How Will Trump Deal with The Next Year’s Elections?
Donald Trump has been impeached twice, tried to thwart the peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 presidential election, is currently facing scores of charges in many criminal cases, and his critics warn he might be plotting to rule as an autocrat.
Given everything, Donald Trump might still return to the White House. Trump leads his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination by almost 50 percentage points in national opinion polls, which is a remarkable comeback for a one-term president who three years ago seemed vanquished and humiliated. Well, today we will discuss four reasons why Trump might win the November 2024 election against Democratic incumbent Joe Biden:
Unhappy voters
Biden The White House argued that the economy is in good shape, especially since unemployment is down to a near-historic low of 3.9% from 6.3% when former President Donald Trump left office.
And inflation cooled from a peak of over 9% in June 2022 to 3.2% as of October. Large swaths of the public, such as many voters of color and young voters, think very differently. They pointed to wages not keeping up with the costs of essential goods and services like groceries, cars, houses, and child and elder care.
When Biden talked about the economy, American citizens thought more about affordability than economic indicators. Opinion polls show that voters, by a very large margin, see Republicans as better stewards of the economy, even if Trump shows otherwise.
Speaking of fear
Voters are quite unsettled for reasons that go far beyond the economy. Trump targeted the worries, real or not, that plenty of white Americans have in a country that’s becoming increasingly more diverse and more culturally progressive.
There’s also a rather pervasive sense of losing ground, that the cornerstones of American life, whether it’s home ownership, a decent wage that keeps pace with inflation, or a college education, are more out of reach for citizens.
Moreover, polls proved that voters are very worried about crime and very nervous about the flow of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Trump is also adept at channeling and packaging such fears.
At the same time, he is presenting himself as someone who comes from outside the U.S. political system. He is an arsonist and firefighter, so to speak, who declares that the country is in chaos and offers himself as a savior who would save us all from misery.
Trump’s actions do not disqualify too many voters.
It seems that even if many critics within his own party, the Democratic Party, and the entire media view him as completely unfit for office, millions of voters still disagree. In fact, many of his voters are now convinced that Trump is nothing but a victim of a political witch hunt.
In fact, no less than half of the Republicans that were surveyed earlier this year stated they wouldn’t have any issue voting for Trump, even if he was convicted of a crime. That’s a bit of a stretch, to be honest.
Trump can also point to his four years in office and even argue that the machinery of government was mostly functional, even if at times a bit chaotic, even if many feared that he could not govern. In fact, even if he faced some of the most serious allegations a president ever got.
Biden gets all the blame, no credit
Moreover, Trump can easily take advantage of a White House that so far has proven to be unstable to persuade much of the public that Biden’s job-creation policies have actually made any kind of difference to their lives. Biden has also been constantly saddled with a pair of foreign wars that did nothing but divide the Americans. Trump’s non-interventionist, “America first” message could resonate with voters fearful of further U.S. involvement in Ukraine or Israel, as President Biden adopted a more traditional, interventionist American foreign policy.
But this doesn’t mean that Trump will definitely win the elections. He still remains deeply unpopular in various parts of the country and among many demographics. If he gets chosen as his party’s nominee, it might provoke a high turnout in favor of Democrats to counter him.
He also has inflammatory rhetoric, including threats to take revenge on political enemies he called “vermin,” which could also be a turn-off for some moderate Republicans and independent voters altogether, who might need to beat Biden.
Democrats have also successfully managed to campaign as defenders of abortion rights to defeat Republicans all over the country in a wide series of elections and will once again make that issue their focus during the 2024 campaign. But for now, 11 months from Election Day, it seems that Trump stands a much better chance than he should.
Do you want to know what Trump’s secret weapon is to consolidate the GOP? It’s fear.
Anti-Donald Trump Republicans are very aware they are in the middle of a critical moment when they should do everything to stop the former president’s political comeback. However, for some people, the steep cost of voicing their resistance to Trump might render them silent.
As mentioned before, Trump seems to be enjoying quite a broad popularity in the Republican Party, and that’s really driving his polling leads among Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, and every other state ahead of the 2024 primaries.
However, he also used that popularity to enforce unity. The same impulse that has led GOP officeholders to avoid criticizing Trump for his potential threats to their safety and their jobs is also holding back rand-and-file voters from opposing the former president in public with the full capacity of their personal convictions.
According to NBC News, which spoke to more than half a dozen Iowa voters who were turned off by Trump, some people are threatened when they talk badly about the former president. Some of them even say they will vote for Trump when, in reality, they caucus for Vivek Ramaswamy. That pretty much adds up to signs going unplaced on front lawns or conversations with family about other candidates that are avoided.
Criticism and criticism all over again
Trump’s criticism forced many senators and House members into retirement or primary defeat during his first years in office. Later on, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to bring impeachment charges against him, four retired before having to face voters in 2022, and another four lost their next primaries.
Only two of them remained in the house. In the Senate, three of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump have retired or even resigned. In fact, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah is retiring next year.
Romney recounted to biographer McKay Coppins that Republican members of Congress confided in him over the fact that they all wanted Trump impeached and convicted. Moreover, they explained how they planned to vote against the charges because they were too worried about all the threats sent to their families. So yes, in 2024, this is the candidate for the presidential elections.
If you want to learn more about what he has done since he started his political career, we deeply recommend you listen to this audiobook:
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