A new pearl-clutching article from CNN’s Harry Enten over the weekend envisioned a not-so-distant world where Donald Trump wins another presidential term despite the ongoing legal challenges he’s facing on a daily basis.
The crux of Enten’s argument is that despite all the legal garbage (my word, not his) being thrown at Trump, he stands a serious chance of winning the GOP nomination and winning the presidency in 2024 if the binary choice is between Trump or Biden:
Donald Trump is facing two indictments, with the potential for more. Political wisdom may have once suggested the former president’s bid for a second White House term would be nothing but a pipe dream. But most of us know better by now.
Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.
No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.
Chris Sununu’s beliefs aside, it seems more and more likely that Trump is the only candidate to beat in the 2024 GOP primary field and that there’s a good chance he’s basically unbeatable.
Ron DeSantis has tried for a few months and all he came home with so far is lousy poll numbers that keep souring by the day. It’s not that DeSantis isn’t a good candidate, he might be a great candidate, but he still hasn’t touched Donald Trump’s built-in base of support.
Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, Trump easily wins the 2024 GOP nomination and becomes the Republican candidate.
In that scenario, Enten flags a warning sign for Democrats out of the Keystone State that should cause some heartburn among the Biden faithful:
All that being said, the 2024 election will probably come down to a few swing states. Polling in swing states has been limited because we’re still over a year from the election.
One giant warning sign for Democrats was a late June Quinnipiac University poll from Pennsylvania, a pivotal state for the past few election cycles where Trump rallied base supporters in Erie on Saturday. The state barely voted for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020.
Trump was up on Biden by 1 point in the Quinnipiac poll – a result within the margin of error, but nevertheless a remarkable achievement for the former president.
Why? It was only the second Pennsylvania poll that met CNN standards for publication since 2015 that had Trump ahead of either Biden (for 2020 and 2024) or Clinton (for 2016).
As we’ve learned, trusting polls this far out and polls which may or may not have a solid methodology underneath can be fools’ gold.
However, to see Biden and Trump essentially tied in a state that should easily tilt Democrats in a national election is something reminiscent of 2016. Biden has failed, by any measure, to connect with his alleged working-class base. The “Bidenomics” policies have benefitted the wealthy and left everyone else scouring to pay for gas and groceries.
Take the Enten article as an internal alarm among Democrats that they shouldn’t continually dismiss Trump as someone who will be taken out of the race by the Department of Justice.
Trump has vowed to continue his campaign regardless of how any of his legal troubles shake out in the end.
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