By the end of this week, the dozen or so GOP presidential contenders will include everything a window-shopping conservative might want: a literal former president, someone with no electoral experience, veterans, millionaire businessmen, people who want to be like Donald Trump, people who don’t want to be like Trump, and candidates who still pledge fealty to Ronald Reagan and those who think the GOP should be done with all that.
What they don’t have a choice of: senators.
Only one senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, has entered the 2024 GOP presidential field eight years after senators defined the non-Trump presidential field, with Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina standing out as major candidates. None of them appears interested in giving it another go.
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Other GOP senators who have been talked about as potential candidates are also staying on the sidelines this year, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida. Both men love to make headlines yet are instead focusing on their Senate reelection bids.
“It always comes down to individual choice. I know I’m running for the Senate,” Rick Scott, who launched a failed attempt to oust Mitch McConnell as the GOP leader in the Senate, said when asked if he regretted not getting into the race.
The senatorial sidelining is a reversal from recent years. Though governors dominated the presidential scene from the 1970s until 2008, the election of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama to the White House began an era when big names built on the federal level dominated presidential politics, and governors struggled to get the attention and money necessary to mount serious bids. In 2020, published by The Washington Post.
Sununu also included a dig at unnamed candidates who are running. “Too many other candidates who have entered this race are simply running to be Trump’s vice president,” he said.
