Prominent Republicans eyeing a 2024 White House bid have placed themselves at the epicenter of efforts to blunt the coronavirus pandemic, with some departing from President Trump by proposing an extended and more aggressive economic shutdown.

As Trump floats reopening a quarantined national economy by Easter, two Republican senators with presidential aspirations, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott of Florida, support tightening current restrictions and maintaining them for at least 30 days. Scott’s eight-point plan would suspend domestic airline travel and place a moratorium on people’s monthly financial obligations. Cotton advocates nationwide shelter-in-place rules and is urging the administration to heed the recommendations of Anthony Fauci and other experts.

“This is the stark truth: we have to arrest the spread of the China virus to get the economy back on its feet & get life back to something like normal,” Cotton tweeted Tuesday. The same day, Trump began discussing the need to balance public health concerns properly with the damage to a stunted economy could have on the public's psyche.

Cotton and Scott are among a handful of potential 2024 presidential candidates who have sought to influence the federal government’s response to the coronavirus. Others have been drafted, willingly or not, by virtue of their position in the Trump administration. Vice President Mike Pence was tapped to lead the White House pandemic task force; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is running point as it relates to coordination and interaction abroad.

Marco Rubio of Florida, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee and a potential 2024 contender, was the lead Republican negotiator of a bipartisan blueprint to rescue small businesses teetering on insolvency because of the pandemic. The measure was a critical component of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package poised to clear Congress this week.

With thousands of businesses endangered and millions poised to lose their jobs, some Republican strategists believe GOP primary voters will reward, or punish, 2024 contenders based on how they responded to the economic fallout.

At the very least, some political professionals expect the coronavirus pandemic to affect how Republicans campaign, even if it does not substantially alter what primary voters are looking for in a successor to Trump.

“As candidates fine-tune their resumes for 2024, expect them to find ways to prove they can be trusted to lead in times of turmoil,” said Bruce Haynes, a former Republican campaign consultant who is now vice chairman of public affairs for the Washington firm Sard Verbinnen & Co., adding that it was possible voters might end up caring less about ideology and more about questions such as, “Can they lead?”

Nikki Haley immediately resigned from her position on the board of directors of Boeing in a protest over the airplane manufacturer’s request for federal assistance to help mitigate financial challenges caused by the onset of the coronavirus. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, has used Twitter and her political nonprofit organization as platforms to push preferred policies for addressing the pandemic.

“DON’T bail out individual industries, pick winners and losers, or pass a bloated stimulus package,” Haley tweeted.

A veteran Republican operative advising GOP congressional candidates on the 2020 ballot expressed surprise that more potential 2024 hopefuls have not joined Haley in opposing the corporate rescue package included in the coronavirus relief bill.

“Most of the 2024 Republicans seem to have the herd mentality on the relief bills,” the GOP operative said. “I thought one or two might vote against the legislation and use that as a wedge in the future — ‘You supported bailing out corporations, and I did not.’ But no one has caved on that yet.”

