The Republican Party has seemingly been in disarray for much of the past year, with deep divisions forming between what was being labeled as the establishment sect of the party and new up-starts who wanted bigger change.
Among the most public displays of this division was former Representative Kevin McCarthy being removed by his colleagues as speaker of the House, followed by the embarrassing replacement vote process that followed.
Members of the far-right wing of the GOP have consistently criticized new House Speaker Mike Johnson and others in the party for not doing enough to curb spending, hurling many personal attacks in the process.
But, all of that in-fighting looks to have stopped following the assassination attempt on GOP nominee Donald Trump.
During this week’s Republican National Convention, during which Trump officially accepted the party’s nomination, many speakers praised the fact that the former president’s life was spared.
Even some conservatives who have strongly opposed Trump’s rhetoric and decisions in the past forcefully declared that the GOP won’t be divided any longer.
In her speech, Nikki Haley — Trump’s one-time ambassador to the UN and the last GOP candidate to drop out of the 2024 presidential primary — said:
“I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than we disagree. We must not only be a unified party. We must also expand our party.”
In the last few weeks, Trump himself and his campaign have made sure to stay on message and avoid any rhetoric that might be taken as extreme. He has also endorsed candidates for Congress recently who seemed to have a better chance of actually flipping seats, even if they are “less MAGA” that he might like.
That’s a pretty big departure from the former president’s strategy only two years ago, when he was endorsing more far-right candidates for Congress during the 2022 midterm elections.
The Republican Main Street Partnership’s president and CEO Sarah Chamberlain spoke to Newsweek about this change recently when she said:
“Donald Trump is a different candidate than he was before. He’s got different people running the campaign. They tend to be much more Main Street.
“They understand that, when he wins, in order to have a successful president, you need to have a House and the Senate, and you need to do that with mainstream conservatives.”
The group is a fundraising organization that supports conservatives who are committed to running the government. Many of the candidates they support tend to hold positions that are more moderate than typical MAGA candidates.
Some of the prominents members that the group has supported, which total about 75 in all, including Maine Senator Susan Collins; New York Representative Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference; and Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer, the majority whip of the House.
The group has risen to prominence recently, after just last month working to oust Virginia Representative Bob Good, who chairs the Freedom Caucus, in favor of state Senator John McGuire, who Trump endorsed.
