Tweet Share Share Comment Plenty of Republicans in Congress endorse Donald Trump because they truly believe he’s the cat’s pajamas. But most Republicans in office, we’d wager, endorse him because they don’t really care.
Their staff puts together an endorsement statement and then tells the member that they’re just going to send it out, if that’s OK. It’s a box checked in a morning meeting. The member, or senator, can then proceed with their normal daily business of ensuring that a proposed rule barring local industry from contaminating waterways doesn’t go into effect. As California Rep. Doug LaMalfa told Politico, the calculation is simple enough: “At the end of the day, what is smart in order to keep you around?” Masterfully put. Tape it above the door in the House cloakrooms.
Those cursed with the ability of complex thought have a more challenging task before them. If you think Trump is a dangerous idiot—really, the last person you’d want to be president—as many Republicans in the House and, especially, the Senate do, what is there to say? A rare few have the ability to refuse to endorse him. Indiana Sen. Todd Young has said that he will not support Trump. (Fortunately for him, he’s not up for reelection until 2028.) Former Trump Vice President Mike Pence, whose thinking is likely influenced by the time members of a Trump-supporting mob sought to kill him, also has said he won’t endorse Trump. (Fortunately for Pence, he’s not up for election ever again.)
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Many of the GOP politicians who have found, or will soon find, themselves to “yes,” though—that’ll be most of them—have landed on a dispassionate mode of endorsement that sounds almost like a lawyer walking through a contract, or a mathematical proof. It goes something like this:
1. I am a Republican.
2. As a Republican, I will support the Republican presidential nominee.
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3. Given the nominating contests that have happened thus far, the status of the delegate count, and several other proprietary numerators and denominators that I have studied, the Republican nominee will be Donald Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021.
4. In compliance with point No. 2, my support in the presidential contest goes to the candidate named in point No. 3.
5. There is nothing I can do about this.
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This is the template for an endorsement that can be marketed as “reluctant” to one crowd and “endorsement” to another.
The champion of this school is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who believes more than most that Trump is a dangerous idiot. But McConnell is still a party man trying to pick up Senate seats.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in his statement endorsing Trump after Super Tuesday. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.” This is phrased defensively, in advance of the press writing about how total his turnaround on Trump was. There’s no turnaround here, the endorsement implies. He has said he would do x if y happens, and y has happened, so, you know … here’s the damn x, OK? What do you want from him?
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South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds is a normal person who likewise does not think highly of Donald Trump. The South Dakota electorate, however, thinks a great deal of Donald Trump. And so we have exchanges like the one on CNN over the weekend, when host Dana Bash asked him whether he would endorse Trump.
“What I have said is, is: Tim Scott was my first choice. I thought he’d make a great president,” Rounds began. “Tim Scott has since endorsed the former president. What I have said is, is, I will support the Republican nominee. It becomes a binary choice.”
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“I’m endorsing the Republican nominee for the presidency,” Rounds said. “And if that’s Mr. Trump, then that’s the best choice of the two choices that we have got.” This is an interesting wrinkle. You can buy more time before endorsing Trump, as the self-contract stipulates, so long as he’s not officially the nominee. That brings you to Day 2 or 3 of the Republican National Convention in mid-July.
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Another Trump-resistant senator in the bunch, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, was similarly pressed on his endorsement plans during an appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press. His strategy involved first rolling his eyes at why he’s always asked this. But he’s always asked it because of the cutesy answer he repeatedly gave: “I plan to vote for a Republican for the presidency of the United States.” This means he’s either voting for Trump, a No Labels ticket with a Republican atop it, or that most appealing of options among conservative men of a certain age: writing in Ronald Reagan.
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Aside from some especially vulnerable Republicans in competitive districts, though, most of the ones who would have given anything to not have Trump as the nominee have fallen in line (or quit Congress). Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who’s running to be the next Senate GOP leader, said in late January that “I’ve said all along I’ll support the nominee. So if he’s the nominee, I’ll do what I can to help the team win the presidency.” He now supports the nominee, what’s-his-name. Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a more moderate member of the House GOP conference, said in late January that “I commit to the nominee.” After Super Tuesday, he tweeted that “I am a lifelong Republican, and I will support Donald Trump as our party’s nominee for President.”
Disappointed in their choice? You have to understand that they had none. They are members of the Republican Party. They required themselves, at the beginning of this process, to say that they would support the Republican nominee. It would now be a breach of contract for them not to support the nominee, whose name is understood to be Trump. Why so many questions about something they cannot control?
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