'Scum?' 'Losers?' Here's why Donald Trump and Republicans are facing party turmoil before 2024

MIAMI − Donald Trump and his Republican challengers stumped South Florida during an up-and-down week for their party – a prelude to what will likely be a volatile campaign year in 2024.

Trump and the Republicans began the week with good poll numbers, then suffered big election losses on Tuesday. A day later, Trump skipped another debate with opponents, an angry event in which the candidates described each other as “scum” and “losers.”

Many Republicans are confident they can topple Democratic President Joe Biden and take back the Senate in 2024, but they also know internal turmoil could sink their chances.

"There's so much up in the air," pollster Frank Luntz said after watching the GOP candidates debate in downtown Miami without Trump.

Trump and the 'RINOs'

Most of the friction is over Trump, who countered the Republican candidates with a rally in Hialeah, Florida. He again denounced anyone who challenges him as a RINO – "Republican in Name Only" – and declared the other candidates should simply drop out.

"It's time for the Republican establishment to stop wasting time and resources trying to push weak and ineffective RINOs and Never-Trumpers that nobody wants and nobody is going to vote for," Trump said.

Most of the other candidates aren't likely to take up Trump's demands, at least not before the Jan. 15 caucuses in Iowa begin the nomination process.

Republican candidates 'sick of losing'

During their debate, GOP challengers suggested Trump and his movement are among the reasons Republicans lost in many of the off-year elections this week. The Republican reversals included a gubernatorial race in Kentucky and an abortion rights referendum in Ohio.

Other candidates said the results revealed the perils of a Trump-led party that lost elections in 2018, 2020, and 2022 − and maybe 2024 unless something changes, a point made by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

When Trump first ran for president in 2016, "Republicans were going to get tired of winning," DeSantis said during the debate. "Well ... I'm sick of Republicans losing."

Vivek Ramaswamy put it more pungently: "We've become a party of losers."

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has described Trump as a figure of the past, said the Republicans need a new way to discuss issues ranging from abortion to the Middle East to the federal debt.

"I think he was the right president at the right time," Haley said during the debate. "I don't think he's the right president now."

Asked during the debate why he would be a better candidate than Trump, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said: "We need a president and a candidate who will actually help our base solidify and attract independent voters into our party."

Haley to Ramaswamy: 'You're just scum'

Trump's challengers are also fighting one another, sowing divisions that could further benefit Trump.

The most publicized moment of the debate came when Ramaswamy noted that Haley's daughter has used TikTok, a subject of spying allegations against China.

"Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley told Ramaswamy.

She added: "You're just scum."

Haley and DeSantis, vying to become the main alternative to Trump, are also not getting along these days.

Polls showing Trump leading Biden

Rivals have questioned whether Trump can win a general election against Biden, given his legal problems, but that argument took a hit this week amid new polling.

An Emerson College poll released Thursday shows Trump leading Biden in five of the six states that will probably determine the winner of the Electoral College: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin; Biden leads in the sixth state, Michigan.

Over the weekend, a New York Times and Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan; Biden leads in Wisconsin.

Haley and DeSantis quickly pointed out that polls also show them leading Biden in many of those same swing states.

Biden and Trump each commanded 37% of the vote in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released in October. But independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cost Trump what would have been a narrow lead in the survey.

Candidate Trump on trial

Republicans also face an unprecedented twist in 2024: a former president who is running for the White House while facing up to four criminal trials next year, with the prospect of convictions and prison sentences.

Trump faces federal charges in Washington, D.C., and state charges in Georgia over efforts to steal the 2020 election from Biden. The former president has also been indicted over alleged hush money payments in New York and mishandling of classified documents in Florida.

And that's not all; there are also civil lawsuits.

The Republicans' up-and-down week included testimony by Trump in a civil trial to determine damages for bank fraud. The former president delivered fiery comments in a Manhattan courtroom, arguing against a "corporate death penalty" for his real estate company.

At one point, Trump lashed out at the judge in the case, saying “He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me.”

Jan. 15, the same day as the Iowa caucuses, is the scheduled start of a defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5 million judgment against Trump earlier over an alleged sexual assault in the 1990s.

Trump has denied all the allegations against him and maintains they are politically motivated.

Christie: Trump 'unfit' for office

Other Republicans said the evidence against Trump in some of these cases is strong, and they will eventually put the party in a very bad political situation.

In a post-debate interview on MSNBC, candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie predicted that Trump "is going to be convicted" in some of these cases, and many voters will turn on him.

"He is unfit to be president of the United States," Christie said. "Our standards have to be higher than having a liar in the Oval Office, a criminal in the Oval Office.”

A Republican Party with 'growing pains'

Pollster Kellyanne Conway, a former White House aide to Trump, said the Republican Party is going through some "growing pains" in attempt to diversify itself, bringing in more young people and independents.

Standing outside the Miami concert hall where the GOP debate was held, Conway noted that Democrats also have their share of problems, including internal disputes over Israel and Middle East policy and criticism of Biden's leadership.

Republicans will be fine, she predicted, especially if they follow through on plans to improve voter turnout, a key to Biden's victory in 2020.

Luntz, who also watched the debate in person, said the GOP "really is drifting" and needs to come together on "core issues," no easy task given Trump's divisive style and legal problems.

"We are truly in uncharted territory," Luntz said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Scum?' 'Losers?' Donald Trump. Republicans face GOP turmoil in 2024