Nov 16,2022:Donald Trump entered the 2024 US presidential race on Tuesday, making official what he’s been teasing for months just as many Republicans are preparing to move away from their longtime standard-bearer.
Minutes before an event to announce his candidacy, Trump’s campaign filed federal paperwork that he’s running again. He’s the first major contender from either party to formally declare.
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump, 76, said in a gilded ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The timing could not be worse for Republicans. Candidates endorsed by Trump floundered in key races in last week’s mid-term elections, as voters rejected election-deniers and others with extreme positions on social issues like abortion rights and education.
That cost Republicans their chance to reclaim the US Senate and left them short of the significant majority they had hoped to win in the House, though they were within one seat of gaining control as the former president spoke.
Many key Republicans and donors now wantTrump to make way for a new standard-bearer like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was reelected in a landslide last week.
He complained — as he often does in his rallies — about what he sees as America’s decline without him at the helm and said: “We are here tonight to declare it does not have to be this way.”
He also squarely took aim at President Joe Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities: inflation and energy prices.
