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Former US president Donald Trump is expected to officially launch a third bid for the White House on Tuesday night, refusing calls from within his own Republican party to fade away after his loyalists underperformed in this year’s midterm elections.
He is set to make what his advisers have described as a “special announcement” at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, which Trump referred to as his “winter White House” when he was president.
The 76-year-old billionaire, whose 2016 win shocked America and the world, has summoned the press to his Florida mansion for a “very big announcement” at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Known for his unpredictability, Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, but for months he has barely hidden his desire to vie for the presidency again in 2024.
Aides say Trump is hoping his early entry into the 2024 presidential primary will reframe the conversation away from Republican failures and inject a fresh dose of enthusiasm into a demoralized party amid GOP failures to capture Senate control and win a sizable House majority.
A 2024 White House bid would be Trump’s third presidential campaign and — if he wins his party’s nomination — the fifth national election with him as the Republican Party standard-bearer.
Trump and the Republicans stormed into power in 2016, seizing the White House and keeping control of both chambers of Congress.
However, Democrats retook the House of Representatives in a landslide in 2018 after running a campaign primarily critical of Trump’s combative demeanor.
Trump later lost his bid for reelection in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden (despite his continued refusal to concede defeat), and Democrats gained control of the 100-seat Senate by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote in a chamber that was evenly divided at the time.
After leaving Washington in chaos shortly after his partisans stormed the U.S. Capitol, Trump chose to remain in the political arena, continuing to raise funds and hold rallies around the country.
