Donald Trump is running a very good campaign

An under-told story.

(Donald Trump)

With 6 months to go before the first votes of the 2024 Republican race are cast —January 15 in Iowa — there’s something that must be said: Donald Trump is running a highly effective campaign for president.

He is ahead of his nearest rival by 30 points in national polling. Although polling in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina has been scarce, Trump is ahead there as well. And he is using his significant financial resources to build real ground games in those early states too.

Trump has spent the last 6 months systematically taking apart Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — an effort that has clearly worked. (As recently as this weekend, DeSantis had to answer the always-dreaded questions about why his campaign hasn’t taken off yet.¹)

Despite being indicted twice, Trump has managed to make those criminal charges work in his favor — insisting that American public are truly the ones being prosecuted (and persecuted).

“Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage,” Trump said recently. “I’m being indicted for you. And I believe the 'you' is more than 200 million people that love our country.”

And then there are the general election polls — all of which show that, nationally at least, the potential race between Trump and President Joe Biden is effectively a toss up at this point.

If any other Republican candidate was in such a position or close to it — in the primary and the general election — we would be raving about the way he (or she) had effectively turned what once looked like a competitive race into a coronation. And praising the candidate — and the people behind the candidate.

Trump, because he is Trump, doesn’t get that same treatment. Because he still is a wildcard as candidate and a campaigner. Because he still says and does things that are literally the opposite of the way “Campaigning 101” would say to do it. Because, well, he is under two indictments!

And yet, from a purely campaign nuts and bolts perspective, there is absolutely no doubt that the race Trump is currently running is head and shoulders better than the primary race he ran back in 2016.

That is, admittedly, a low bar.

Trump’s 2016 campaign — and the people who populated its upper echelons — were the equivalent of the Star Wars bar of political operatives. They were, by and large, casts offs, has been and never weres — people who couldn’t get a senior role on any other campaign and so were left kicking around when Trump went hiring.

The campaign was disorganized, fractious and unprofessional. It regularly made news for its infighting, its narrow-mindedness and its lack of any sort of organizing principles. In that race, Trump won in spite of his campaign, not because of it.

All of that drama and disorganization is gone. And that’s thanks to the twin heads of Trump’s 2024 effort: Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

Both are longtime operatives — LaCivita came to national prominence running Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 campaign, Wiles has been a fixture in Florida politics for decades. (Fun fact: Wiles is the daughter of legendary NFL announcer Pat Summerall.)

And, unlike the vast majority of Trump’s 2016 staff, both are serious people with track records of success. And both have had successes before and entirely separate from Trump.

They are, in a word, grownups. You haven’t heard a single story about the power struggle at the top of the campaign. Or their disagreements or frustrations with the candidate or other staffers. The entire focus of the campaign has been on — and this is novel — figuring out how to get Trump elected.

And, judging from his first 8-ish months as a candidate, Trump appears willing to listen to their guidance. He has been more on message and focused than at any point in the 2016 race — and even much of the 2020 campaign.

Now. This is Trump we are talking about. “More focused” for him is a whole hell of a lot less focused than any more traditional candidate. He still spends hours delivering campaign speeches in which he goes off the teleprompter for long swaths. His Truth Social account — like his Twitter account in 2016 — is still a bit haphazard, veering way off message at times.

But, in the main, Trump has effectively driven two messages in the campaign to date:

1. The Justice Department — and various other rogue prosecutors — are out to get him because the strength of his candidacy poses a threat to them

2. Ron DeSantis is a terrible candidate whose entire career is due to Trump endorsing him in 2018.

Both of those messages have successfully sunk into the Republican electorate. Which means that Trump is winning.

It’s easy to focus on the DeSantis’ disappointment or the slow-to-start campaigns of Nikki Haley and Tim Scott when talking about the 2024 Republican race. And those are stories worth pursuing!

But so too is the fact that Trump has done a lot right so far this year to consolidate support behind his candidacy. He looked FAR more vulnerable to a primary challenge in January than he does today. And that’s a credit to the campaign he has run.

1. “The media does not want me to be the nominee,” DeSantis told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “I think that's very, very clear. Why? Because they know I will beat Biden. But, even more importantly, they know I will actually deliver on all these things.”