Trump remains the favored candidate to win the 2024 Republican nomination in what would be an historic and nearly unprecedented return for a losing presidential candidate.
No president since Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1892 has managed to return to the White House after losing reelection but Trump has some reasons to be optimistic about his chances. Here are five of them.
1. Positive Primary Polls
Polling among Republicans has consistently shown that Trump is the clear favorite for the party’s 2024 nomination and his influence in the GOP appears undiminished.
The latest survey from Morning Consult shows Trump opening up a more than 30-point lead over his nearest rival for the nomination, former Vice President Mike Pence, when Republican voters were asked who they would vote for if the primary were held on the day of the poll.
Trump’s support stood at 47 percent and Pence at 13 percent, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 12 percent. This is consistent with a series of polls showing the party would choose the former president again.
A separate poll by The Des Moines Register released before Trump’s rally in Iowa showed 53 percent of Iowans viewed him favorably. Iowa is the first state to vote on presidential nominees and a victory in the caucuses there would give Trump’s campaign an early boost.
David A. Bateman, an associate professor at Cornell University’s Department of Government, told Newsweek other contenders would find it difficult to challenge Trump.
“No-one else has replicated Trump’s unique appeal. None of his imitators have any of the bullying instinct and cruel wit that allowed him to not only get coverage but to be seen as ’telling it like it is’ through lies and insults,” Bateman said.
“They are all pale imitations. Trump could, in a single brilliant but ugly phrase, redefine how a candidate was seen. Think of his ‘Pocahontas’ attack on Warren, which perfectly tied together opposition to affirmative action, anti-feminism / misogyny, and a sense that hypocritical elites are gaming the system - and it did this in a single word.
“DeSantis and [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott have nothing like that in their arsenal. Or think of Trump’s almost casual packaging of anti-immigrant nativism as a working-class jobs strategy and a public safety concern, essentially two falsehoods that he was able to package almost as common sense to his supporters.”
2. Media Gold
Trump was a magnet for media attention during the 2016 campaign and throughout his presidency, especially when he still had access to Twitter.
Mark Shanahan, an associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Reading University and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage, told Newsweek the same would be true in 2024.
“Trump is media gold,” Shanahan said. “Whatever he says or does becomes the story of the day that others react to. And the more outrageous his output, the more he dominates the airwaves, commentary pages and social media responses.”
3. Biden’s “Underwhelming” Presidency
President Joe Biden has been in office a little less than nine months but during that time he has seen his approval rating slip into negative territory following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden has indicated he expects to run for reelection in 2024 and his record will be up for debate and assessment by voters.
“Biden’s presidency is underwhelming,” Shanahan told Newsweek. “The promise that ‘America is back’ in foreign affairs has largely been undone by the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and swift fall of Kabul to the Taliban.”
“Meanwhile at home, the optimism of the president’s radical Build Back Better agenda has been subsumed by internecine strife as Biden tries to hold together a weak and politically-diverse alliance in the Democrat party in congress,” he said.
4. The Progressive “Trojan Horse”
Those ongoing divisions among congressional Democrats over a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social spending bill could also benefit Trump, according to Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London’s Centre on U.S. Politics.
“For Trump, the prospect of a 2024 bid only looks more enticing the further Biden is pushed off balance by progressive Democrats,” Gift told Newsweek.
“In 2020, rhetoric in service of far-left ideas - from #DefundThePolice to #PacktheCourt - were huge political gifts to Trump, and it’s not unreasonable to think that 2024 could bring much of the same.”
“Right now, progressives look emboldened. Many of most recognizable faces within the Democratic Party - including the likes of AOC - are far on the left, and progressives have shown they’re not afraid to throw their weight around on Capitol Hill,” Gift went on.
“That’s important symbolically. It plays into Trump’s fear-mongering about Biden as a largely passive president - a ‘Trojan Horse’ for the far left - who’s unable to stand up to the progressive flank of his party.”
“But it’s also important substantively” Gift went on. “Right now, there’s a genuine possibility that Biden’s signature policy proposal - infrastructure - could go up in smoke as a result of progressive jostling.”
“To the extent that internal splits within the Democratic Party only grow more pronounced, more public, and more raucous, the odds of Biden galvanizing a winning, left to center-left coalition behind his candidacy diminish,” he said.
5. “Trump Wannabes” Can’t Compete
As Trump has continued to exert influence over the Republican Party and polls consistently show that him beating his closest rivals to the nomination, candidates who would ordinarily have a shot at the top of the ticket appear to be crowded out.
While former Vice President Pence appears to be mulling a presidential bid of his own and Governor DeSantis is now a nationally recognized conservative figure who continues to do well in polls about the GOP nomination, Trump is dominating the field three years out.
“The GOP field is fallow,” Mark Shanahan told Newsweek. “Aside from the second-rate Trump wannabes, the likes of [Senator Josh] Hawley and DeSantis, or the cast-asides such as Nikki Haley, there’s very little fresh new blood coming through to excite Republican voters.”
“Can someone like Liz Cheney win back the party from its current populist stranglehold? Trump certainly doesn’t believe she, or any other challenger, has the standing, financial clout or popular support to threaten him,” he said.
“The need potential candidates have to court his base leads them to show support for him, which potentially sustains his popularity and limits their ability to develop their own brand and recognition,” David Bateman said.
“The more his potential challengers bow to him now, the harder it is for them to get in the race or stay in if he declares. And the longer they wait, the harder it will be to develop their own standing and activist base.”
