden, and former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews, said she’s voting for Biden.
At least for now, that’s more or less where the list ends.
I kept a close eye on this dynamic four years ago, and found quite a few GOP partisans — former Republican National Committee chairs, former Republican cabinet secretaries, former Republican governors and former Republican members of Congress — who publicly expressed support for the Biden-led Democratic ticket.
Will we see something comparable between now and Election Day 2024? Watch this space.