Andy makes a compelling case as to why Donald Trump can’t win a general election. For all the reasons he states and a few more, I agree he faces long odds. But I would not go as far as Andy does in ruling out the possibility that Trump could pull off another upset.
In the boxing world, there’s a term known as “a puncher’s chance.” In effect, it means that in some matches, where one boxer is clearly the superior fighter and heavily favored, people will still say that the underdog could always find an opening and land a solid blow to win a fight. This is how I view presidential politics. In a divided country with a two-party system, I will give pretty much any major party nominee a puncher’s chance just for being in the ring.
Once the dust settles on the primary and the race becomes a matchup of one party versus another, an overwhelming majority of voters won’t hesitate to vote for the side they agree with on most things over the side that they disagree with on most things. So whoever the Republican nominee is will start off with a baseline of about 45 percent of the popular vote and around 200 electoral votes. The campaign will then be decided by about a half dozen states. No doubt, Trump will have a hard time flipping states he lost in 2020, especially in Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, where voters have demonstrated they have no patience for “stop the steal” garbage. But a corollary of making the case that “Trump can’t win” is to believe that Biden can’t lose to him. I don’t believe that.
While Trump is no spring chicken, Biden is four years older, and showing his age much more. Further mental decline is quite possible, especially under the strains of a long campaign which he cannot do from his basement as he did during the Covid year. The economy appears to have averted a recession, but Biden’s approval rating on the economy is down to 34 percent. While inflation is growing at a slower rate, prices have still gone up cumulatively by 17 percent since he took office, and they are not going back down. The Hunter Biden scandal is getting worse and increasingly looking like a Joe Biden scandal. And this doesn’t even get into the X-factor of unknown events that could cut against Biden.
If I were a bookmaker, I would put very low odds on Trump becoming president again. But I’d be too worried about losing my shirt to give him zero chance.