President Trump Will Face Primary Opposition

While not unprecedented, it is always a little unusual for an incumbent president to face a serious primary challenge in his quest for re-election.

It appears now President Trump will face at least one legitimate (more on this term later) challenger when he seeks a second term in 2020. Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld has jumped into the race and it would not be shocking to see others follow.

Weld was elected for two terms of governor which certainly is an accomplishment being a Republican in that heavily blue state. After winning the office in 1990, Weld was re-elected by the largest margin in Massachusetts’ history in the 1994 campaign.

In 2016 Weld switched to the Libertarian Party and was its vice presidential nominee that year (although there were some in the party who were not thrilled with him being on the ticket.) Still Weld and running mate Gary Johnson received 4.5 million popular votes, the most for a presidential ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party.

While it had been speculated Weld would seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in 2020 he has since changed back to being a Republican and has now begun laying the groundwork for a run at the White House.

Of course, Weld faces long odds, perhaps as long as those odds he faced trying to be the vice president as a Libertarian. Still a Weld candidacy can only be viewed as a positive. No elected official, regardless of who they are or whether we personally support him or her, deserves a free pass to re-election. President Trump is no exception.

Weld also ran for the United States Senate in 1996 but lost to Democrat John Kerry (a future presidential candidate himself.)

Noted for how civil their respective campaigns were of one another, Kerry and Weld negotiated a campaign spending cap and agreed to eight separate debates leading up to the election. Though facing a tough uphill battle in a state where Democrats outnumbered Republicans 3-to-1, and running the same year as the presidential election, Weld was a popular incumbent governor and polled even with Kerry throughout the election

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In the end, Senator Kerry won re-election with 53 percent to Weld’s 45 percent. It was the last seriously contested U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts until the special election for Ted Kennedy’s seat in 2010.

He was going to be the Ambassador to Mexico in 1997 but his liberal stance on many social issues caused far right wingers like Jesse Helms to oppose him.

Weld later moved to New York and was a candidate for governor there. Eventually state Republican leaders wanted another candidate and Weld dropped out. In the end incumbent Democrat Elliot Spitzer would win re-election by the largest margin in New York gubernatorial history.

Weld has suggested that he could beat Trump in 2020 with help from independent voters and also accused the president of having “showed contempt for the American people.”

Officially, Weld is not the first Republican to challenge Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination. Every four years sees numerous people run for president although they may only be on the ballot in a few states.

In New Hampshire, for example, there is always a long list of presidential candidates for both major parties. All one has to do is simply pay a qualifying fee and he or her will have their name before the state’s voters.

For a complete list of these candidates one can visit politics1.com for all the names other than Weld under the 2020 Presidential Candidates link.

On the Democratic side of the 2020 race an interesting poll conducted by Emerson Polling last week showed Bernie Sanders leading the pack in New Hampshire with 27 percent. Sanders officially announced last week he is officially running for president again.

Former vice-president Joe Biden was second with 25 percent followed by Kamala Harris (12), Elizabeth Warren (9), Amy Klobuchar (8), Beto O-Rourke (5) and Cory Booker (5). All others were at two percent or less.

Monticello native Chris Bridges is a long-time newspaper columnist. He has earned awards for his columns from the Georgia Press Association, the National Newspaper Association and the Georgia Sports Writers Association. He welcomes feedback from readers of The Monticello News at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.