Trump to barrel ahead with campaign reveal despite Republican pushback

Donald Trump is expected to announce his 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday night as planned, according to multiple sources close to the former US president, inserting himself into the center of national politics as he attempts to box out potential rivals seeking the Republican nomination.

Trump will deliver at 9pm ET a speech from the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he recently hosted a subdued midterm elections watch party, and detail several policy goals that aides hope could become central themes of the presidential campaign.

The political team at Mar-a-Lago are aware nonetheless that Trump has a penchant for veering off script and delivering news as he pleases, often fixating on grievances over debunked election fraud claims that have historically done him no favors.

Still, Trump appears to know that after the disappointing Republican results in the midterm elections, he is perhaps at his most politically vulnerable since the January 6 Capitol attack, and faces a critical moment to ensure he does not get discarded by the rest of the GOP.

The former president has been forced to shoulder some of the blame for poor performances in key races, including in Pennsylvania, where his handpicked Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz, lost to Democrat John Fetterman in a contest that allowed Democrats to keep the Senate majority.

That prompted some of his trusted external advisers to urge him to delay announcing his 2024 candidacy until after the Senate runoff election in Georgia, where another of his Republican candidates, Herschel Walker, trailed Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in a close general election.

But Trump was told by top members of his political team to stick to the original schedule, the Guardian has previously reported, since delaying the announcement would give him the appearance of being wounded by the disappointing results in the midterms and would make him look weak.

To get ahead of rivals, reinforce his status as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, and if nothing else, seize the limelight, Trump has been itching for some time to launch his 2024 campaign and has already started laying the groundwork for the effort.