What is the plan, Trump?
Brady Leonard
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Former President Donald Trump is notoriously a man of many words, as are his multitudes of surrogates and supporters. The 45th president and his team have had quite a bit to say recently about the mental state of special counsel Jack Smith, “disloyal” Ron “DeSanctimonious,” “sloppy” Chris Christie, and a lot of other things, but we have yet to hear the answer to the billion-dollar question: What exactly would be different in a second matchup against President Joe Biden?
Perhaps the former president feels he can win with a rerun of his failed 2020 campaign since he is convinced that the last election was stolen. “First of all, I won in 2020, by a lot,” Trump told Fox News’s Bret Baier in June. “Let’s get that straight. I won in 2020.”
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Even if you believe that the Kraken still exists in Lin Wood’s basement and Fox settled a $787 million defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems just for kicks, only 30% of voters agree with Trump’s assessment of the 2020 election. Trump’s approval rating is currently more than 16 points underwater, and his campaign is bogged down financially by legal bills stemming from three (and counting) indictments facing the former president. Trump will be fighting an uphill fundraising battle and will be tied up in court instead of shaking hands and kissing babies in the Midwest. Again, what is the plan?
RealClearPolitics has Biden’s approval rating 4 points higher than Trump’s and shows Biden narrowly leading nationally, but the swing states may prove even more perilous. Barring an unforeseen regional political realignment, the 2024 presidential election will come down to the five swing states Trump lost in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Trump must win at least three of these states to be sworn in for a second term in January 2025.
Trump is currently within the margin of error in Arizona, but voters in the Grand Canyon State repeated their rejection of the 45th president by giving Democrats a clean sweep in the 2022 midterm elections. With failed gubernatorial candidate and Trump sycophant Kari Lake set to announce another statewide run, Trump-fatigued voters would have to reverse a now yearslong leftward trend. On paper, Georgia should be a no-brainer, but two hard-left Democratic senators and a feud with popular Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) should give you pause if you would prefer Biden to be a one-term president.
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Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were unmitigated disasters for the GOP in the midterm elections. All three states have Democratic governors and Democrat-controlled state legislatures. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), perhaps the worst of the COVID-19 tyrants, blew out her Trump-backed opponent by double digits, and Pennsylvanians rejected Trumpism so thoroughly that they dismissed Trump’s hand-picked candidate, Dr. Oz, in favor of a man who had recently lost the ability to communicate.
We hear plenty of lofty rhetoric from Trump and his staff, but talk is cheap: Rhetoric, insults, memes, and five bucks will get you little more than a gallon of gas in Biden’s America. It would be terrific if the Republican front-runner would give some signal that he is even willing to make the adjustments needed to run a campaign capable of taking down the president, the oldest and one of the most corrupt in history.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.