New developments make it wiser for Trump to withdraw from 2024 race
Quin Hillyer
New poll results and new legal developments, among other factors, should make Donald Trump decide it is in his best interests not to run for president again, after all, in 2024.
First, the polls: Trump would never have been president if it weren’t for New Hampshire — where he saved his 2016 campaign by winning the primary after losing the Iowa caucuses — and Alabama, where multiple public rallies established him as a crowd sensation. Now, though, both places are inhospitable.
DESANTIS BACKHANDS TRUMP WITH PERFECT COMEBACK: I GOT REELECTED
A week ago, a multicandidate poll of Republican voters in New Hampshire showed Trump trailing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 42% to 30%. Worse, Trump actually falls to third place there, also behind current New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, when voters are asked for their second choice. In Alabama, meanwhile, which for four years was the Trumpiest of Trump states, a poll reported this week showed DeSantis ahead of Trump in a two-way contest, 50-31.
If Trump can’t win in either of those states, he probably can’t win anywhere. The question is, why would Trump want to give voters a chance to stamp him as an unexpurgated loser? Right now, by contrast, he can leave politics while still claiming he really won in 2020, with 25% of the public believing him.
’Tis far better merely to be debatably a loser than to prove it categorically.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to be beleaguered by court cases and investigations aplenty. In New York, he took the Fifth Amendment some 400 times in a deposition for a case accusing him of fraud. In another New York case, a grand jury two days ago was asked to consider criminal charges related to money he paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels. In Georgia, he apparently faces imminent criminal charges in an election subversion case. And, of course, a Department of Justice special counsel is investigating his willful refusal to turn over documents, including many dozens with classified markings, to the National Archives as required by law.
All along, Trump has acted as if he believes his best way to “beat the rap” (or “raps,” plural) is to get elected president again. The thought is that power is the ultimate trump card (pun not intended).
Increasingly, the greater likelihood is that he has it backward: His pursuit of renewed power is part of what makes him a target. Trump seems to truly believe the investigations against him are all politically motivated. Well, if that’s so, then the way to remove the motivation is to remove the political incentives. If Trump is no threat to take office again, his scalp is less valuable to prosecutors, and the sympathy he could elicit from jurors would be greater. His effective appeal to jurors could be, “Why are they still persecuting me? Do they hate and fear me so much, because I did such a great job draining the swamp, that they can’t let go even when I just want to retire in peace?”
Finally, the ultimate question is, why would Trump really want to be president again from ages 78-82? Wasn’t the presidency a major headache the first time? Wasn’t he consistently disappointed that everybody around him turned into (in his mind) a moron? Did he really enjoy the constant harassment, the intense pressure, and the extensive and intrusive 24-hour security requirements to ward off assassination threats galore?
If Trump finds an excuse to withdraw from the 2024 race, he rides into a golfing sunset with his narrative intact and legal troubles minimized. If he runs, he faces problem upon problem — not just turtles, but problems, all the way down.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER