Op-Ed: Republicans want to win — and Trump’s now a loser: How did Republicans vote for Donald Trump and why do they now think he’s a loser?
(CNN) – President Donald Trump’s victory is being viewed as a major turning point in the GOP presidential race as the party seeks to refocus its national agenda on issues that have long been a part of Republican politics.
On the flip side, Trump can now claim that he’s the party’s undisputed front-runner, and that he’s put his own agenda first.
“The new president of the United States is Donald Trump and he has his eye on the prize,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement after Trump was elected. There is “no doubt he will do everything in his power to give the people the benefits this country was designed to provide.”
Indeed, his party will now have to start explaining to the public why they elected Trump and not another Republican – whether that’s Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, or Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who is favored to emerge from a group of likely contenders as the establishment choice to take on Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The new administration’s agenda might be more defined by Trump’s views on trade than on anything that Democrats have advocated, such as tax cuts. And yet the GOP’s priorities will be defined by the kinds of policies — such as repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act and reforming the tax code — that Trump campaigned on in the primaries and where he has vowed to take us.
In the next 24 hours, the Obama administration will release a new report on the economy, which it says has improved since the end of 2013 and promises to cut taxes and spend on infrastructure. The Congressional Budget Office will release its own updated score on the Obama health care law, which it will argue will be less effective than the CBO’s current estimate.
In the news: Trump to get $400,000