Trump Shouldn’t Be Winning

An improbable candidate is favored to win next week

Data guru Nate Silver predicts Donald Trump will win the 2024 election. “My gut says Donald Trump [wins the election],” he wrote in the New York Times last week. “And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats.”

Silver did warn readers they should be wary about gut instincts with this election considering how close the polling is and how likely they may be wrong again. However, things do look good for Trump. He’s leading Kamala in the polls. Silver’s own model favors Trump to win, as do the betting markets. Early voting results are trending Republican. 

It’s no guarantee that Trump wins next week, but the signs look much better for him than they did in the lead-up to the 2016 and 2020 elections. In those elections, Democrats had an overwhelming advantage in the lead-up to Election Day. That’s no longer the case.

Some may think the election is now Trump’s to lose. But that’s the wrong way of looking at this. Trump should not be close to winning considering what’s happened to him over the last four years. Yet, this election forecast looks better for him than what anyone would’ve expected just a year ago.

Let’s remember Trump’s timeline since the last presidential election. He was effectively deposed from office following January 6. He couldn’t even tweet in his last days as president due to being banned from every social media platform. Many elected Republicans condemned Trump following J6 and several among them considered voting for his impeachment. It seemed like once Trump left the White House his political future would be over. He faced historically low approval ratings, a second impeachment, a likely criminal investigation, and no ability to speak to the public (YouTube would even censor his speeches). 

However, he did retain his status as the leader of the Republican Party. While many Republicans, including heavyweights such as Mitch McConnell, considered supporting Trump’s second impeachment, only 10 House Republicans and a handful of GOP senators cast their vote for it. Nearly all of the impeaching House Republicans paid a heavy political price for it. In the 2022 primaries, Trump re-established himself as the central figure of the American Right. Candidates desperately competed for his endorsements as it usually sealed victory for the endorsee. Trump made sure that those who voted for his impeachment lost their primary races. Republicans returned to praising Trump and proclaiming themselves Trumpian. All of this occurred while Trump could neither tweet nor post to Facebook.

But new problems emerged right after the midterms. The GOP and the conservative commentariat blamed Trump for the disappointing election results. Republicans returned to publicly criticizing Trump, with some demanding the party “move on” and pick someone else for 2024. The Koch network and other powerful institutions lined up behind Trump’s primary challengers. Conservative media even turned on him; Fox News started gushing over the Donald’s rivals for the nomination while ignoring the former president.

All the while Trump’s legal problems turned into an avalanche. He was indicted four separate times in 2023. He suffered defeat in a civil trial over a woman who accused him of rape. It’s unprecedented for a former president to face such legal scrutiny. 

Yet, his legal problems helped him rally his faithful on the Right. His polling among GOP voters climbed to commanding heights after his first indictment and the additional ones only increased his popularity. Trump’s conviction over his payout to Stormy Daniels didn’t diminish his numbers at all.

It may not be surprising that Republicans stuck with Trump through his legal ordeals–but it is remarkable that his conviction and indictments seemed to not bother ordinary voters. 

It’s the first time a convicted soon-to-be felon and twice-impeached former president has run for commander-in-chief. For other people, these factors would derail any hopes of moving into the White House. But they don’t even matter in this election. The Democrats are hardly drawing attention to Trump’s legal problems, preferring to revive the “fascist” charges against the Republican nominee. 

On top of all this, the Democrats boast a massive money advantage this year. In September, Harris raised over three times the amount of cash than Trump did. 

But the money advantage seems to be not much help in the polls. 

How is Trump this close to pulling off an improbable victory? Some of this is a result of Trump himself and changing cultural attitudes towards him. Woke has worn off a bit and Trump is less “toxic” in the public eye than when he was president. People aren’t that worked up about the Donald like they used to be. He’s accepted as part of the new normal in politics and his various legal issues are met with a shrug. 

Trump also has the perfect enemies. The Biden administration has been a disaster on all fronts, especially on Trump’s signature issue of immigration. The migrant invasion has pushed Americans closer to Trump on the matter, with a firm majority now backing mass deportations and more Americans wanting fewer immigrants overall. The people want this crisis solved and they know the Democrats will only make it worse.

Kamala Harris is also a terrible candidate and makes Trump preferable in comparison. She is a better candidate than Joe Biden simply because she can form sentences and walk unassisted. But there’s more needed than that to be a winning candidate. She’s profoundly awkward and inauthentic. There’s a good reason she has the lowest approval rating of any vice president in history. She hasn’t dispelled that unlikable image on the campaign trail. 

While Kamala did tighten the race through her impressive ability to differentiate Zelensky from Putin, she did not turn out to be the savior Democrats imagined. Forecasts predict she will lose to the twice-impeached Donald Trump. 

Looking at all of Trump’s disadvantages and obstacles, he shouldn’t win. But the polls paint a different picture. He would not just beat Kamala if he wins. He would also beat social media censorship, legal persecution at the federal and local level, hostility from the GOP establishment, media hysteria, multiple assassination attempts, and fundraising woes. It would be the biggest upset in American politics, as well as the most serious blow to liberals in living memory–even bigger than 2016.

That alone should make you want Trump to win.