Former Republican speaker of the house Paul Ryan, who has had a long-standing feud with former President Donald Trump, said this week that he thinks the MAGA leader would not win the 2024 presidential election.
“We won’t nominate Trump, because we want to win,” he said this week during an interview with Fox Business.
Results released Friday from a USA Today/Suffolk poll indicate that Ryan might be right, as favorability for President Joe Biden strengthens and Trump’s numbers become increasingly unfavorable.
“In a prospective presidential race, Biden leads Trump 46%-42% – a 4-point margin that mirrors Biden’s 4.2-point defeat of Trump in 2020,” and holds to a similar margin observed over the summer, said USA Today.
Although Biden won the 2020 election, Trump has continued to support unfounded claims about election fraud. Though some of his loyal supporters support these claims alongside the former president, voter fraud conspiracy theories and Trump’s support of the Qanon conspiracy theory have alienated him from some parts of the Republican party.
Ryan’s issues with Trump go back even further than the 2020 election.
“Everyone knows our feelings towards each other,” Ryan said during the Fox Business interview.
Ryan was first elected to congress at age 28 in 1999 as a representative for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. He also ran as the vice-presidential candidate in Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s failed 2008 presidential bid against former President Barack Obama and Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president. Ryan went on to become the youngest speaker of the house in 150 years in 2015.
In October 2016, while Trump was Republican party’s presidential nominee, Ryan said he could “no longer defend,” the candidate, according to CNN. Trump would win that election against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
During Trump’s presidency, Ryan decided not to run for re-election in 2018. Two years later, he was named as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Executive Network Partnering Corporation and in 2021, he was named as a Partner at Solamere Capital.
“We lost the House, the Senate and the White House in the span of two years,” he said of Trump’s tenure as president. “I don’t want to repeat that, I want to win.”
Even though Ryan is critical of Trump, he didn’t have kind words to share about Biden. As he discussed investing in an oil company, Ryan said the current administration has “terrible” policy regarding oil and gas.
Both Biden and Trump have hinted that they will announce plans to run after the midterm elections next month. According to Ryan, Republicans should take a page out of the Democrats’ book and select a more moderate candidate than Trump, comparing him to progressive Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.).
“The new swing voter in American politics is the suburban voter,” he said, arguing that while these voters do like Republicans, they don’t like Trump.
When asked if he liked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been positioned as an alternative to Trump, Ryan said “I like all of them,” going on to mention Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, former CIA director Mike Pompeo, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“Any one of these candidates would make a fine president and, more importantly, would win the White House,” said Ryan.
The USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that “Americans remain decidedly unenthusiastic about the prospect of a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch in the 2024 presidential election,” but overall, Biden appeared to be gaining support among his party this month, while Trump appeared to be losing support in his.
Ryan also said he thinks Republicans have a chance to win the House and the Senate in the midterms. Currently, prediction models indicate that Republicans will take the House and that the Senate is a toss-up.
Check out Audacy’s limited-series podcast “The Homestretch” for a deeper dive into the midterm congressional races Thursday at 6 a.m. ET.
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