(FreedomBeacon.com)- Asa Hutchinson, the outgoing Republican governor of Arkansas, said recently that he doesn’t want Donald Trump to win the GOP nomination for president in 2024. In fact, he said that would be “really the worst scenario” for the party that he’s a part of.
Hutchinson reached his term limit in Arkansas, so he couldn’t run for re-election as governor during the midterms. That means his term in office will end next month.
To this point, Hutchinson hasn’t revealed publicly what his political future looks like, though he has been heavily rumored to be a contender for the 2024 GOP nomination himself. While he’s made references to running for president in two years, he hasn’t explicitly come out and announced his intentions just yet.
Speaking about the prospects of Trump winning the GOP nomination in 2024, Hutchinson said that would be something that President Joe Biden would certainly welcome. He explained:
“That’s really the worst scenario. That’s almost the scenario that Biden wishes for, and that’s probably how he got elected the first time.
“It became, you know, a binary choice for the American people between the challenges that we saw in the Trump presidency, particularly the closing days, versus Biden.”
Hutchinson has consistently criticized Trump publicly over the last few years, and he hasn’t dialed down the rhetoric at all lately. That would seem to indicate that he is indeed planning a 2024 run for himself — or at least has plans to back another GOP candidate to try to ensure Trump doesn’t win the nomination.
The soon-to-be former Arkansas governor went off on Trump for his continued claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, saying:
“It hurts our country … Any leader, former president, that says suspend the Constitution is tearing at the fabric of our democracy. So, we want to make sure that the people know that it’s Republicans that support the rule of law.”
In early December, Hutchinson spoke to CNN and told the media outlet that he believed that Trump’s various endorsements ended up costing the Republican Party the chance to re-gain control of the Senate in the next Congress.
Hutchinson said:
“There’s a cost that comes with his endorsement. We saw this time and time again in the midterm elections. And whenever candidates talk about commonsense conservative values and address the challenges of inflation and energy costs, they win on the Republican side because the voters trust Republican principles and ideas.”
A Republican red wave that was predicted before the midterms never materialized. While the GOP will control the House in the next Congress, the party actually lost a seat in the Senate.
While Hutchinson has been extremely critical of Trump, The Associated Press reported recently that the governor also hasn’t ruled out ultimately supporting him if he is indeed the Republican nominee. Apparently, though, that would be a last-minute decision by Hutchinson, who would be making the choice to back Trump begrudgingly over Biden or any other Democratic nominee.
