Analysis: These are the faces of the anti-Trump Republican Party

Posted on January 27, 2022

The occasion? A fundraiser for Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney as a special guest. Who else is slated be there? Former Vice President Dick Cheney. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Former Virginia Reps. Barbara Comstock and Denver Riggleman. Former Solicitor General Ted Olson. Longtime lobbyist Charlie Black. (CNN’s Kasie Hunt and Manu Raju obtained a copy of the invitation.)

If you are looking for the Trump resistance, this is it. With a few additions who aren’t scheduled to be at the fundraiser — such as Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski — these figures make up the public face of those within the Republican Party willing to stand up against the former president.

With the exception of Romney, there isn’t a single elected official currently in office on the invite. And many of the other luminaries are people who served in the administration of George W. Bush (and even George H.W. Bush).

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The simple fact? This is a tiny offshoot of the broader Republican Party. While there are some Republicans willing to stand up to Trump, they are nowhere near the sort of numbers that the former president boasts on his side.

Consider a few poll numbers:

* More than 6 in 10 (63%) Republicans nationally said they want Trump to run again in 2024, according to a new Marquette Law School poll.

* Three-quarters of Republicans had a favorable view of Trump in that same poll.

* 63% of Republicans said they wanted Trump to be the leader of the party in a September 2021 CNN poll.

What these numbers make clear is that the narrative of a fight for control between two warring parts of the GOP is a false one. There is no real fight. Trump won and has cowed almost everyone within the party to line up behind him (or at least refuse to oppose him publicly) as the likely 2024 nominee.

That’s not to say that voices like Cheney’s and Romney’s don’t matter. If the GOP wants to navigate back to being a national political party — and away from its current status as a cult of personality — the existence of the Cheney/Romney wing is their path back to doing so.

It is to say, however, that you could probably fit the bulk of the prominent — and public — anti-Trump voices into a medium-sized room. Which is what is going to happen in March in northern Virginia.