New Delhi: Donald Trump, a former US president, announced on Monday that he will make a “very significant announcement” the following week, on November 15, the night before the last day of voting in this year’s midterm elections.
This announcement raises the possibility of Donald Trump running for president a third time.
“Not to detract from tomorrow’s very important, even critical election… I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” he told a cheering crowd in Ohio on the eve of polls that will determine control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
During his campaigning in Ohio prior to the final day of voting in this year’s midterm elections, he had hinted at a third presidential bid. Trump is supporting Senate candidate JD Vance by holding his final rally of the midterm campaign season.
Trump has become more forthright about his intentions to run for another term, declaring recently that he would “very, very, very definitely” do so and that he would be announcing them “very, very soon.”
In order to avoid turning the election into a referendum on him and to shield him from any blame should Republicans not perform as well as the party expects on Tuesday, Republican officials and several others in Trump’s orbit had been lobbying him to wait until after the midterms to launch.
Nevertheless, Trump has been keen to advance, aiming to capitalise on anticipated Republican victories after endorsing roughly 300 candidates and to fend off possible rivals like Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis and other candidates who have declared their candidacy. In fact, Trump’s announcement date of Nov. 15 coincides with Mike Pence’s book release, which is thought to be part of Pence’s own probable campaign launch.
His declaration comes as he deals with a number of mounting legal issues, including various investigations that might result in prosecutions. They include the ongoing state and federal investigations into his attempts to rig the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election as well as the investigation into hundreds of documents with classified markings that the FBI confiscated from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
