by Jack Le Moine
As of this date, Donald Trump is all but certain to run for re-election in 2020. Can he win? While his poll numbers look iffy there will be a Democrat on the ballot, too. Voters will be matching his/her defects against Donald Trump’s. That will be a whole different matter than just looking at Trump’s defects in isolation. Voters can and frequently do vote for who they dislike the least.
This is a major point. Voters may not like Trump but may vote for him anyway because they dislike the Democrat’s nominee even worse.
But what if Donald Trump does not make it out of the Republican Convention? Then all calculations about the 2020 election changes. How can that happen?
Public domain image from White House.
If he’s impeached then Mike Pence becomes the new President. Suddenly, Republican chances of winning the general election in November goes up – way up. Why?
First, Trump’s supporters will be angry and therefore energized. – Major base turnout for the Republicans.
Second, independent voters will be concerned about the fairness of the process. What the Kavanaugh fight showed, when it comes to attacking Republicans, perception of fairness differs dramatically between Democrats and the rest of the country. They will break for the Republicans.
Third, Democratic leaders such as Maxine Waters will immediately talk up impeaching Mike Pence. They have already said they would. Moreover, why would the Democrats want to substitute Pence for Trump to begin with? Impeaching them both makes the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the new President. Absent a clear case against the Vice-President, won’t this confirm suspicions that the whole impeachment act was more about politics than about wrongdoing?
My conclusion: Impeach Trump this year; ensure Republican victory next year.
For Republican voters in the caucuses and primaries, Donald Trump has two vulnerabilities: (1) his sleazy personal behavior and (2) Helsinki, his record on protecting America’s elections from foreign governments and other foreign entities. A challenger could use these two issues as core and then base other criticisms off of them.
The sleaze factor. Donald Trump has had womanizing problems in the past (e.g. Marla Maples) and the porn stars could have been put in that category but for the hush-money payments just before the 2016 election. While making this a criminal matter was a stretch, it should be a political matter — if effectively addressed by a challenger. Republican voters, especially those on the Religious Right do care about personal morality.
Helsinki. During his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and immediately upon his return, President Trump discounted the Russian threat. In response to the uproar, he reversed his statements and announced that he does that the Russian and other foreign threats seriously.
Republicans have been concerned about the Russian threat for decades. A challenger who based protecting America’s democracy based on principle rather than public relations will have an effective line of attack.
Effective use by a Republican primary challenger would involve comparing Trump’s weakness on national security to the Democratic leaders record on this issue. For example, in the election just before this last one, President Obama dismissed the Russian threat, too. – And it was him, not Donald Trump who was President during the 2016 elections and in control of the means to stop the Russians.
It will take the right kind of challenger to defeat Donald Trump in the primaries. One who has antagonized the Conservatives, especially the Religious Right, will not be in a position to mobilize these constituencies against Trump and on their behalf. A wrong candidate will leave Trump, for all of his flaws, as the lesser of two evils.
My conclusion: The big questions then are these. (1) Are two core issues enough or will it require a strike three and (2) who is the candidate who can use them to win?
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