Why Trump Won�t Win
His threats to democracy make him dangerous. They also make him a weak
candidate.
By Hussein Ibish
December 15, 2023
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Over the past few weeks, warnings about the threat posed by Donald Trump�s
potential reelection have grown louder, including in a series of articles
in The Atlantic. This alarm-raising is justified and appropriate, given the
looming danger of authoritarianism in American politics. But amid all of
the worrying, we might be losing sight of the most important fact: Trump�s
chances of winning are slim.
Some look at Trump�s long list of flaws and understandably see reasons to
worry about him winning. I see reasons to think he almost certainly won�t.
Yes, recent polls appear to favor him. Yes, Joe Biden is an imperfect
opponent. And yes, much could change over the next 11 months, potentially
in Trump�s favor. But if Biden�s health holds, he is very likely to be
reelected next year. It�s hard to imagine any other Republican candidate
galvanizing Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans to vote for
the current president in the way that Trump will.
I�m not arguing that anyone who wants President Biden to win�and, more
important, anyone who wants Trump to lose�should relax. To the contrary,
Democrats, and any other sensible voters who oppose Trump, need to
forcefully remind the American people about how disastrous he was as
president and inform them of how much worse a second term would be.
Thankfully, that is not a hard case to make.
David Frum: The coming Biden blowout
The former president enjoys some clear advantages. About a third of
Republicans are fiercely loyal to him, meaning that he has the unwavering
support of a small but potent segment of the broader electorate. Once he is
presumably crowned the Republican nominee, which seems inevitable and will
probably occur by Super Tuesday, the GOP�s electoral and fundraising
machine will whir into motion on his behalf. In all likelihood, the leaders
in his party will unite behind him. Large numbers of Americans will vote
for anyone running as a Republican against a Democrat.
Trump�s media supporters, above all at Fox News, will offer support,
propagating a set of myths about his record in office, particularly the
supposedly great economy over which he presided. Trump will be able to run
as both an incumbent, because he�s a former president, and an �outsider,�
as in 2016, because he is out of office. That will make his attacks on the
�deep state� and his own persecution narrative more convincing. Trump
intends to use his various criminal and civil trials as proof that �they�
�the Biden administration�are going after him because he represents �us�
�his voters. A certain segment of the public will buy into these messages.
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Trump might also enjoy a relative advantage in the Electoral College
because of the counter-majoritarian aspects of the U.S. political system.
He soundly lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020, and almost no one
expects him to win a majority of votes in 2024 either. But if the race is
close enough in the right places, the undue power of rural voters in
smaller or less populated states could tilt the outcome in his favor.
Finally, Biden is not the candidate Trump ran against four years ago. He is
older, his approval rating is suffering, and, during his four years in
office, he has given certain segments of the public reasons to be
dissatisfied with him. That�s reflected in the current polling, where he
appears to be losing support among key groups, including Black and Latino
voters.
All of that notwithstanding, when the general election gets under way, and
presuming that Americans are faced with a binary choice between Trump and
Biden, Trump�s chances will start to look much worse. Even if most
Republicans unite behind him, a significant portion of both Republicans and
independents will have a hard time pulling the lever for him. Some
Republican voters might well stay home.
Trump�s flaws look far worse today than they did eight years ago. To take
one example that should concern conservative voters: his behavior toward
and views of service members. In the 2016 campaign, Trump�s attacks on
Senator John McCain and on the Gold Star Khan family were bad enough. Now
we have a litany of testimonies that he expressed contempt and disgust for
wounded veterans�demanding that he not be seen in public with them�and that
he debased fallen soldiers, describing them as �suckers� and marveling,
�What was in it for them?� According to an Atlantic report, when he was
scheduled to visit a World War I�era American cemetery in France in 2018,
Trump complained, �Why should I go to that cemetery? It�s filled with
losers.� Trump has always posed as a patriot, but he has proved himself
unpatriotic, anti-military, and ignorant of the meaning of sacrifice.
From the November 2023 issue: The patriot
Similarly, in 2016, Trump�s campaign was briefly rocked by the Access
Hollywood videotape in which he boasted about grabbing women by the
genitalia. He survived, in large part because many voters chose to accept
his comments as �locker room� bluster. Several women accused him of sexual
misconduct, but Trump fended off their allegations too. Now he has been
held civilly liable by a New York jury for sexually abusing the advice
columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. A federal judge has said that the jury
concluded that what Trump did to Carroll was rape in the common sense of
the term. Some Americans will shrug that off, but many won�t be able to.
Trump hopes that his legal troubles will prove a boon to his campaign,
allowing him to paint both law enforcement and the judicial system as part
of a massive conspiracy against him. He has even requested that his federal
trial regarding efforts to overturn the 2020-election results be televised.
That�s unlikely, but the more airtime these prosecutions get, the better.
Among Republicans, Trump�s polling has improved since his indictments, but
many other Americans simply won�t be impressed, inspired, or persuaded by
someone who faces 91 felony counts, in addition to civil cases. Trump
already has been found liable for fraud and sexual abuse in New York. To
that may well be added a criminal conviction at the federal level. Even if
none of the trials has concluded by next fall, much of the evidence that
prosecutors have accumulated is already in the public record and will be
powerful fodder for anti-Trump attack ads. And Democrats will benefit from
the attention Trump draws to the election-subversion cases. Even many of
Trump�s most ardent supporters are tired of relitigating 2020; voters would
prefer to focus on the future, not the past.
David A. Graham: A guide to the cases against Trump
On top of all this, Trump has a strong record of electoral losses, with his
2016 upset, which apparently surprised even him, as the lone exception. His
party suffered the standard midterm defeat in 2018. Then he lost the 2020
election. Then Republicans lost control of the Senate after Georgia�s
runoff in early 2021. Then his party was denied the standard midterm
victory in 2022, barely eking out a four-vote House majority thanks in
large part to his own handpicked, election-denying candidates, almost all
of whom lost in competitive races. There is no obvious reason that 2024
should constitute a sudden break from this pattern of MAGA defeat.
Presidential elections are usually decided by a relatively small group of
swing voters in six or seven swing states. The most important are
independent voters and suburban voters, two groups that appear to have
turned away from Trump since 2016. He hasn�t done anything to win them back
since 2020, instead running in recent months on a platform that�s more
radical, extreme, and openly authoritarian than ever (except on the issue
of abortion, where he is less extreme than his Republican-primary
competitors). With Trump promising vengeance, retribution, and
dictatorship, at least on �day one,� as he recently told Sean Hannity, will
these swing voters be wooed back into his camp? Are Americans so fed up
that they will want to elect someone who has advocated for the
�termination� of the Constitution in order to keep himself in power?
Recent polling suggests that Biden is in real trouble, including with a
number of core Democratic constituencies, which is leading many Democrats
to yearn for a different candidate or to despair that Trump will be
reelected. In fact, Biden has a strong record to run on. In his first two
years, with a tiny House majority and only a tiebreaker in the Senate, he
managed to pass more progressive, consequential economic legislation than,
arguably, any president since Lyndon B. Johnson. Unemployment is low, and
inflation is cooling. Perhaps the public has not fully felt these positive
developments yet, but they will almost certainly have registered by next
November.
Americans have reported to pollsters that although they believe that the
economy is bad for others, they themselves feel economically secure. Biden
should ask voters Ronald Reagan�s classic question: Are you better off
today than you were four years ago? The answer can only be yes, given the
dire situation the nation found itself in during the early months of the
coronavirus pandemic (to say nothing of the general sense of chaos
throughout Trump�s presidency). But Biden and Democrats need to make this
case. Without prompting, voters might not readily remember how challenging
a time 2020 was.
Derek Thompson: �Everything is terrible, but I�m fine�
The abortion issue, opened up by the Supreme Court�s overturning of Roe v.
Wade, has consistently played in Democrats� favor, and that�s unlikely to
change next November. If the Republican nominee were former United Nations
Ambassador Nikki Haley, women might not rally so powerfully to the
Democratic side. But Trump claims responsibility for the decision
overturning Roe by virtue of his Supreme Court appointees. That, plus
Trump�s treatment of women, gives Biden a huge opportunity with female
voters.
Biden�s pro-Israel policies during the ongoing war in Gaza might cost him
support from Arab and Muslim Americans, but probably not enough for him to
lose Michigan, for example, to Trump. Voters in those groups seem unlikely
to support the author of the �Muslim ban,� who is threatening to reimpose
similar restrictions, and the �Peace to Prosperity� Israeli-Palestinian
proposal that invited Israel to annex 30 percent of the occupied West Bank.
Some will stay home�a potential danger for Biden�but many will, perhaps
reluctantly, turn out for him despite what they say now.
The 2024 election will be a referendum on democracy, with both candidates
claiming to stand for freedom and American values. On this matter, Biden�s
claims are obviously stronger: He has been governing as a traditional
president, whereas Trump promises authoritarianism and openly says he wants
to be dictator for a day to accomplish certain policies, namely restricting
immigration. But what if his plans take more than a day? What if his one-
day dictatorship extends to a year and then never ends? Americans know that
strongmen don�t keep their promises.
Biden is old, but so is Trump. Biden has grown unpopular, but so has Trump.
Biden has liabilities, but Trump�s are considerably worse. Biden has lost
the backing of plenty of voters, but the results of the past few elections
suggest that Trump has lost more. Meanwhile, Trump�s record as president
and since�January 6, the devastating testimony from his former senior
officials, the ongoing trials, and whatever additional self-inflicted
wounds he delivers�will contrast very poorly with Biden�s track record and
steady leadership. By November, enough Americans will surely understand
that they aren�t voting for Biden over Trump so much as voting for the
Constitution over a would-be authoritarian.
The case against Trump�s reelection is obvious and damning. As long as his
opponents prosecute that case�and they will�Trump isn�t going to win.