Republican lawmakers, many of whom speak regularly with Donald Trump, want the 2024 GOP front-runner to deliver a campaign message focused on immigration and the economy, saying that's where President Joe Biden is most vulnerable.
Trump wove these two themes into the backbone of a conservative populist message during his successful 2016 White House run. After the COVID-19 pandemic upended every aspect of life and crippled the economy, then-President Trump's message for the 2020 re-election campaign was inevitably more disjointed, and Biden prevailed.
Republican lawmakers said Biden has messed up the U.S.-Mexico border and is not enforcing immigration laws, even as they have supported other candidates in their party's ongoing presidential primary. The same Republican members said their constituents complain daily about still-high prices even as inflation rates have eased and believe Biden has bungled a fundamentally strong economy that Trump left him.
They consider Trump to be particularly suitable for overthrow. But they say he needs to stick to the message and not let his legal troubles dilute a campaign that has so far focused on promises to dramatically reduce immigration and create an economy in which homes, cars, fuel and everyday items somehow work more affordable.
“I think right now, with the current trajectory and pace, he will win a general election,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said of Trump. “I think a lot depends on the tone and priorities. … The American people want someone to give them optimism and make them feel like the next four years are going to be a lot better than the last four.”
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