Trump's Year
We’re about two weeks out from the Iowa Caucus, and it’s all coming up Trump. DeSantis and Haley remain the only viable alternatives, and they only barely. Without Chris Christie getting out in New Hampshire, Haley has no chance at all of beating Trump.
Christie, at this point, is helping Trump by staying in. That’s just a fact he cannot bring himself to acknowledge.
In Iowa, the polling shows a massive lead for Trump, but the daily grind belongs to DeSantis. He, his ground team, and the coalition he has built will get people to the polls. If he can pull it off, he shakes up the race dramatically. If he can’t, and Christie stays in, it is Trump.
If Christie gets out, it will most likely remain Trump’s race, but his departure would produce last-minute consolidations.
That leads us to the Democrats.
Joe Biden’s popularity continues to be abysmal. If Donald Trump truly is a threat to democracy, the Biden/Harris team needs to explore the Titanic in a submersible for the sake of American democracy (if you saw Chapelle, you get the reference).
In the last twelve national media polls, Biden only wins three of them. Two of them have him up one. One has him up two. Two other of the twelve polls have Biden and Trump tied. Seven of the last twelve polls conducted have Donald Trump leading Biden with a polling average lead of 2.4%.
As we enter 2024, Donald Trump is doing better than at any time in his polling history and far outpacing both his victory in 2016 and his defeat in 2020.
Democrats, like Republicans, have been waiting for external events to take out Trump. They should look at where all the Republicans are to understand why that probably will not work.
Still, for Republicans, there are some issues to remember as we start the year.
First, a DeSantis or a Haley would both best Biden, too, according to the same polling, and would do so with a less resource-intensive effort. That means there’d be more money to secure the Senate and build a majority in the House. Trump will need lots of extra money that neither DeSantis nor Haley would need just because of Trump’s legal bills paid for by his campaign.
Second, Trump is winning now by largely being out of the public eye. Though he has never gone out of sight with his fans, the public can largely ignore him for now, which has helped him. Staying at Mar-a-Lago, like Biden in his basement in 2020, is a strategic consideration.
Third, Trump, the hypothetical candidate, does not stir the left like Trump, the actual candidate, might. The same polling showing Trump winning shows a massive energy wave on the left if he actually is the nominee. He will need every vote possible to counter that wave.
Fourth, if he is found guilty of anything in any of these cases, that might alienate independent voters enough to help Biden.
Lastly, and most importantly, there is an incumbency advantage for Biden.
These five reasons are probably why Biden does not bail. He thinks he can take Trump. However, we are on the year's second day, and there are 307 days until the general election.
Get Trump the nomination, and Biden, whose convention will come after Trump’s, could decide that he needs to sit it out for the good of the country. That shakes up the race with Trump locked as the GOP nominee. It is a stunt Democrats have pulled at the local and state levels. It is the stunt that DeSantis and Haley's supporters are convinced will happen.
As we start 2024, Donald Trump is in a better position to become President of the United States in November of 2024 than he was in 2016. If Democrats are really that threatened by him and think Trump is that much of a threat to American democracy, the Biden/Harris ticket has to come to an end just to play it safe for the Democrats.
But the reality is that Democrats do not really think Trump is a threat to democracy. They just say that because people are stupid and might believe them. In their bubble, they just cannot imagine any conceivable way they lose to Trump. And that, my friends, is exactly how Hillary Clinton lost to him.
Again, if Chris Christie really wants to impact the race, he has about a week to get out, or he guarantees a Trump win in New Hampshire.
I keep thinking of a quote from the cowboy philosopher Will Rogers. “The only good thing about the present crop of candidates is that only one can be elected”.
Of all the polarizing polarizers, Trump is the polarizingest (my take on A Charlie Brown Christmas). In seriousness, I understand his popularity: His presidential term was light years better than Biden, and that track record is a huge advantage; he "sticks it to the man" so to speak, with everyone from CNN to world leaders; and much of his political life has been one failed attempt after another to remove him from office/consideration, making him a William Wallace of the People. But one would think that in this day and age of risk aversion, voters would heavily consider the multiple charges against him, the resources that will be consumed defending himself, and the compelling polls indicating his nomination activates an otherwise dormant Democrat party. Winning this election is too important to risk Trump as the nominee IMO, yet it seems almost predisposed at this juncture. To paraphrase Jefferson, the government we elect is the government we deserve.
And I DID see Chapelle! Good stuff!