Trump’s growing GOP challengers revive fears of 2016 repeat
Republicans in 2016 could have a hard time matching the enthusiasm for Donald Trump that Republicans in 2016 could have a hard time matching the enthusiasm for Donald Trump that some Republican voters displayed.
The two major Republican presidential candidates didn’t do much in this year’s debates: Trump’s performance did not match his rhetoric. The same could be said for the field of potential Republican candidates.
Trump, who held the lead in most national and state polls a year ago, received a major boost when Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas suspended his campaign on Sept. 16. But Cruz’s loss of the party’s nomination has injected an exuberance akin to the days the GOP had the White House before President Obama’s re-election in 2012. A number of his potential Republican replacements have also announced their intent to back Trump in an effort to put an exclamation point on the GOP’s 2016 moment. Cruz has said that he might join Trump on the campaign trail if he is elected to the White House, a prospect that has raised eyebrows. And there is talk that the Texas senator will endorse Trump once Trump’s campaign has built up enough support.
“I think if he wins, if we win, and he stays involved, I think we’ll certainly be there,” Cruz said in an interview with the Huffington Post that coincided with a visit to the campaign trail in South Carolina.
A new group of potential Republican nominees is seeking to fill the void created by Cruz and Trump. They also have an incentive to show voter interest. They are betting that Trump could make history: win the White House and defeat Hillary Clinton in an electoral match-up against a Democrat who has spent her entire career advocating for women to be treated with respect and dignity.
“Trump’s a historic figure,” Cruz said. “He represents the party of Abraham Lincoln. He represents what we believe in. And so there’s something very