Rift in Trump’s inner circle over 2024 presidential campaign announcement |

Donald Trump’s top political staffers at Mar-a-Lago are pressing him to move forward with his planned 2024 presidential campaign announcement next week but a chorus of allies are suggesting delaying until after the Senate runoff in Georgia in December, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The former US president has been forced to reckon with Republican blame for underwhelming performances from rightwing candidates he endorsed in the midterm elections, with the defeat of Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, contributing to uncertainty over which party will control the Senate.

Trump has suggested publicly that he intends to announce his 2024 presidential campaign next week as planned. Behind the scenes at Mar-a-Lago, in a sign of concern about his standing after disappointing results in the midterms, he remains undecided on how to proceed. However, some initial invites for the “Special Announcement” event have been sent.

Trump’s top staffers have firmly pressed him to announce his latest White House campaign as planned on Tuesday, the sources said, suggesting that he would appear weak and wounded by the results were he to cave to demands that he hold off until the Senate runoff early next month.

Trump also has no upside in waiting until the Senate runoff, where his handpicked Republican candidate Herschel Walker trails Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. His staffers are said to have told him: if Walker wins, he can take credit, and if Walker loses, his position would be no different.

The staffers that are urging the former president to stick with an announcement include the core team that joined him at his election night party at Mar-a-Lago, such as former Trump 2016 campaign adviser David Bossie and Maga Inc Pac aides, who have underscored their loyalty to him.

But Trump is also being urged by a growing chorus of advisers with no formal role on his team or his political action committees, to hold off until the Senate runoff – and then decide how to announce his candidacy based on how votes break down in Georgia, the sources said.

The chief reason for delaying is that the Trump-endorsed candidate Walker came out with about 35,000 votes fewer than Warnock in the general election. Delaying would also give Trump time to assess the results of the Arizona and Nevada Senate races that remain too close to call.

The group urging a delay appears to fear Trump could sink the Senate runoff for Republicans as he is widely considered to have done in 2020, when he focused on his own grievances about the 2020 election rather than helping Republican candidates.

The allies seeking a delay include Trump’s longtime adviser Jason Miller, who remains hugely influential to the extent that he amounts to about 10 voices in the room, some Trump staffers conceded, as well as the former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, now at Fox News.

“They want to ‘go’ because they need jobs,” one close Trump confidant suggested derisively about the staffers urging Trump to stick to his guns, adding that he wasn’t sure that anyone truly believed the former president should announce next Tuesday.

The initial plan was to have Trump announce his candidacy…