One of the pitfalls of rendering political opinions too far into the future is that circumstances change the trajectory. I have opined in the past that I believed President Trump would not be able to mount a successful campaign for the presidency in 2924 – and that his greatest challenge would be in the primaries IF he was challenged by a credible candidate.
My analysis was based on the fact that Trump only won the 2016 nomination because there were a lot of opponents to divide up the anti-Trump vote. In fact, most of the Republican primary voters preferred a candidate other than Trump. In addition, his favorable rating among the voting public never exceeded 50 percent.
While I am not saying that Trump is the likely nominee of the Republican Party in 2024 – or that he will win the General election – I have shifted from “odds against” to “distinct possibility.”
So, what has changed? A number of things.
It is becoming less likely that should Trump jump into the race there will be a “credible” Republican alternative. There are a lot of them out there, but none seems to be gearing up for a run in 2024 – and that process would have to have started already to line up the grassroots support and money.
The most viable candidate, other than Trump, would be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He is actually my favorite, at the moment. But I feel certain that he will not run in 2024. It could be messy if Trump runs – and DeSantis is young enough to toss his hat in the ring for many years to come. Most Republican observers see DeSantis as the most likely Trump VP pick, should he run.
The second reason for my re-evaluation is Trump’s good luck. He would be running against one of the worst failed presidencies in modern times. Yes, there is a lot of time between now and November of 2024, but Biden does not look like he can be a contender. I have long viewed his running for a second term as even less likely than Trump.
The Biden presidency is so bad that even if age and health were not factors, he would face an uphill fight for the nomination – and they are factors. In the latest polls, Biden’s favorable rating has fallen to 36 percent.
It now seems more and more likely that the GOP will not only win the House in 2016 – and possibly the Senate – but it will be one of those wave elections all across the nation. It is shaping up to be what President Obama called a shellacking in 2014, when Republicans took the house with a 65-seat win. If that is the case, the GOP will have a LOT of momentum going into 2024.
But Democrats have more than a Biden/Harris problem. Their unrelenting hyperbolic attacks on the Republican Party as a bunch of authoritarian insurrectionists who will end the democracy by bringing down the American Republic is falling flat. It is such a far-fetched narrative that the American voters are rejecting it. We can know that from the current preference polls. Today, most American voters prefer to have the GOP running Congress. The Democrat’s fantastical fearmongering strategy is bellying up.
In addition to their fictional movie-like scenario, the Democrats are on the wrong side of the center-right nation with their increasingly radical left agenda. The voters see a dangerously failing foreign policy. They see the Democrats as soft on criminals – from failure of prosecutors to prosecute and policy to defund law enforcement as the reason for the unprecedented crime wave sweeping the nation.
Some of that crime issue also has to do with the open borders that are allowing criminals, drug cartellians and drugs flowing into the town and urban neighborhoods. Most Americans believe in legal immigration, and no among of political double-talk is convincing the public that Democrats are not leaving the borders open. This will become a crisis if the Biden administration does away with Title 42 – which will lead to multiple record increases in illegal border crossing.
Republicans are clearly winning the cultural wars. Gender obfuscation — such as former “men” winning women’s swimming championships — snowflake micro-aggression, the new list of personal pronouns, identity politics, political correctness, wokeness and the politicization of entertainment (think Disney) and sports (think NFL) are just a few of the issues that mainstream America rejects.
In other words, the nation appears to be talking up an anyone-one-but-a-Democrat for 2022 – and potentially 2024. The donkey Party has done it again. Made themselves more unpopular than Trump. All the effort that they have put into demonizing Trump and all Republicans is proving to be a monumental political miscalculation.
Then there is this. According to the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, Trump would decisively defeat Biden by six points – 47 to 41. That must have the rabid left totally unhinged. After all that effort to destroy both Trump and the Republican Party, and yet they appear to be the choice of the American people.
If you recall the catatonic shock the political left suffered when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, just imagine the reaction if he should return to the Oval Office. The vision of that prospect may be just enough to put him over the top in 2024.
However, there is a long road to 2024, but I thought a trajectory correction was warranted in view of the Democrat’s unanticipated inability to win over the American people to their radical left-wing agenda.
So, there ‘tis.