The president said at a rally Thursday he will “very, very, very probably” run for a second term.
Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce he will run for president in 2024 only days after Tuesday’s midterm elections, multiple outlets report, launching a second presidential bid two years ahead of time despite mounting legal issues as he remains broadly popular with the GOP’s base.
Trump and his aides have discussed November 14 as a possible date to launch his presidential bid, Axios first reported and CNN and the New York Times confirmed, though that date is not yet set in stone.
The launch could be followed by a “multi-day series of political events,” Axios reports, and CNN reports that aides are split between whether Trump should announce in a battleground state he lost in 2020 or his home state of Florida.
The timing is designed so Trump can “surf the GOP’s expected post-midterm euphoria” after Republicans are broadly anticipated to fare well in Tuesday’s elections, Axios reports, which would help boost momentum for the ex-president’s campaign.
Whether Trump announces in mid-November will likely be contingent on the GOP actually performing well in the midterms, then, and Axios notes factors like control of the Senate remaining up in the air and Georgia’s Senate race going to a runoff election could stall his campaign launch.
