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Hutchinson says decision not to endorse Trump ‘costly and difficult’

by Elizabeth Crisp - 03/18/24 11:21 AM ET

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa's 2023 Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File) — FILE – Republican presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this year, says he won’t back former President Trump in 2024, but also won’t vote for President Biden.

“I get asked a lot if I believe Trump is a threat to our democracy,” he writes in a USA Today op-ed. “I am not good at predicting the future, but we can learn from history and we should take heed when politicians tell us what they are going to do.”

Hutchinson says in the piece that he voted for Trump twice, but that insight gleaned from former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and the Department of Justice on the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol changed his mind.

“In terms of history, we all witnessed the violent attack on our national Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by those wishing to overturn the last election,” he writes. “This was not an act of patriots as Trump likes to say, but it was a real threat to democracy.”

Nearly 400 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees during the riot, including more than 100 people who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

“With Donald Trump’s domination of the GOP primaries and the elimination of all primary opponents, including the party leadership and Republican elected officials are clicking their heels in obedience to the victor and presumptive nominee. I have not endorsed Donald Trump for president, and I will not do so,” he writes.

But Hutchinson says he can’t support Biden’s policies either.

“Another important point to make is that I also will not vote for President Joe Biden. Biden’s weak border policies, his poor economic record and his slow growth energy policy do not justify reelection.”

The former governor doesn’t indicate whether he might support a third-party candidate, but expresses some optimism that anti-Trump forces within his party may eventually prevail.

“I hope there will be those in the trenches who will push back against this takeover of the Republican Party and who will join the fight to reclaim the future.”