“The 2024 Republican primary has begun – and the opening clash is over whether to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s election win. While Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are setting themselves up as the chief spokesmen for challenging certification of the Electoral College vote, aligning themselves with President Donald Trump, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse are staking out the opposite turf. Other Republicans, like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Vice President Mike Pence, are playing it safe and saying little. The debate underscores how fealty to Trump – who might run again himself in 2024 – has emerged as the defining battle line in the fight over the Republican Party’s future. While past primaries have revolved around hot-button issues like health care or immigration, the forthcoming contest is being propelled, so far, by a single question: How loyal should one be to Trump?”

“‘It very much does look like the opening salvo of a Republican presidential primary campaign, at least a very early litmus test of where potential candidates are on a very important question to Republican voters as we sit here today,’ said Lanhee Chen, a top adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Cotton’s late Sunday announcement that he wouldn’t be objecting to the Electoral College came as a surprise to many in the party. The Arkansas senator has established himself as a staunch Trump ally, speaking at his convention and even running TV ads this past year bolstering the president. But Cotton argued in his statement that ‘the Founders entrusted our elections chiefly to the states – not Congress'” – Politico.