Trump and the 2024 Election

It is rumored that Trump will announce his candidacy by this summer.

Midterm elections are scheduled for November in the U.S. that will determine seats in the House and Senate, as well as state governorships. The 2024 presidential campaign is heating up, and current polls from June and July reveal some important developments.

First, support for Joe Biden is at an all-time low at roughly 36% to 37% according to data from July polls by Reuters/Ispos, InsiderAdvantage and Rasmussen Report.

Second, polls in June and July showed that around three-fourths of American voters believe their country is headed in the wrong direction. Even at its worst moments, the Donald Trump administration did not face such a negative response. The deteriorating economy is being pinned on Biden’s liberal progressive leadership and a “green obsession” that has disrupted important projects (such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline) and interfered with America’s gas and oil drilling, which boomed under the Trump administration.

Third, polls that until a few months ago showed congressional elections hanging in the balance now show the Republican Party in the lead.

You should know that it is an unspoken rule in American politics that the party of the president loses the majority in either the House or the Senate during midterm elections. The president’s party has only prevailed four times in the midterms, most recently during Trump’s presidency in 2018. In other words, there is a tailwind blowing for the Republican Party.

The fourth development has to do with Trump’s potential presidential run for reelection in 2024. Emerson College Polling reported on July 1 that Trump would win a contest with Biden by five points. A Harvard-Harris poll similarly showed Trump would win by six points. Polls have never shown such favorable results for Trump. They either showed the candidates were polling equally, or showed a slight preference for one or the other candidate. There is steady support among Republican voters for a Trump candidacy in 2024, falling to a low of 50% and a high of 65%. The latest Harvard-Harris poll on July 2 showed that Trump’s approval rate is at 56%, while the other possible candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is behind at 40%.

And if we were to consider who the Democratic nominee will be 2024, it’s no exaggeration to say that the central political question will be whether Trump will run.

In an article I wrote for Labor on March 1, 2021, titled “The Trump Doctrine Recharge” during the first weeks of Biden’s term, I pointed out what the main points of Trump’s strategy would be going forward. We can already see that Trump is methodically implementing these plans. Let me remind you what Trump’s strategy is.

The first step is to take control of the Republican Party. The second step is to gain control of at least one house of Congress in 2022.

Third, Trump plans to win the presidential election himself on 2024 or see that a candidate loyal to him win, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Florida Gov. DeSantis.

Let’s see how things have progressed. Trump has maintained support within the Republican Party and outside of it. The MAGA movement continues to be a main factor in American politics. Not only did Trump not resign like another president, but he has remained politically active at rallies and public events. He managed to push aside many of his Republican opponents and helped strip them of congressional appointments. The first Republican Party primary will take place in Wyoming in August, where his biggest opponent Liz Cheney will continue to fight for political survival. Cheney voted to impeach Trump, which drove her disapproval rating up from 25% to 75% among Republicans in her home state of Wyoming. Overall, 67% of Republicans believe that any Republican congresswoman who supported Trump’s impeachment should be removed from office. Her involvement in leading the investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021 is also working to her detriment. The outcome of the midterm elections will be critical to the success of a Trump presidential campaign.

Normally, presidential campaigns are announced after the November midterm elections, although Trump himself announced his first run for office on June 16, 2015. In a new development, people are calling on Trump to declare his candidacy for 2024 this summer in order to stymie the campaigns of other candidates, most notably DeSantis, who, according to New Hampshire polling, has as much support locally if not nationally as Trump. It will be more important to preempt the attacks expected on Trump as a result of the partisan congressional investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

We don’t know if Trump will make such a move or stick to his original plans. The argument against an early announcement posits that it would completely change the focus of the congressional campaigns. Republicans are now attacking policies, but the announcement of a Trump candidacy would turn the election into a referendum on Trump. That does not sit well with a large number of Republican candidates.

In addition, once Trump declares his candidacy, restrictive campaign finance rules come into effect, depriving Trump of the freedom to use his own multimillion dollar campaign fund. Of course, he could withdraw from the race or there might be unforeseen circumstances that interfere with his campaign (such as the possibility he will be arrested in the fall on charges of obstructing justice). If that came to pass, then Trump could support a candidate loyal to him with similar objectives, including the aforementioned DeSantis, Cruz, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party has a slim chance of prevailing given its allegiance to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Rep. Cheney.

Accordingly, the reality is that Trump and his doctrine continue to define the American political scene.

And even though it is early, we shouldn’t underestimate the possibility he will return to the White House.