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Leading Republicans like former President Donald Trump, and at least two possible 2024 White House contenders, are increasingly focused on battles around LGBTQ issues and education -- a dynamic that political operatives say is likely only to intensify in the lead up to next year's election.

"We are in a cultural, cold civil war right now, Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster, told ABC News.

I think that Republicans, just as Democrats on their side, are looking for the strongest warrior to lead their cause into '24, Blizzard said. And I think that that's part of the reason why you're seeing Republican candidates or presumptive Republican candidates for president start to lay down some policies and some positions to establish their credibility in that battle"

While Republican strategists have preached the idea that GOP voters want a revival of Trump's presidential policies without his bombast and baggage, other operatives say the voters have different preferences, which are set to dominate the party's 2024 primary.

That appetite is seemingly being manifested in new policies and legislative pushes by Trump himself as well as governors weighing White House aspirations and others, all not long after a midterm in which expected Republican gains were sharply curtailed over a perceived excess on social issues and focus on the 2020 election, strategists said.

Exit polling backs up this view: Surveys showed midterm voters cared strongly about abortion access while disapproving of Trump-brand election denialism, as younger people and independents broke for Democrats despite widespread disapproval of President Joe Biden and concern about the economy and high inflation, according to an analysis for ABC News.

Among the GOP grassroots, though, the mood is different, some in the party told ABC News -- which could be crucial in deciding who is nominated in the next general election.

"They want more You talk to activists at committee meetings and stuff like that, that's their focus," said one former official in Trumps administration, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivities of their current political work.

The contours of this are already coming into view on several issues, with proposals stretching the bounds of previous battlefields.

On education, Trump has called for school principals to be elected while cutting federal dollars for any school or program that teaches "critical race theory," which historically refers to a higher-education concept not taught in K-12 classes but which is now linked by some conservatives to curriculum related to racial differences and oppression.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, thought to be Trump's biggest rival in the 2024 primary -- though he has pushed back on questions about his future -- has waged a high-profile fight to get the Advanced Placement course on African American studies revised in his state.

And South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who hasn't ruled out a 2024 bid, has ordered her state's education department to review materials for "divisive concepts."

On COVID-19, DeSantis has cited his record of rolling back what he called unnecessary restrictions early in the pandemic, while Noem cast herself as the leader of the "freest state" in the country for the lack of some restrictions to begin with, which she said were government overreach.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks at the South Carolina State House, Jan. 28, 2023 in Columbia, SC.

Win Mcnamee/Getty Images, FILE

"When the world lost its mind, Florida was a refuge of sanity, serving strongly as freedom's linchpin," DeSantis said in a statement last month as he backed a permanent ban on COVID-19 mandates.

Perhaps the issue that's gotten the most attention among the prospective primary field is transgender rights.

In recent years, Trump and other Republicans have highlighted instances of transgender athletes competing in college sports, which they say is unfair, though trans athletes and advocates say that is an oversimplification of the underlying health and science and competing against another gender is its own problem. New policies go significantly further than what Trump discussed as president and as a 2016 and 2020 candidate, when he described himself as friendly to some in the LGBTQ community.

In a sprawling and strict plan released last month, Trump urged punishing doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors and passing a law banning such procedures for minors in all 50 states. In a video statement then, he called it "left-wing gender insanity."

DeSantis has also pushed for state rules restricting minors' access to gender-affirming care though he, too, has expanded beyond minors, requesting 12 state universities provide data on the number of students and others who received gender-affirming treatment over the last five years.

Noem signed legislation in South Dakota to ban gender-affirming care for minors, arguing at the time that South Dakotas kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids. And former Vice President Mike Pence's advocacy group Advancing American Freedom is set to rally conservatives against transgender-affirming policies in schools with a public relations blitz. (Pence indicated to ABC News David Muir last year that hes weighing whether to make 2024 presidential bid.)

Trump's plan included a proposed executive order that would direct all federal agencies to "cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age" -- restrictions that, if enacted, would help prevent transgender people from existing in public life, advocates say.

Self-interested candidates are going after transgender people to score political points. Its normal to not understand what it means to be transgender at first, and extremist politicians are exploiting that for their own gain," Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the political arm of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement.

"Last years midterms elections are proof that while this may gain votes from the most fringe voters in the primaries, its backfires in the general elections. Most Americans agree that there are higher priorities, like the rising cost of living, than attacking transgender people," Heng-Lehtinen said.

Republicans who spoke to ABC News said they are still divided over how far to take the fight over transgender rights. Others, however, said there is indeed a desire among conservatives for even stricter measures.

"I think we're in the majority, people that think that it should be limited to an individual at a certain age. I don't think the parent has a right to make that decision for a child, because that child is not an adult," said Moye Graham, the chair the Clarendon County GOP in South Carolina, an early primary state.

In a nominating contest though, Republicans interviewed nearly all agreed: There's little downside to stretching the boundary of the political discussion on transgender rights and other culture issues.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks after being sworn in to begin his second term during an inauguration ceremony outside the Old Capitol Jan. 3, 2023, in Tallahassee, Fla.

Lynne Sladky/AP, FILE

"When it comes to some of the public education stuff, the [critical race theory] stuff, the transgender stuff, especially with kids, I don't think there's a primary electorate risk for going too far whatsoever," said a longtime Trump aide close to his 2024 team, who asked not to be quoted by name.

The general election next year, may be a different story, strategists and local officials acknowledged.

Republicans are still sifting through the aftermath of the 2022 midterms, when the GOP only narrowly took the House and lost a Senate seat despite historic tailwinds based on disapproval of President Biden.

That has even some conservatives warning against focusing too much on social issues -- or going too far on them.

"I think people ... want to have a community that they're comfortable living in and don't want things, particularly in schools, pushed down on their kids that they don't believe in. But the bigger issues end up being the economic ones. What's happening in terms of inflation, where are we going to have growth in the economy so we can continue to prosper?" said Club for Growth President David McIntosh.

"I've seen tendencies of candidates who pick up, maybe, a trend that they think's happening in the base of the Republican Party and then in order to jump out in front of the parade, come up with ideas that are just terrible ideas," McIntosh said.

Not every would-be 2024 candidate is culture warrior. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who said on ABC's "This Week" in February that he's considering a run, has largely endorsed his state's "live and let die" mantra; and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors -- which the state legislature overrode.

"The Republican Party that I grew up with believed in a restrained government that did not jump in the middle of every issue. And in this case, it is a very sensitive matter that involves parents, and it involves physicians. And we ought to yield to that decision-making, unless there's a compelling state reason," Hutchinson said in 2021.

Potential Republican contenders like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan have also not sought to advance the same kind of transgender-related legislation as DeSantis, Noem and Trump.

Still, operatives said they are anticipating a cycle of escalation as the 2024 primary takes center stage.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you saw people try to one up each other, maybe going a little bit further on some of these issues," said Sam DeMarco, the Allegheny County GOP chair in Pennsylvania, a battleground state. "And I think the American people will judge what they believe is prudent or not."

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Political buzz: Staten Island Republicans not ready to take sides yet in increasingly heated Trump-DeSantis b  SILive.com

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Right-wing activist Vivek Ramaswamy has jumped into the 2024 race for president, adding to a growing field that is challenging former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

In an announcement video released Tuesday night, the author of the New York Times bestseller Woke, Inc. staked his candidacy on combating the woke left and what he referred to as new secular religions like Covidism, climatism, and gender ideology.

This is psychological slavery, and that has created a new culture of fear in our country that has completely replaced our culture of free speech in America, he said in the video.

While he might be speaking the language of the right-wing grassroots, he doesnt have the political experience or the preexisting constituency of some of his GOP rivals, which include Trump and former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

Still, a growing GOP field might be welcome news to party elites who are looking for an alternative to Trump. The former president is increasingly seen as a liability after losing his reelection bid in 2020, after his chosen candidates broadly underperformed in the 2022 midterms, and because he remains under multiple civil and criminal investigations.

Its likely to be a tough primary. Trump, who announced his candidacy in November, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to announce his candidacy, both consistently rank as the top two choices among Republican primary voters in a series of recent polls. DeSantis is virtually tied with Trump in at least one February poll, while Trump holds as much as a 20 percentage point lead in others. But its early in the 2024 cycle, and those numbers could change as candidates consolidate donors, attract endorsements, and actively campaign.

An expanding GOP field may in some ways strengthen Trumps candidacy. The more candidates announce, the greater the competition in the alternative to Trump lane.

Everybody sort of agrees were going to lose if we [run Trump] again, said Patrick Hynes, a GOP strategist based in New Hampshire. But with multiple candidates talking about getting into the race, it just fortifies Trumps position. And so itd be really nice if we could just have a united front.

Here are the other major contenders besides Trump so far.

The son of Indian immigrants and a former biotech founder, Ramaswamy made his name railing against socially responsible investing on cable news shows. Over the past few years, hes been dubbed the CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc. by the New Yorker and has come out with a second book, Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit and the Path Back to Excellence. Recently, hes been on a listening tour that included stops in New Hampshire, the second state to cast votes in the presidential primaries.

All that led to his announcement for president. His campaign appears as if it will center culture wars: He told Fox Newss Tucker Carlson after jumping into the race that his top priorities include ending affirmative action, complete decoupling from China, reenvisioning US immigration policy based on merit, and using the American military to combat drug cartels in Central America.

While well-known in conservative circles, Ramaswamy would need to find a way to pivot his message to make it more appealing to independents and moderates in a general election. First, though, he will face rivals with far greater platforms, name recognition, donor networks, and war chests many of whom have spent years developing their own brand of his politics.

The February Monmouth poll found that other candidates only attracted 4 percent of those polled, suggesting a difficult battle ahead for Ramaswamy or any other candidate not already a household name.

Though she had previously dismissed the prospect of running against Trump if he sought reelection, Trumps US ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced in mid-February that shes running.

Haley framed herself as a moderate candidate relative to Trump who can win in a general election. Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change, Haley said in her announcement video. Its time for a new generation of leadership.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley is centering her pitch for the presidency on foreign policy. In particular, shes suggested that she would take a hardline stance against Americas foes abroad. She had one of the highest approval ratings of anyone in the Trump administration and was well-respected by her peers on the UN Security Council even when espousing controversial policy decisions, such as Trumps withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accords, and the UN Human Rights Council.

In an environment where most Americans cite government and inflation as the top issues facing the US, its not clear whether that foreign policy experience will resonate with voters. But Haley has conservative credentials, too.

She won the South Carolina governorship in 2011 with the support of the conservative Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She went on to tighten voter ID laws, oppose Syrian refugee resettlement in the state, and earn bipartisan praise for signing a bill to take down the Confederate flag from the state capitol after a gunman killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015. In her announcement video, she hit typical conservative priorities, railing against the socialist left while calling for securing the border and fiscal responsibility.

If Haley prevails, she would be the first woman and first Asian American to win the GOP nomination for president, adding to the list of firsts she has already achieved: South Carolinas first woman governor and the first Indian American to serve in a statewide office there.

Buzz has been building over DeSantiss candidacy for months, as many party leaders see him as the ideal alternative to Trump.

DeSantis has been carefully cultivating a national profile for years by making Florida a locus of conservative policymaking that has inspired copycat legislation across the US. Hes promoted popular conservative stances on nearly every culture war issue, including battling woke corporations like Disney, minimizing Covid-19, limiting abortion access, and eliminating parts of school curriculums deemed too liberal.

Beyond just legislating to the right, DeSantis has ensured that Florida will likely stay red for the foreseeable future. In the 2022 redistricting cycle, he pushed for a new, gerrymandered congressional map that ultimately heavily benefited Republicans; the party flipped three House seats in the midterms. He expanded the base, winning counties like Miami-Dade that Republicans havent carried in decades, while appearing to make more headway with Latino voters. He raised more than $200 million last cycle, breaking the record for gubernatorial races, and ultimately secured reelection by 20 points.

His midterms performance was a bright spot for the GOP, especially because Republican candidates underperformed practically everywhere else in the midterms, and cemented DeSantiss reputation as a national star in the party.

If Republicans choose DeSantis, it wouldnt really mark a departure from Trumpism. The Florida governor was once a protg of the former president and employs the same rhetorical style to articulate culture war grievances. Before the midterms, he made his name through attention-grabbing stunts and ultra-right-wing policies on issues ranging from race and gender to immigration that have become templates for other states. Certainly, DeSantis would have to contort himself to look like a moderate in a general election against President Joe Biden or another Democrat.

The junior US senator from South Carolina and the only Black Republican in the chamber is weighing his candidacy during a listening tour. Education and police reform will likely be centerpieces of his pitch should he choose to do so.

Like many other GOP presidential hopefuls, Scott is a proponent of school choice allowing parents to choose alternatives to traditional public schools, such as charter schools or private schools, and allowing public funds to follow students to those schools. The co-founder of the Congressional School Choice Caucus, Scott led the charge against a controversial Biden administration rule last year that imposed new requirements on charter school funding, including providing proof of need and community support and that the school is not managed by a for-profit company.

While charter schools have delivered massive achievement gains for some low-income minority students, Democrats have soured on them in recent years on the basis that they reduce funding for neighborhood public schools and evidence that they can increase racial and socioeconomic segregation. Biden himself has said hes not a charter-school fan.

This administration wants to shut down charter schools and starve them of the resources necessary to have parents given the choice and the kids given that very important chance, Scott said in a February interview on the Students Over Systems podcast.

Scott may also lean on his experience as the GOPs point person on police reform, calling for a solution to ensure only the best wear the badge through more funding and training for law enforcement in his response to Bidens State of the Union address in February.

He unsuccessfully led Senate negotiations on the subject in 2021 alongside his Democratic counterpart, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. In the wake of the recent release of footage of Memphis police beating Tyre Nichols, a Black man who later died from his injuries, Scott has expressed interest in revisiting those negotiations.

Scott doesnt have national name recognition to rival that of Trump or DeSantis. And Haley, who originally appointed him as US senator while serving as South Carolina governor, may siphon away some of his support in the state. But hes a strong fundraiser and has been recognized as a leader in the party, tapped to deliver the official GOP response to Bidens State of the Union address in 2021.

Pence has made clear that hes severed ties with Trump, telling CNBC that the GOP is going to have better choices than the former president. And he said he thought Trump was wrong in insisting that he won the 2020 election and that he was reckless with his words and actions on the day of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in an interview with NPR last November.

That might not earn him any favor among Trump loyalists. But as a prominent evangelical, Pence could make a play for the Christian right by appealing to their conservative views on abortion, religious liberty, and education. He already seems to be doing so, promoting his memoir, So Help Me God, at megachurches around the country.

Though the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade dampened GOP gains in the midterms, Pence hasnt tempered his anti-abortion rhetoric. Hes called for a national abortion ban, throwing his weight behind a proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and a ban on abortion pills.

Beyond abortion, Pences policy group, Advancing American Freedom, has laid out a platform that includes an expansion of 529 college savings plans for K-12 programs, promoting the rights of health care providers to decline to perform certain services on the basis of moral or religious objections, rolling back climate change-related regulations, and more.

That agenda also highlights Pences biggest challenge: differentiating himself from Trump. It touts many of the policies advanced by the Trump-Pence administration, including the still-incomplete construction of the border wall and the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. Given that many of Pences achievements are inextricable from Trumps, its not clear whether the former vice president will be able to step out from his onetime running mates shadow.

Hogan is a self-proclaimed centrist and was bipartisanly popular during his tenure as Maryland governor, forced to work with a Democrat-controlled legislature for all eight years he was in office. He couldnt seek reelection in 2022 because he was term-limited, and after his chosen successor lost the GOP primary to a Trump endorsee, Democrat Wes Moore ultimately won the governorship.

Hogan attracted Trumps ire as one of only a few Republicans who have for years openly criticized the former president, notably for his pandemic response and attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump has shot back with his own attacks, calling Hogan a shutdown RINO (Republican in name only) for implementing pandemic-related lockdowns in 2020.

Hogan has been similarly critical of DeSantis, saying in an interview with CNN in January that though he may be popular with the GOP base, he has done a terrible job of speaking to swing voters. Thats the same criticism hes levied against his own state party, which has been left directionless in his absence.

In his time as governor, Hogan employed a science-led response to the pandemic that endeared him to Democrats. He made it easier to staff up on out-of-state health care workers, shut down all nonessential small businesses, closed schools, delayed the 2020 primary, established a vaccine distribution initiative, issued a state-based stimulus check for low-income residents, and made a pandemic economic recovery plan that left the state with a multibillion-dollar surplus. He also opened all in-person polling locations in 2020 and went against teachers unions in calling for a return to the classroom in early 2021.

Whether theres room for Hogans moderation in a GOP primary, however, remains a question. He told Meet the Press on February 19 that he, too, is on a listening tour, and that were going to make a decision in a relatively short period of time.

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All the Republicans running for president in 2024, explained

NEW YORK (AP) The opening Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election season will take place in Milwaukee this August, the Republican National Committee decided Thursday.

The rough time and location were the only details finalized as a small group of RNC members met behind closed doors in Washington this week to begin the complicated task of coordinating logistics for what is likely to be a crowded and messy primary season. In the coming weeks, the group plans to finalize a broader set of criteria for participation, including the requirement that each candidate on stage must pledge to support the Republican Party's eventual nominee.

In selecting Milwaukee, the RNC is following its recent tradition of hosting its inaugural presidential debate in the city playing host to the national convention the following year.

At this time, no other debates have been sanctioned, nor has the final criteria for the first debate been decided," GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel wrote in a message to RNC members Thursday. We have a long way to go, but I am confident we will be able to showcase our eventual nominee in a world class fashion."

Three high-profile Republicans have already launched White House bids, but as many as a dozen are ultimately expected to enter the 2024 presidential contest. Already, there are sharp divisions over the future of the party and former President Donald Trump's divisive politics.

The committee is considering between 10 and 12 debates between August and its national convention in the summer of 2024.

Republican officials are likely to adopt new criteria for participation, including a new donor threshold to demonstrate broad support among the partys grassroots in addition to a polling threshold of 1% or 2%.

Committee officials also met privately this week with more than a dozen media companies to determine the network partners. They include major television networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox and lower-profile conservative favorites like Newsmax.

The committee will continue its work and will release updates as they become available, McDaniel wrote.

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Republicans set opening presidential debate for August

Ohio Republicans want to slash $1.2 billion from local governments. How much would the income tax cut save yo  cleveland.com

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Ohio Republicans want to slash $1.2 billion from local governments. How much would the income tax cut save yo - cleveland.com