From Politico's Nightly newsletter:
DARK HORSE — The Republican women who hosted Asa Hutchinson at an Orange County golf club on Wednesday had all sorts of questions for the former Arkansas governor and likely presidential candidate. But for the fourth or fifth straight meeting since he arrived in California this week, even he was surprised that nobody asked about the biggest story going in the GOP — the expected indictment of Donald Trump.
There are several possible reasons. It could be that Hutchinson, a relative unknown, isn’t really seen by Republican activists as a serious contender. Or it could be that far from Washington, there are simply other things on Republicans’ minds. Non-stop news about a potential indictment, said Elaine Gennawey, vice president of the Laguna Niguel Republican Women Federated, the group that met with Hutchinson, is a “distraction.”
But to Hutchinson, who has called for Trump to drop out of the race if he is indicted, the lack of questioning was evidence of something more.
“It just illustrates the fact,” he said, “while there’s an appreciation for a lot of what happened during the Trump administration, people are ready to move on.”
There’s conflicting evidence among Republicans, at least, about whether this is true. Trump remains the frontrunner in the presidential primary, and recent polls suggest his grip on the contest, if anything, is tightening. An indictment may be deeply problematic for Trump in a general election. But it probably won’t hurt him with the “ Always Trump” set in the primary. In a race dominated by Trump and the similarly MAGA-powered governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, there hasn’t been much room for anyone else. Outspoken critics of the former president, like former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, have looked at the dynamics of the race and taken a pass.
But not Hutchinson, who appears to be edging toward a campaign, with a likely announcement next month.
“I think my lane’s getting bigger,” he told Nightly. “It’s the non-Trump lane. Not an anti-Trump lane, but a non-Trump lane.”
Hutchinson, to put it mildly, is a longshot. Survey Republican strategists, as Nightly has, and you’ll get reactions like, “Nooooo,” “Nice guy. I just don’t see that dog hunting much,” or “Who the fuck is Asa Hutchinson?”
But whether Hutchinson or someone else, the real question is if there is an opening for any Trump-critical candidate in 2024. Sitting on a sun-splashed patio at the golf club, Hutchinson said, “I think that there’s a growing recognition that we need alternatives to Donald Trump.”
Electorally, that might make sense for the GOP, after Trump’s defeat in 2020 and a midterm in which high-profile, Trumpian candidates lost races in competitive states.
Republicans, Hutchinson told the GOP women in San Juan Capistrano, should keep in mind that a general election is not a primary, with a whole different swath of voters the party will need to win over. Republicans, he said, should use rhetoric that doesn’t turn off voters. It should look forward, not back, and demonstrate that the GOP is the “party of ideas.”
The problem for Hutchinson and Republicans like him is that the coarser way of doing things isn’t so easy to let go. On his way out, the group gave Hutchinson a bottle of wine as a gift. On the label of the 2013 Merlot was printed “ Let’s Go Brandon” — not one of the party’s most aspirational refrains. |
