At this point I think Trump will in fact win again. The reason why is simple. He already has a strategy that works. The Democrats are scrambling to figure out what their strategy will be. At this point they’re doing so to try to win the primary, but even after that, the nominee is going to have to regroup and figure out a strategy for moving forward in the general. More responsibility; more stress; more work; more uncertainty. All Trump has to do is say “we’ve had four great years and we’re going to have FOUR! MORE! GREAT! YEARS!” or some variant thereof. He will hang on to his base. That’s a given. Can the Democrats get enough turnout in the swing states to make up for that? Maybe, but they’re fighting an uphill battle.
His “strategy” only works on a certain group, a demographically distinct group declining as a percentage of the electorate. While we’ve had four good years economically, we’ve also had four years to observe an unhinged Trump drunk with power. I don’t think we yet have a handle on how many he has horrified, though post-election polls after the midterms give us some idea.
To expand on that: after the shitshow we have seen (as opposed to a hope among some reluctant 2016 Trump voters that he would pivot to being a strong and dignified CEO once the gravity of the office settled upon him), if any reasonable Democratic nominee can’t win, we are fucked as a country. It’s a litmus test on the American people.
He has already qualified for the next debate, where he will have more time to hammer this electability argument. I guarantee you, the Trump people see this and thank their lucky stars that he is so low in the polls among Democrats nationally. Losing Texas would checkmate them.
2016 is still fresh in our minds. And looking at the numbers objectively tells us that '20 is going to be another close one. I’m hopeful but the current president holds a couple of important advantages.
Funny, I see it the opposite way. Lefty bias means, for many people, pessimism bordering on paranoia. Many seem for instance to sincerely believe we are literally on the verge of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. So getting 50% to see Trump’s vulnerability is a sign of how great that vulnerability is.
Maybe what I should have said was that a “lefty” board like the Dope represents itself well in this poll by refusing to look at an objective issue in a partisan or cheerleading manner.
Trump shouldn’t win in any advanced society. But Trump can certainly win again, with the help of tens of millions of disgruntled voters and an antiquated and unrepresentative electoral system.
“Our candidate got more votes than ever before in the last election - therefore, I should vote for the Democrat” is not the lesson that leaps out from the article, at least for me. And I voted Libertarian in 2016.
In 2016, the election results were not completely legitimate but we didn’t fully know it at the time. A concern I have is that in 2020, we’ll have a very tight election with similar doubts about legitimacy, but this time, we’ll know it the days and weeks that follow. It sets up a dynamic that is ripe for social unrest.
There’s been a lot of speculation about how the right would react if it lost the election, but I worry about that from the left as well. To be clear: the left would be justifiably outraged, but I wonder what the reaction would be, and I worry also about how President Trump and his retooled federal police force (perhaps even a posse comitatus) would react to that reaction.
Obviously none of us are fortune tellers but my take is that there’s we have essentially four front-runners right now, and I suspect that Bernie’s ceiling is not much higher than what it is right now, so that means we might be down to three good candidates, leaving open the possibility that a dark horse could emerge. All of those top tier candidates are vulnerable. I don’t see anyone right now who makes me think “Oh that guy/lady would kick Trump’s ass all over the place.”
As nutbar as this is going to sound, maybe it’s going to take someone like Marianne Williamson to go toe-to-toe with Trump. And yes, I know how nutbar that sounds - my keyboard is covered with little bits of grains as I type it out. But if you look at her debate style and how she performs in front of a camera, it’s hard not to think “Yeah, I could see her being a viral candidate, and I could see her standing up to Trump.” I have to confess to being irritated that she’s sharing the stage with the rest of the field, but I simultaneously admit to being impressed with her oratory. She may be a little league candidate but her speaking skills are major league.
I think that’s why I put it out there. Yes, it’s nutbar to suggest that Williamson could be a real candidate (and I’m not necessarily arguing she is without the evidence to support it in the polls), but we live in nutty times. #WhynotWilliamson?
From a strategy point I agree with you, but if I’m going to be totally honest I’ve got to admit that all else being equal if politics were put aside, I would rather have Hillary as president than any of the current slate of Democratic hopefuls.