Is Donald Trump Really Un-Electable? Or Does He Have a Chance in 2024? – According to a recent Monmouth Poll, former President Donald J. Trump, who is again running for reelection and seeking the GOP nomination in 2024, has a favorability rating among U.S. adults of only 36 percent. A far greater number—63 percent—hold a negative view of Mr. Trump. This, in spite of the deep unpopularity that Trump’s Democratic Party rival, President Joe Biden, holds among the American people.
In fact, in Monmouth’s assessment, Trump’s unpopularity has reached historically high levels.
Trump still holds high favorability ratings among likely Republican Party voters.
Plus, the forty-fifth president retains a double-digit lead over his other rivals for the GOP nomination—including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is the only real challenger to the former president.
Sadly for DeSantis, his numbers have been tanking since making his official announcement last month.
The Monmouth Poll should not be written off.
Trump consistently has proven himself to be unpopular among American voters. Further, he’s having difficulty, when compared with Biden, in generating funding. Sure, he’s dominating the Republican field with small-ticket donations. But Biden raised $72 million this quarter compared to Trump’s measly $35 million.
What these polls and fundraising issues indicate is that Trump’s path to the White House is far from clear. This, despite the fact that most Americans feel the country is on the wrong track under Biden and that Biden is deeply unpopular.
Don’t Get To Excited, Donald Trump
At the same time, though, those opposed to Trump should be careful not to spike the ball too early.
After all, the first election in the GOP Primary this cycle is not until January 15, 2024. The first GOP debate is August 23. There’s much that could go wrong—or right—for Trump. He could have a viral moment that resonates deeply with voters, increasing his popularity.
Trump might be indicted—again—for either Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s role in the January 6 riots or for Trump’s alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 election countin Georgia. Trump might, therefore, garner sympathy from voters who believe he’s been unfairly targeted by a politicized DOJ.
More than that, national polls are usually not as accurate in determining a candidate’s possible success in an election than statewide polls are. A nation of 321 million different people is usually hard to capture in one snapshot, such as national polls attempt to do. They’re not totally useless. But they rarely accurately predict where things are going—especially this early in the election process.
At a more granular level, Trump is doing far better than what most analysts would have predicted in key swing states.
This is precisely what happened in 2016, by the way. Everyone assumed that Hillary Clinton would dominate Trump in that year’s election. All the national polls showed that Trump would get humiliated by Clinton.
Yet just the opposite happened.
That was primarily because the media and most polling agencies missed the movement toward Trump among key demographics in a handful of swing states. Hillary Clinton’s fabled “Blue Wall” states that would never vote for the Orange Man suddenly reversed course and went into Trump’s column on election night 2016.
Trump won because a group of swing voters decided to swing their respective states away from Hillary Clinton, who they believed had taken their votes for granted, and for Donald Trump, who fought for every vote in 2016.
As it turns out, swing voters are taking a liking to Trump in key swing states. So, we might have a repeat of 2016 on our hands, only with Joe Biden playing the role of Hillary Clinton.
(Again, I say “might” because Trump has a long way to go between now and November 5, 2024).
Joe Biden is More Competitive Than Hillary Clinton
Joe Biden isn’t Hillary Clinton. Biden can appeal to voters in ways that Hillary Clinton never could. That makes Biden, in his own unique way, more competitive against Trump than Hillary ever could have been.
Heck, Trump might still lose to Ron DeSantis (although that’s looking increasingly unlikely at this point in the GOP race). Should he win the nomination, though, Trump will have to contend with the fact that the Democrats are united behind their candidate and that Biden has inherent advantages among key minority demographics. Many sources indicate this unique coalition is “fraying”, though.
Trump still does poorly with women voters and most other minorities. The black vote, for example, turned out bigly for Joe Biden in 2020, which helped to put Biden over-the-top then. Biden might be able to overcome whatever swing state advantages Trump has by simply outnumbering those swing voters with his own coalition of minority votes.
The Source of Trump’s Unpopularity: Himself
Frankly, none of this would be an issue if Donald Trump wasn’t so controversial and unpopular. Now, some of Trump’s unpopularity is a direct result of the mainstream media waging ceaseless, mostly unfair assassinations of his character.
Some of the unpopularity, though, is from Trump’s own missteps. He has a tendency to run his mouth and to act as a particularly divisive individual in public, which turns off some voters who’d otherwise be open to voting for him (and probably would vote for any other generic Republican candidate).
Time will tell what happens in this election. Be aware, though, the narrative about Trump’s un-electability is not as clear-cut as the media and Democrats would have you believe. He can still win in 2024. It’ll be tough but not impossible.
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 (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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