Former Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), the latest entrant into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, is running an explicit attack campaign against Donald Trump, yet Trump allies and veteran Republican strategists think that will only boost the former president’s chances of surviving an outside challenge from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
Hurd, a former CIA clandestine officer, served in Congress from 2015 to 2021, where he was one of the few Republican critics of the former president.
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He chose not to run for reelection ahead of the 2020 cycle, citing Trump’s influence over the party, and he heavily leaned into those same themes in his Thursday campaign launch.
“The soul of our country is under attack,” Hurd says in his announcement video. “Liberals do nothing. President Biden can’t solve these problems, or won’t, and if we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump — who lost the House, the Senate, and the White House — we all know Joe Biden will win again.”
Still, four GOP operatives familiar with Trump’s reelection strategy quietly laughed at the former congressman’s bid, and even two veteran anti-Trump Republican campaign veterans believe that Hurd, who has yet to register any support in presidential polling, will only pull votes away from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the primary.
“Hurd is running an explicitly anti-Trump campaign. He hits him in his announcement, so the voters he is going for and the donors he is going for were never going to go to Trump,” one ally of the former president explained. “They could have gone to Ron though.”
“Anybody not named Trump that gets in is good for Trump,” a second MAGA-linked official added simply. “Especially a literal deep state agent who announces just after Trump is charged in the documents witch hunt.”
“This is so pointless,” an explicitly anti-Trump veteran Republican strategist said in a statement. “I’d say he might ruin DeSantis’s already slim chance of victory, but I’m not even sure he’ll pull enough votes to make a dent.”
Despite his propensity for lashing out at political opponents, Trump has yet to comment on Hurd’s announcement, which two former administration officials told the Washington Examiner “shows you all you need to know about how much of a joke this guy is.”
Current and past Trumpworld officials, including both supporters and opponents of his current campaign for office, have long maintained that a crowded Republican primary will squeeze votes out of the DeSantis column.
Multiple individuals supporting Trump’s reelection effort publicly celebrated when former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley became Trump’s first 2024 challenger earlier this spring.
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, more than 52% of the party currently backs Trump for 2024. He holds a 30-point lead over his top challenger, DeSantis, whose 21.4% support makes him the only other candidate besides Trump polling in double digits.
Internal polling from multiple GOP primary campaigns suggests that Trump holds an iron grip over at least 35% of the Republican Party.
Hurd is far from the only Republican candidate attacking the former president, but he is among the few who won’t sign a pledge to back whoever becomes the GOP nominee.
“I won’t be signing any kind of pledges, and I don’t think parties should be trying to rig who should be on a debate stage,” he told CNN in a Thursday night interview. “I am not in the business of lying to the American people in order to get a microphone, and I’m not going to support Donald Trump. And so, I can’t honestly say I’m going to sign something even if he may or may not be the nominee.”
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Trump has previously resisted the pledge, and two other Republicans, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, have left wiggle room or been noncommittal as well.
A number of Republicans previously told the Washington Examiner that Christie — a one-time Trump critic-turned ally-turned critic yet again — is running a “kamikaze” campaign and will gladly “go down with the ship” if he can prevent Trump from earning the nomination once again.
