Former President Trump put himself in a box when he said on the eve of the election that he would make a “very big announcement” on November 15. Why it matters: The midterm elections were a disaster for Republicans and for Trump personally. But because of his pre-midterm pledge, Trump felt compelled to announce his 2024 presidential campaign on the date he had promised. The big picture: Even some of Trump’s own advisers privately acknowledge that he has suffered the most significant damage to his political standing since the Jan. 6 Capitol uprising. Background: When Trump teased his rally crowd with his promise of a “very big announcement” on Nov. 15, he was actually offering a compromise to his advisers.

That very morning, November 7, Trump had told aides that he planned to announce his 2024 campaign that evening in Dayton, Ohio, at his rally with JD Vance. Although he was less optimistic than some of his advisers, Trump expected Republicans to do well last Tuesday night. And his main concern, in the run-up to Election Day, was making sure he got adequate credit for the GOP’s victories.

Trump felt that by announcing his own candidacy the night before the election, he could increase his chances of getting the credit he felt he deserved, an adviser told Axios.

Trump has actually been more aggressive about the midterm elections than some of his own advisers. He was less certain of the sweeping “red wave” he was promised, and he strongly suspected that abortion would be more of a problem for the Republicans he thought would be his advisers. Trump also privately discounted GOP strategists who believed John Fetterman’s debate performance was fatal to his chances in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Trump believed Fetterman would do better than many people expected because “people would feel bad for him,” a source close to Trump told Axios.

Several of Trump’s confidants, including GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-C.), were alarmed to learn that he was going to scrap his team’s tentative plans to announce his campaign the week after the midterms and instead makes a random announcement the night before midterms.

They thought an early election announcement would boost Democratic turnout the next day and hurt Republicans’ chances. They got in on the action and tried to talk Trump out of it. He finally compromised by announcing his announcement date. Since then, Trump has publicly attacked popular Republican governors DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin. And in doing so, he has even alienated some of his longtime allies and advisers. Several of those allies told Axios that in the wake of Trump’s attacks on DeSandis and Youngkin, they were reconsidering how closely they wanted to be publicly associated with the Trump 2024 campaign.

Between the lines: By talking him out of an announcement on the eve of the election, Trump’s advisers saved him from taking even more blame than he currently takes for the Democratic Party’s underperformance.

But Trump’s decision to promise a “very big announcement” for the Tuesday after the midterms put him in a position where he would risk looking weak if he retracted it. But some of Trump’s advisers thought it would be wiser to delay his presidential announcement until the Georgia Senate runoff.

“For some reason it’s stuck in his head that he has to do this,” said another source close to Trump. “And you can’t tell him.”

The source said the worst thing for DeSantis’ future campaign would be for Trump to delay running because DeSantis would then become the de-facto front-runner and everyone would be after him. “The best thing for DeSandis is for Trump to come in, for DeSandis to stay out for a while, and for Trump to run against him for the next six months,” added the source close to Trump.

Bottom line: Trump himself apparently never saw backing away from the Nov. 15 announcement as a viable option.

“I think the people who wanted to delay the announcement had good intentions, but they just didn’t think it through,” a longtime Trumpworld adviser told Axios. “After his announcement was made, if he had delayed it, he would have been destroyed in the media for being weak and probably doing him even more long-term damage.”

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