Who will be the next president of the United States?
At this point, in 2018, President Donald Trump is most likely to be replaced by Vice President Mike Pence in 2025 or a Democrat. Now that I’ve depressed you with the last word of the previous sentence, it’s time to be optimistic. It’s now time to explore the Republican and conservative leaders of the future — people who could be elected president in 2024 or afterward and could, in the meantime, help Trump advance the conservative Republican agenda.
While researching up and comers, I decided to go out of the box while researching this article and focus on younger leaders rather than all of the people who ran for president in 2016 and earlier. Ultimately, I decided that there are so many great or potentially great young Republicans that the maximum age of the people on this list would be 45. That eliminated excellent leaders who were on my list before my research began such as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, 46; Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, 48; and Utah Senator Mike Lee, 47.
During my research, I found Republican politicians who were virtually unknown to the public, and me, but have demonstrated strong leadership as mayors or governors. I also considered support for the agenda of President Trump as defined by a statistical analysis that we had not seen before. That meant Colorado Senator Cory Gardner leapfrogged several other candidates for the list and Texas Congressman Will Hurd made the list despite his well-known criticism of the president. Both are very pro-Trump, according to the analysis.
I’ve also considered the reality of politics and candidates’ personal profiles. Thus, doing well among the electorate in swing or anti-Trump areas as Gardner and Hurd have was a plus. So was military service and business success. Six of the 12 served in Afghanistan and/or Iraq.
The Promising Dozen are listed alphabetically. They are:
TOM COTTON:
Cotton, 41, is the youngest U.S. senator. He was elected by Arkansas in 2014 at 37 in a landslide over 12-year senator Mark Pryor. Senator Cotton became a GOP leader on foreign policy and military issues, leading the effort to block a nuclear nonproliferation pact with Iran. Trump reversed President Barack Obama’s decision, reimposed sanctions, and considered Cotton as his defense secretary in 2016. Cotton graduated Harvard University and Harvard Law School, but quit his attorney job to serve in the military from 2005 to 2009. He fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DAN CRENSHAW:
Cotton made great sacrifices for the USA, but they pale in comparison to the sacrifices that Crenshaw, 34, made. As many of you know because of the “Saturday Night Live” skit mocking him and his appearance on the TV show the next week, Crenshaw is blind in his right eye. While serving our nation in Afghanistan, Crenshaw almost lost his vision when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated. An operation saved his left eye. The Texan was a lieutenant commander in the Navy and could be a leader in the U.S. House after his Nov. 6 election.
RON DeSANTIS:
DeSantis, 40, is the nation’s youngest governor. DeSantis was an underdog in the GOP primary, but Trump endorsed him and campaigned for him. DeSantis’ 94.3 percent support for Trump as a member of the U.S. House was one reason Trump supported him. DeSantis also emphasized his support for Trump and opposition to prosecutor Robert Mueller during the campaign. Like Cotton, DeSantis graduated Harvard Law School and later served the U.S. military in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star.
CORY GARDNER:
Gardner, 44, ranks as the most pro-Trump senator on the FiveThirtyEight website “Tracking Congress In The Age of Trump.” The ranking is based on the “difference between a member’s actual and predicted Trump support scores.” Elected in 2014, Gardner has supported Trump 91.1 percent of the time. Other senators have supported Trump more, but Gardner is from a state that voted for Hillary Clinton. Thus, his predicted score is 43.9 percent. In other words, he is a conservative in a Blue state. His bipartisan appeal could make him a future national leader.
JOSH HAWLEY:
Hawley, 38, was one of the GOP’s stars on Election Night after he won the U.S. Senate seat for Missouri held by two-term incumbent Claire McCaskill 51.5 to 45.5 percent. He will replace Cotton as the youngest senator in the next Congress. He knows presidents because at age 28 he wrote a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Trump endorsed him long before the GOP primary to discourage other candidates from challenging him and campaigned for him twice in the last week of the campaign, including an Election Eve rally with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
DAVID HOLT:
Who? You’re a politics nerd if you have heard of Holt, 39. We didn’t either, but the Oklahoma City mayor is the youngest mayor of a city with more than 500,000 people. Oklahoma City ranks very high on lists of the USA’s best cities for businesses and quality of life. Holt contributed to the city’s success as the chief of staff for a previous mayor, a position he accepted at age 27. He was integral in bringing major league sports to Oklahoma City for the first time ever. The Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team has been very successful.
WILL HURD:
Hurd, 41, supports Trump 95.7 percent of the time, the FiveThirtyEight “Tracking Congress In The Age of Trump” House of Representatives’ list says. The Texan ranks 15th among 235 Republicans in the difference between actual and predicted Trump support. Like Gardner, Hurd has bipartisan appeal that could lead to national leadership. An African-American, he was one of the few Republicans to win re-election in a district Hillary Clinton won in 2016. A foreign policy expert, he was a CIA officer in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan prior to his political career.
JOHN JAMES:
James, 37, just lost the Senate race in Michigan to Incumbent Debbie Stabenow. “Losers” can become winners though. Obama was crushed in his first election. If you compare how James did with the GOP candidates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, you might conclude that his political future is bright. An African-American, he lost by only 6.4 percent, the best performance by a GOP Senate candidate in Michigan since 2000. The West Point graduate had multiple tours of duty in Iraq and has been honored by Michigan publications for his business success.
ADAM KINZINGER:
Kinzinger, 40, has supported Trump on 98.9 percent of his votes. That’s tied for sixth with many of his colleagues, but few people who support Trump as much or more have a more impressive personal profile. He joined the Air Force in 2003 and piloted missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was between tours in Iraq in 2009 when he met with Pence about running for Congress in Illinois. He was elected to the House in 2010. He also saved a woman’s life in Milwaukee in 2006 by wrestling her attacker to the ground after he knifed her in the throat. We’re not kidding.
ELISE STEFANIK:
Stefanik, 34, made history in 2014 when she became the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. She won 55.2 percent of the vote in her upstate New York district and has won re-election easily twice. Fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broke Stefanik’s youngest-ever record, but Stefanik has foreign policy expertise that Ocasio-Cortez can only dream about. John Bolton, Trump’s top National Security Council advisor, publicly praised Stefanik for her work on the House subcommittee that oversees counterterrorism programs.
FRANCIS SUAREZ:
Suarez, 41, is the mayor of Miami. He was elected in 2017 with 86 percent of the vote. Incredibly, he is the first Miami mayor born in Miami. A Cuban-American, Suarez could be crucial to the future of the Republican Party and the Trump and conservative agenda because Republicans lost two South Florida Congressional seats in the 2018 elections and could suffer further losses if they fail to attract Latinos. A Politico article on the future of Latino Republicans featured Suarez, the only Latino on this list. Republicans need to keep winning in Florida.
CHRIS SUNUNU:
Sununu, 44, is the USA’s youngest governor although DeSantis will become the youngest when he becomes Florida’s governor. The New Hampshire governor and son of ex-White House Chief of Staff John Sununu has shown Republicans can win in New England, which will have zero Republicans in the next U.S. House. Democrats recently won the New Hampshire Senate and House so Sununu can veto liberal legislation. In a 2018 campaign speech, Pence called Sununu “a man like President Trump” because both focus on cutting regulations on business.
President Trump has dramatically changed the Republican Party and the conservative agenda, but young leaders like The Promising Dozen are needed if the GOP is going to succeed in the next decade and beyond.
