Donald Trump’s chances of running for re-election in 2024 have been given a huge boost after most of his party sought to throw out his upcoming impeachment trial. A total of 45 Senate Republicans unsuccessfully voted to throw out President Trump’s upcoming trial at a hearing on Tuesday afternoon.

The trial will go ahead on February 8 as planned. But Tuesday’s vote suggests Joe Biden’s Democrat party will struggle to get the 67 votes needed to convict Trump at his trial for inciting the deadly January 6 US Capitol riots. And that could pave the way for him to run for office again in the next presidential election.

Just five Republican senators – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey – sided with Joe Biden’s Democrats and voted for the trial to go ahead. A total of 55 senators ultimately voted for it to happen, meaning Senator Rand Paul’s motion to dismiss Trump’s impeachment trial did not succeed.

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who previously appeared to have washed his hands of President Trump – was among the senators who voted to dismiss the trial. They said it was unconstitutional to try a president who has already left office.

That trial – for incitement of insurrection – will continue as planned from February 8. Tuesday’s vote illuminated seemingly dwindling support for the impeachment from the former president’s own party, and suggests Trump has a good chance of avoiding a conviction at his impeachment trial.

A ‘super-majority’ of 67 senators is needed to convict Trump at his impeachment trial, the second he has faced. If the former president is convicted of inciting the deadly Washington DC riots, which killed five, he will be banned from running for office again.

But if Trump avoids conviction, he will be free to run for the White House again in 2024.

Trump appeared at a ‘Save America’ rally hours before the riot, and urged his supporters to descend on the US Capitol, where congressmen and women were certifying Joe Biden’s win.

That saw thousands do just that – with hundreds breaking into the building and trashing it. Four protesters and a police officer died in the ensuing riots.

The shocking scenes sparked revulsion among both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom dropped planned objections to Biden’s win.

But their disgust now appears to have cooled. Political analysts believe many Republican senators are worried about angering supporters of Trump, who remains hugely popular within the party.

Before leaving office, Trump repeatedly made allegations of electoral fraud, but failed in repeated legal challenges to President Biden’s election win.

Democrats have 48 seats in the Senate – the upper house of the US Congress – and Republicans have 50. But the two independent senators in the chamber vote with the Democrats.

And Vice President Kamala Harris gets to cast the deciding vote for any tiebreakers, giving her Democrat party a slender majority.

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