Weighing Donald Trump
An 800-pound gorilla in a jungle of 500-pound (or lighter) gorillas....
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Another day in our joint project to measure Donald Trump’s chances of being elected the Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2024 and of winning four more years in the Oval Office.
This effort is gritty, tough, exhilarating work, for neither the faint of heart nor the short of breath.
Some, including today’s New York Times, suggest this project is premature, even as the “data” pours in:
It is too soon to weigh the long-term effects on Mr. Trump’s latest candidacy of the current run of defeats and denunciations, especially given his long track record of weathering controversies.
And/but the same New York Times story, at war with itself, says this:
Mr. Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad three weeks appear to have called into question whether his seeming imperviousness to the normal rules of political gravity may have worn off at long last.
The political media is filled today with stories keying off the Georgia Senate race loss of Herschel Walker and other developments to suggest the fat lady is fully warmed up and has begun her aria.
In other words, the Trump Opera is about to end.
For the Times, it is about Trump’s “losses, legal setbacks and embarrassments,” highlighting his vulnerabilities,” as “the losses and embarrassments are rapidly piling up.”
A second Times piece on the same day (same topic!), quotes a leading Republican making an assertion (“’I think he’s less relevant all the time,’ Senator John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas” says), and posits, “Emerging from the midterms, the anti-Trump wing has plenty of ammunition to make its case for a break.”
Politico gets in on the act, citing “new questions about Trump’s political strength” and “mounting questions about whether the GOP is looking to move on — from suburban voters in Georgia to the party’s well-heeled donor set.”
There are two kinds of Republican Never-Again-Trumper quotes: Those that suggest the party should move on from Trump and those who claim, typically without actual evidence, that it has happened (or, at least, is happening).
Category #1:
“I know a lot of people in our party love the former president,” Senator Mitt Romney said on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, responding to Mr. Walker’s defeat. “But he’s, if you will, the kiss of death for somebody who wants to win a general election. And at some point, we’ve got to move on and look for new leaders that will lead us to win.”
Category #2:
Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist and former top adviser to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called the last three weeks “devastating for Trump’s future viability.”
“His rushed announcement, serious legal setbacks and the defeat of his handpicked Senate candidates — which once again cost the G.O.P. control of the Senate — have raised serious concerns with his donors and supporters,” Mr. Reed said.
“Abandonment,” he added, “has begun.”
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To help guide you through this process, here is what NOT to rely on in evaluating Trump’s current and future standing:
1. Anonymous quotes from “former Trump aides,” or “former Trump campaign officials” – even if they are characterized as “senior.”
2. What happens in Georgia (a singularly bad state for Trump for a variety of reasons) as representative of all of the Republican Party or the nation.
3. The views of anyone who gave money to Jeb Bush for anything ever.
4. Blind quotes from a “House Republican” or a “Senate Republican.”
5. The all-knowing pronouncements of Michael Beschloss, Paul Ryan, Jon Meacham, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, Sarah Longwell, either Scott (Jennings or Reed), or liberal Washington Post columnists or “reporters.”
6. Predictions that any criminal indictments (or other legal setbacks) will doom Trump’s chances of being nominated.
7. People who make more than $200,000 per year who assure you that “everyone” they know who voted for Trump in 2016 and/or 2020 are done with him.
8. People who say they just came back from a conference and “everyone” there is done with Trump.
9. People who assert, without evidence that “There is a big part of the Republican Party that is ready to move on.”
10. Those who calibrate John Thune quotes and see in small changes of anti-Trump rhetoric cosmic significance.
11. People who tell you that the Republican nomination is now “Ron DeSantis’ to lose,” before the guy has proven for even four minutes that he has the slightest idea how to run for president.
12. People who tell you that Trump is “a loser” and that the voters “increasingly see that.”
13. Reports that characterize the Trump campaign as a chaotic, backbiting, disorganized mess.
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Here are some things you should focus on.
1. This eye-catching Newt Gingrich quote from a New York Times interview:
“My greatest fear is that we’re going to end up in a 1964 division” that left Republicans crippled in Congress, he said in an interview Wednesday. “I can imagine a Trump-anti-Trump war over the next two years that just guarantees Biden’s re-election in a landslide and guarantees that Democrats control everything.”
Note: Gingrich has put a Biden landslide option on the table.
2. Whether Republican candidates in primaries in 2023 and 2024 see Trump’s endorsement as about the only factor determining whether they win the nomination or not (as nearly every GOP candidate felt in 2022).
3. David Byler’s Washington Post story on Trump’s reduced velocity on social media and cable TV.
4. Larry Kudlow’s chat with Kellyanne Conway, in which the former said this:
I want to clear the air. I want to get this out of here. I don’t understand what our former boss is doing. I love the guy, but I do not understand Kanye West, hanging out with White nationalists, hanging out with anti-Semitic people, talking about ending the Constitution or postponing the Constitution. I don’t get it. I don’t know why he’s saying it. And if he says it, why hasn’t he given, you know, apologized for it or corrected the record or something? Because he’s losing support left and right. I hear it everywhere. Help me.
5. The New York Times’ roundup of the latest Trump polling.
6. The size of Trump’s rallies, the quality of his staff, and the nature of his endorsements that matter in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
7. If Trump runs starting in January on the grievances of voters or on his own.
8. What actual voters around the country who make less than $200,000 per year say when you ask them. Please do that.
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ESSENTIAL READING
Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Saudi leaders Thursday and sign agreements worth more than $29 billion as this desert kingdom deepens ties with global partners, including U.S. rivals, amid doubts about Washington’s commitment to the Middle East.
No details about the deals were made available, but progress in talks about pricing some Saudi oil sales in yuan, which The Wall Street Journal reported accelerated this year, would draw intense U.S. scrutiny as would any new weapons deals or further cooperation on 5G and 6G telecommunications networks.
The Chinese leader is set to meet Thursday with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who runs the kingdom’s daily affairs, and his aging father, King Salman, before attending a large gathering of Gulf and Arab leaders on Friday. This trip will draw inevitable comparisons to Mr. Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia in July, during which he shared an awkward fistbump with Prince Mohammed that drew criticism back home over human rights.
Fresh off his party’s better-than-anticipated performance in the midterm elections, President Joe Biden is facing consistent but critical assessments of his leadership and the national economy.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 43% of U.S. adults say they approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 55% disapprove. That’s similar to October, just weeks before the Nov. 8 elections that most Americans considered pivotal for the country’s future.
Only about a quarter say the nation is headed in the right direction or the economy is in good condition. Both measures have been largely negative over the course of the year as inflation tightened its grip, but were more positive through much of Biden’s first year in office….
As in recent months, the new poll shows only a quarter of U.S. adults say economic conditions are good, while three-quarters call them bad. Nine in 10 Republicans, along with about 6 in 10 Democrats, say the economy is in bad shape.
