Trump's GOP rivals will blow it again if they wait for him to 'defeat himself': conservative

Donald Trump remains in a strong position within the Republican Party, despite all the things he's done and said, and one conservative columnist struggled to explain why.

The twice-impeached former president helped cost Republicans a Senate majority and kept their House majority majority slim, and he has continued stepping to "bizarre and unnecessary controversies" that continue weaken his standing against 2024 rivals Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, but Politico columnist Rich Lowry said he's much less vulnerable than he might seem.

"There’s no doubt that Trump has taken on water," Lowry wrote, "and is at his weakest since sometime in the first part of 2016."

"Unless Trump’s support in surveys is a complete mirage, he continues to have a formidable grip on the GOP," added Lowry, editor in chief of National Review and a contributing writer with Politico Magazine. "There’s been a lot of buzz about DeSantis, understandably, who’s done all the right things to establish a national brand, win credibility with populists, and cultivate big donors. But there should be no mistake regarding Trump’s leadership of the party, he can set up like the Texans defending their canon at the Battle of Gonzales and defy his adversaries to 'come and take it.'"

Trump has benefitted from a sense of command since entering politics in 2015, and despite his recent missteps it's hard to see any of his opponents taking him down.

"That is a daunting prospect," Lowry wrote. "It’s one thing to imagine supplanting Trump as he slip-slides away, defeating himself with his own obsessions and animosities; it’s another to figure out a way to topple him, to come up with lines of attack that diminish him and convince his voters to go elsewhere."

Haley, the only official GOP challenger, and Trump's other would-be rivals, like DeSantis or Mike Pence, have so far been unwilling to take Trump on directly, which makes strategic sense at this point, but they can't avoid him forever if they hope to win.

"To be the man (or the lady), as the immortal Ric Flair said, you’ve got to beat the man," Lowry wrote. "Trump may indeed be beatable, but the latest polling shows him squarely in the way of anyone who wants to take over the party he’s dominated for seven years and counting."