When former President Trump launched his campaign for the White House in 2024 at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, he was met with a tepid reception from many Republicans.
However, his campaign has Democrats giddy with enthusiasm and even a little of gleeful anticipation.
In spite of their conviction that Trump is far too defective to prevail in a general election, some of President Biden’s party are publicly wishing for Trump to become the Republican contender for the 2024 election.
They contend that the circumstances of today are vastly different from those of 2016, not the least of which is the fact that voters are now aware of the consequences of electing Trump as president. And Democrats couldn’t be happier to have such a manageable rival in an election that is shaping up to be difficult for their party.
This week on “The Briefing with Steve Scully” on SiriusXM, former Democratic Vermont Governor Howard Dean said, “I am hoping for Trump’s nomination because I think he’s the easiest candidate to beat.” Dean made these comments in response to a question about which candidate would be the easiest to defeat.
Dean, who ran for president in 2004 and later became chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that he had cautioned his party in 2016 about the possibility that Trump would be elected president. Dean ran for president in 2004.
He insisted at this point that “people are sick of this. They are sick and tired of the things that inflame the situation, they are sick and tired of the things that divide people, and they are sick and tired of the lies. If Donald Trump is elected as the Republican nominee, I believe there is a good possibility that we will win back a greater number of states than we did in the previous election.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) recently stated in an interview with The New York Times that despite his belief that a presidential run by Donald Trump would be “an absolute horror show” for the well-being of American democracy, he believes that such a run would “probably be a good thing” for those who want the Republicans to be defeated in 2024.
Mark Longabaugh, a strategist for the Democratic Party, was interviewed for this column and said that Donald Trump is “infinitely weaker than he was.”
Longabaugh was quoted as saying, “You can always be burned by making some of these forecasts, but I simply think he appears a little bit of a spent force.” “There are a whole bunch of dynamics that are quite different from 2016,” the speaker said.
Even some people who identify with the conservative ideology believe the Democrats have a valid point.
After the election in 2020, “the country showed it wants to move on but Mr. Trump refuses — perhaps because he can’t admit to himself that he was a loser,” lamented an editorial in The Wall Street Journal published the day before Trump’s campaign launch, which savaged his chances in 2024. The editorial lamented that after the election, “the country showed it wants to move on but Mr. Trump refuses.”
According to an editorial published in The Wall Street Journal, “Republican voters will have to decide if they want to choose the guy most likely to create a GOP loss and ultimate control for the radical left” in the event that Donald Trump continued with his presidential campaign.
Democrats and Republicans who are suspicious about Trump’s candidacy believe that the Republican Party has other candidates who may either be more persuasive to those in the center of the political spectrum in a general election, or at the very least bring into the campaign less baggage than Trump does.
Despite the fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is just as belligerent as Trump, he is not plagued by the same level of indiscipline nor by legal difficulties; in fact, he just won reelection with a 19-point margin in a state that is often quite competitive.
In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin won election as governor of the Democratic-leaning state of Virginia, just one year after Democrat Joe Biden won the state by a 10-point margin over Republican Donald Trump.
Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations and the leading female candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, is the daughter of Indian immigrants and would present a face for the party that is far more welcoming to people of many backgrounds.
It’s no secret that Democrats and commentators alike have been guilty of underestimating Trump in the past, most notably in 2016.
In many different contexts, many saw his run for office as nothing more than a joke or an attempt at self-promotion. The coverage of his campaign was moved to the “Entertainment” section of the Huffington Post’s website at one time after the publication made a pompous announcement that it would do so. A number of Democrats have expressed their belief that Trump does not stand a chance of winning.
Everyone is aware of the outcome of such situation.
The argument that Trump is the weakest link in the chain, on the other hand, has multiple new threads as of right now.
To begin, the former president is not well liked by the general population, despite the fact that he continues to have the ardent support of his core constituency.
An Economist-YouGov poll conducted between November 13 and November 15 indicated that 77 percent of Republican voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, while only 41 percent of the general population held the same opinion. An unfavorable impression of him was held by fifty-two percent of all adult respondents, which was significantly higher than the other probable candidates for the Republican nomination that the poll investigated.
Second, the fact that high-profile candidates who were backed by Trump in the midterm elections were ultimately unsuccessful has provided support to the viewpoint of those who believe the former president is a political liability.
Candidates for the Senate and governor who had Trump’s endorsement and who lost include Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, the candidates Trump supported for governor were Don Bolduc. The runoff election for the Senate that will take place in Georgia on December 6 will decide the destiny of another notable endorsee, the former football star Herschel Walker.
Then there is the connection between Donald Trump and the lingering legacy of January 6, 2021, the worst day in the recent history of the United States. Even the editorial page of the reliably conservative Journal agreed that “the tragic unrest will eternally taint his memory.” [Citation needed]
The uprising at the Capitol is just one of several elements that are contributing to the ocean of legal problems that Trump is facing.
Jack Smith was recently appointed as a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to take over the investigation into the events that occurred on January 6, as well as the separate inquiry into the sensitive documents that were recovered at Mar-a-Lago.
Indictments on criminal charges could be brought against Trump as a result of either of these investigations.
An investigation in Georgia into efforts by Trump and his associates to change the result of the 2020 election in that state might also be harmful to Trump’s reputation. During this time, the large class action lawsuit that Letitia James, the Democratic candidate for attorney general of New York, has filed against the Trump Organization is moving forward.
When all of these factors are considered, along with the voters who have just become tired of the havoc that is being caused by Trump, it is easy to see why Democrats and some Republicans find it difficult to envision a way for the former president to win back the White House.
Former Democratic Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe recently stated in an interview with Gray Television that “I think we would all like it if Donald Trump ran again.”
According to Republican pollster Glen Bolger, who was interviewed for this column, the fact that Donald Trump has substantial negatives makes it exceedingly difficult for him to gain a majority of the vote.
Despite all of this, Trump continues to hold the lead in polls of the probable field of candidates for the Republican Party in 2024.
It would appear that the Democrats will get their wish, but after it is granted, they will learn whether or not they should have been more attentive about what it was that they wanted for.