The former president, Donald J. Trump, is running around telling Republican voters that he alone can defeat the Democrats in the 2024 Presidential Election. Anyone who would question the forty-fifth president’s statement is considered a stooge of the globalist, neoliberal, neoconservative elite.
The GOP, for its part, is stuck between a toupee and an orange face.
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After all, Donald Trump can probably win a GOP Primary easily. He cannot win a General Election at all—this is especially the case if, as the former president and many Republican voters believe, the elections are totally rigged.
Heck, if they’re as rigged against the GOP (and, specifically, the MAGA coalition) as Trump says, then why is he even running?
Applying logic to these controversies is rarely what one hoping to retain an audience for their writings is supposed to do. Not when people want to feel like they’re fighting for truth, justice, and the other things, too (rather than actually fighting for these notable ideals in their daily lives, at their local community level).
Whatever. I digress.
If we are to assume that at least some of the election is going to be legitimate (again, as Trump must since he’s running for president once more), we should also analyze the polling data. Of course, polling data can be inaccurate, and it can be misleading.
Yet, it is still a worthwhile endeavor because it can give us insights into where the country is at the moment.
Trump’s Numbers in the Toilet
According to a recent ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted between April 6-7 of this year (involving 566 adults), Donald Trump’s favorability ratings are in the toilet—and they’ve gotten even lower. Whereas in March of this year, Trump had a 29 percent favorability rating, a month later, he lost four points and found himself hovering around a pathetic 25 percent.
Meanwhile, his unfavorable rating was even worse. In that same poll, A whopping 56 percent of Americans in March said that they had an unfavorable view of the forty-fifth president. The following month, those Americans gave Trump a 61 percent unfavorable rating, increasing Trump’s negatives by a factor of six points.
I cannot think of any politician running for reelection in the modern age who would believe these numbers are good for their campaign. This means that only one in four Americans have a favorable view of Trump.
As an aside, an Emerson poll conducted in March of this year shows that 72 percent of all Republican voters polled favor Donald Trump as their nominee.
What happened in between March and April, when these numbers—already low for a potential presidential candidate seriously hoping to win election—plummeted to what they are now?
Trump’s indictment (what could be the first of many) for what, let’s face it, are overwrought charges brought by a politically motivated district attorney in Manhattan.
Now, we don’t know whether the 566 adults polled were voters or planned to vote. Yet, these numbers will likely reflect the numbers in a spate of polls that are slated to come out over the next week. Trumpworld is likely to do its best to sweep this fact under the rug to preserve their boss’ inflated self-image.
Cover it all up as the courtiers at Mar-a-Lago may wish to do, but reality is reality. The fact is, Donald Trump can win the primary and decisively lose the general election.
Related to the Trump indictment is another Ipsos poll indicating that half of Americans polled believe that the former president did something illegal which warranted his indictment. Although, ABC-Ipsos found that 47 percent—a minority—of Americans polled believed that Trump’s indictment was politically motivated (to be clear, it was).
The numbers presented in this poll are the kind of figures one would see for a fringe candidate, not the most likely nominee for a major political party in a presidential election cycle. This is a nightmare for anyone on the Right who wants to have a chance at winning.
These numbers, by the way, are unlikely to improve—not because the “polls are rigged”, but because ordinary voters are tired of the endless Trump show of name-calling, investigations (whether fair or not), and other distracting controversies.
We can theorize about the intentions of pollsters, the biases of the media, and corruption of our political elite—all of which are true—but at the end of the day, clearly, Trump is deeply unpopular outside of the GOP.
It’s All About the General Election
Sure, once the General Election gets underway, it becomes a dyadic choice: either Trump or Biden (or whoever is the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2024). But, as 2020 showed, Trump’s unfavorable ratings are so massive that his mere presence on the debate stage could turn most voters away.
Trump did many good things as president, particularly in foreign policy and in trade. So long as the economy ran smoothly—and it did under Trump—most Americans were inclined to ignore his erratic behavior on social media and his perceived bullying while in Washington, D.C.
Over time, though, voters grew tired of the Trump Show.
What’s more, they were unforgiving of Trump’s antics once the economy collapsed due to the Trump Administration’s embrace of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s draconian COVID-19 pandemic prevention policies.
Republicans Need to Slow Down on Donald Trump
Nominating Trump in 2024 as the GOP nominee will make all those Republican voters who understandably want to resist the obvious totalitarianism of the Democratic Party feel good about themselves. His nomination, though, will do little to further the MAGA cause. More than that, it will ensure that even a horrific president, such as the sclerotic octogenarian, Joe Biden, stands a great chance at beating Donald Trump in the 2024 General Election.
Republican voters should ask themselves why the Democrats appear so giddy to ensure that Trump is the center of the nation’s attention. It is likely because he is a massive drag on the ticket.
The primary election is also still far off.
We have time to figure out who should be our nominee. There’s no reason to jump right back into Trump just because he prematurely launched his campaign in November last year (after presiding over a massive defeat for the GOP in the 2022 Midterms).
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If the Republicans get 2024 wrong by placing an unelectable candidate to compete in the general election, such as Trump, then it might not only be the end of the GOP as a viable national party, but it will ensure Democratic Party dominance in our national politics for at least a generation.
Republicans should take their time before deciding on Donald Trump and weigh their options.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (May 16), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
