Trump Gets His First Official GOP Challenger With Bill Weld Announcement

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld officially entered the 2020 Republican presidential primary on Monday, giving Donald Trump the first serious intra-party challenge to a sitting president since Pat Buchanan ran against George H.W. Bush a quarter-century ago.

“I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we’ve had out of the White House the last two years, that would be a political tragedy and I would fear for the republic,” Weld said during an appearance on CNN. “I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t raise my hand and run.”

The only incumbent presidents who have lost reelection in the past 50 years have been those who faced credible opposition from their own parties: Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Bush in 1992. None of their challengers ― Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy or Buchanan ― wound up taking the nomination, but in each instance, the challenge itself weakened the incumbent enough so that he lost the November election.

“The existence of a credible challenger itself has been deadly,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who opposes Trump’s reelection. “Is there a market for an alternative? The answer is clearly yes. But how big is that market? Is it 10%? Is it 20%? Is it 3%, which is what Buchanan got?”

Cullen said he doesn’t know how well Weld can do ― or, for that matter, how well Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) or former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) might do ― although he said most voters who support a challenger aren’t really doing it to support that challenger.

“It wasn’t really about Buchanan; it wasn’t really about Ted Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. It was about the incumbent,” Cullen said.

Neither Hogan nor Kasich has announced a firm intention to run or even opened an exploratory committee, as Weld did in February. Hogan is scheduled to speak on April 23 at the “Politics and Eggs” breakfast, a Saint Anselm College institution where presidential campaigns are frequently launched. Kasich is expected to decide on a challenge later in the year.