Unquestionably, Democrats are pursuing all available nonelectoral means to beat former President Donald Trump. Two of the most prominent and drawn-out involve the courts: indictments and trials across a host of matters and barring him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine. But what happens if Trump prevails in court?
Over the last eight years, Democrats have thrown everything at Trump but the kitchen sink. He has been investigated by a multitude of sources and the subject of congressional hearings, and he was impeached twice. Now, he is in the throes of four court cases involving various charges and has been removed from two state ballots.
To his opponents and critics, Trump has the polling numbers to prove their strategy’s efficacy. While Trump has a high floor of support, his opponents believe they have capped his ceiling. Or have they?
While prosecution can initially look bad on politicians, persecution can make the public look at them more sympathetically. Former President Bill Clinton’s approval ratings peaked in December 1998 while the House was moving to impeach him. Trump reached his approval summit in February 2020, right after the Senate acquitted him on impeachment charges for the first time.
Certainly, other factors were at play in both cases. But also certain was the public’s tendency to view politics by forceful means with a jaundiced eye.
The same could very well happen to Democrats’ court efforts against Trump. The harder they push, the more reluctant the public will be to give them the benefit of the doubt.
There is also the possibility of another outcome: What if Trump wins in some of these cases?
The ballot removal cases have the greatest possible effect on Trump’s 2024 fortunes. If states can unilaterally strike a candidate from their ballots, then other blue states will assuredly follow suit. The implications of such a move on this election and all future ones are tremendous. For this reason, the Supreme Court is likely to block these and any similar future attempts.
A Trump victory with the Supreme Court could be a boost. For most people, the Supreme Court not only carries weight but ends the discussion. Could it also shade the public’s view on Trump’s other court cases?
Moving to Trump’s civil and criminal cases, could the same rebound dynamic occur here, too? What if Trump is acquitted in even one of these? After that, would the majority of people tune out — if they have tuned in at all? Could they simply lump all four cases together (no one except hardcore politicos could now tell you what the four cases are about and where they are taking place) with one acquittal in their minds wiping the entire slate clean?
In sum, Democrats could very well be wrong. Trump’s ceiling may very well rise, and they will have provided him with the means to raise it.
It would not take much of a bump to put Trump’s opponent, President Joe Biden, in dire straits.
Biden’s difficulties have been the motivating factor for Democrats’ actions against Trump. After all, if Trump were an opponent Biden could easily beat, they would be doing all in their power to keep Trump on the ballot, not remove him.
But it is not Trump who has a weakness problem — it is Biden. According to RealClearPolitics’s average of national polling, Biden has an approval rating of just 39.8% (with 56% disapproval). Biden’s favorability rating is lower still, 38.9% (55.6 % unfavorable).
In national general election polls, Biden trails Trump 44.4% to 46% in head-to-head matchups. In multicandidate races, Biden frequently fares even worse. The latest Issues & Insights/TIPP poll, for example, shows Biden trailing Trump 40% to 41% head-to-head but 34% to 37% in its five-way poll.
And in the battleground states that will decide the election’s outcome, Biden is lagging further and further behind. Add on top of these bad numbers the fact that Biden needed a 4.4-percentage-point advantage in 2020 to eke out his narrow Electoral College victory, and Biden’s real polling deficit today is even greater than it appears.
With Biden’s numbers so precarious less than 10 months from the election, it is easy to see how Democrats could feel that their death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy offers only an upside. Like picadors in a bullfight, they aim to weaken the bull so much that even their weak matador could dispatch it. But what if, instead, the Democrats make the bull stronger, with Trump’s base even more motivated and other voters willing to reevaluate him?
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Instead of ending the 2024 campaign for Trump, favorable court rulings could end it for Biden. Under such a scenario, it is possible to see Biden, running even further behind, being forced into his weakest position — going before the public and the press, even as his son’s legal problems and his own possible involvement with them mount — and thereby opening himself up to the gaffes that have plagued him throughout his public life and presidency.
Democrats could find that instead of indicting Trump, they have inoculated him; that instead of removing Trump, their court strategy wound up routing Biden.
J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.