EDITORIAL
You’ve seen these articles before.
You saw them throughout 2015, 2016 and perhaps even running up to the ill-fated November election, when Hillary Clinton remained a shoe-in despite the underlying polling trends.
So when Donald Trump fully launched his 2024 Presidential campaign after announcing the run two months ago, you’d be forgiven for not totally dismissing the former President.
The man draws a lot of comparisons to Boris Johnson in the UK.
Both have a fiercely loyal and sizeable base who wouldn’t vote for any other candidate.
Both care little about decorum, instead holding up factually dubious accomplishments and repeating them on loop.
Both have, of course, won an election.
But after blundering the pandemic and seeing the economy tank under his tenure, a comeback will be an uphill battle – even moreso for Trump, who has far less allies in the Republican Party than Johnson does in the Tories.
Trump’s path to the Republican nomination is much clearer than in 2016. Instead of having to shine in a packed leadership race, he will likely face a candidate that more moderate Republicans will coalesce around – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
And while polls this far out from the Primary Race can be taken with a pinch of salt, the message from the majority of pollsters is clear.
53 per cent of Republican voters said they would pick DeSantis, versus 40 per cent for Trump, according to the latest survey from Monmouth.
DeSantis is a far slicker operator than the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and has set out his stall early as a winner. It helps that choosing the Florida Governor means the Republicans are essentially guaranteed to win the crucial swing state.
And even if Trump bests DeSantis, he still has Biden to go through (bear with me here).
#46’s leadership has been fairly whelming, to say the least.
But being in the White House rather than opposition will help Biden.
Just as he did in his State of the Union speech, he will point to a recovering economy – one that will likely bounce back further by the time late 2024 swings around – and his tangible accomplishments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan.
When voters see an administration making, or attempting to make, an impact in their day-to-day lives, they are often rewarded.
Compared to Trump’s brash style, both domestically and on the world stage, Biden has, mostly through keeping a low profile, not embarrassed the US globally. For a fiercely patriotic people, that’s important.
And let’s not get started on the ongoing Capitol Riots inquest. That will be more of a thorn in Trump’s side the further he goes.
So while Trump still has his familiar style – straight talking or outlandish, depending on your opinion of him – he will be up against better opposition.
And that’s why America, and the world, need not worry.
Bookmark this for next year. I dare you.
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Featured Image: Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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