Yes, Donald Trump can *absolutely* win again

Doubters need to look at the numbers.

(Donald Trump)

The number one question I get asked when people find out what I do for a living is this: Can he actually win again?

The “he” here is implied — it’s former president Donald Trump. And the question is one that is on the mind of all Americans — some out of fear for what a 2nd Trump term might mean, others in hopes of a glorious return to the White House for the former president.

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Yes, Trump can absolutely win.

Now, let’s go through the “why.”

Start here: Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

We can debate whether Trump can ultimately beat back the challenge from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has the most credible path to defeating him. But there’s no real fight over whether Trump — today — is the leader of the pack.

Just look at his movement versus DeSantis’ of late:

Trump has been strengthening in recent months — even as it seems clearer and clearer that he will be charged, at some point in the near future, with a crime tied to the payment of hush money to a porn star alleging an affair between the two.

At this point, I think it’s an open debate as to the politics of a Trump indictment.

In a primary fight, it’s probably a positive — allowing Trump to make the case that he is the victim, the target of an out-of-control liberal establishment doing whatever it can to keep him from office.

In the longer term — aka a general election — it strikes me as a net negative, reinforcing the sense among independent voters that Trump is simply not worth the risk required in voting for him.

But, let’s stay focused on the primary because until Trump wins that there’s no point in gaming out what a general election looks like. And, again, Trump is the most likely nominee.

Which means that he is the frontrunner to be the nominee of one of the two major parties in a country that is somewhere close to evenly divided. (Joe Biden won with 51.3% of the overall popular vote in 2020; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 while narrowly losing the electoral college.)

Now, the general election — solely because it’s so far off and we have no real way of knowing what the political environment will look like at that point — is a tougher thing to predict.

But, let’s just look — for the sake of argument — at where polling puts a Trump/Biden race right now. Here’s the polling average via Real Clear Politics:

Pretty, pretty close.

And, a quick scan of most recent polls seems to provide one obvious outlier — the Susquehanna University survey that has Biden up 13 points on Trump. (NO ONE — including the entire White House staff — thinks Biden would beat Trump by 13 points.)

Re-average the polls without the Susquehanna result and Trump actually leads on average.

There’s other data out there that suggests Biden is decidedly vulnerable. A new Associated Press/ NORC poll shows the president’s approval rating at just 38% — very close to the lowest ebb of presidency. (Biden was at 36% approval in the AP/NORC poll last July.)

That’s lower than Biden’s average in RCP. But that number is just 43% approval. Not great.

It’s also worth noting that the AP/NORC poll showed that a meager 31% approve of how Biden has handled the economy, regularly the most important voting issue for a majority of voters.

So, the incumbent president of the United States has a job approval rating in the low 40s (at best) and, on the issue likely to be the biggest decider for voters, his numbers are even worse than that.

Not so good! And ripe, one would think, for a challenge from a former president of the United States — albeit one with major problems of his own.

Biden himself seems aware of the very real possibility of a Trump win next November. A Reuters piece on questions (still) surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance in office published Thursday includes these lines:

[Biden] is also convinced that neither Harris nor any other Democratic hopefuls would be able to beat former President Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee, a factor that has influenced Biden's inclination to run again, one former White House official said.

It’s also important to remember that Trump represents an asymmetric political threat. He is hard to run against because he is willing to say and do anything, anywhere at any time.

If you need a reminder of what I mean, just watch the, er, highlights from the first presidential debate in 2020 between Biden and Trump.

None of this is to say Trump will win.

He is damaged goods (or worse) for a large swath of the electorate — including many independents, who he lost by double digits to Biden in 2020.

He faces the very likely possibility of an indictment for his conduct in regards Stormy Daniels and the 2016 campaign.

He remains his own worst enemy, demonstrating even today — via his Truth Social website — an inability to control himself or come even close to staying on message about, well, anything.

But, the reality is that Trump is a known commodity. Much of his wild behavior is already baked in to how people feel about him. And, even with all of that, he remains the favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee — and is something close to an even-money bet to be elected president again in November 2024.

So, yes, he can win. Period.