Why Donald Trump Is Republicans’ Worst Nightmare In 2024
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Earlier this week, amid a rambling attack on the validity of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump said this: “Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.”
“Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January’s insurrection.”“Manhattan prosecutors pursuing a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, his company and its executives have told at least one witness to prepare for grand jury testimony, according to a person familiar with the matter — a signal that the lengthy investigation is moving into an advanced stage.”
Do Polls Or Odds Help Us Work Out Who Will Win The Presidential Election
If only it were that simple. As weve seen in countless elections in the US, the UK and elsewhere, polls dont always tell the whole story.
In the US, who wins the election often comes down to certain states and the electoral college system.
All 50 US states and Washington DC have a set number of electors in the electoral college and that number is roughly proportionate to the size of each state. There are 538 electors to win a majority and become president either candidate needs to get 270 electors, which is half the total plus one.
The number of electors per state is based on a states population so those with more people get more votes. For example, California the largest state gets 55 electors, while those with fewer populations like Wyoming get just three.
Donald Trump’s Chances Vs Joe Biden If He Runs Again In 2024
A number of bookmakers are naming Donald Trump as their favorite to win the 2024 presidential election if he runs, but several polls suggest it is still neck-and-neck between him and Joe Biden in a hypothetical match-up.
According to OddsChecker, which aggregates betting odds from numerous sources, Trump is the favorite to be the next president by several bookmakers including Paddy Power and Betfairwho are offering odds of 11/4as well as Bet365 and SkyBet .
In comparison, Paddy Power and Betfair are offering 9/2 odds on Biden winning the 2024 election, with Bet365 and SkyBet offering 5/1.
Trump has not formally announced that he intends on running for president again, but he has hinted at it from the moment he left the White House in January 2021.
The suggestion that Trump could beat Biden in a hypothetical 2024 match-up has been backed by a recent Emerson College poll conducted on May 24 and 25.
According to those taking part in the survey, 44 percent said they would vote for Trump in 2024, and 42 percent said they would back Biden if they were the two candidates.
The poll also shows that Biden’s approval rating remains low at 38 percent, down from 42 percent in an April survey.
The Emerson College poll reveals Biden’s job approval is lowest among white voters at 33 percent, and highest among Black voters at 61 percent.
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How Trump Could Still Win
Polls failed to predict the 2016 election
Predicting the outcome of a presidential election can be difficult as you dont know who will actually show up to cast a ballot, who will change their mind last minute and who lied to pollsters.
For example, in examining what went wrong with the 2016 polls, Pew Research Center looked at a variety of reasons, including that some respondents may not be honest when answering polls, the nonpartisan think tank stated.
Read more: Why did the polls fail to predict a Donald Trump presidency?
Some have also suggested that many of those who were polled simply were not honest about whom they intended to vote for, Pew Research Center stated. The idea of so-called shy Trumpers suggests that support for Trump was socially undesirable, and that his supporters were unwilling to admit their support to pollsters.
However, Pew Research said this theory might account for a small amount of the error in 2016 polls, but it was not among the main reasons.
Simon Palamar, a research fellow at Centre for International Governance Innovation, told Global News in 2016 that because many polls are still conducted over the phone, they can be skewed by voters who dont want to talk with pollsters.
Lets say you believe the polls are rigged and you like Trump you might consciously and deliberately decide not to respond to pollsters, Palamar said. That will systematically omit a certain type of person from the poll.
Final debate
Swing states
Wisconsin
Takeaways: Big Trump Win Election Deniers Advance In Nevada
WASHINGTON Donald Trump notched a significant victory in South Carolina, where his preferred candidate easily ousted five-term Rep. Tom Rice, the first Republican to be booted from office after voting to impeach the former president last year. But another high-profile GOP target of Trump in the state, Rep. Nancy Mace, held back a challenger.
Meanwhile, in Nevada on Tuesday, two election deniers who have tirelessly promoted the former presidents lies about voter fraud won their primaries for key positions of power in the state.
Takeaways from the latest round of primary elections:
SPLIT DECISION IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Rice and Mace have been objects of Trumps anger ever since a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Bidens presidential election win.
Their transgressions? Mace stated on national TV that Trumps entire legacy was wiped out by the attack, while Rice became an apostate for joining a small group of Republicans who voted with Democrats in favor of Trumps second impeachment.
He threw a temper tantrum that culminated with the sacking of the United States Capitol, Rice told NBC News on Monday. Its a direct attack on the Constitution, and he should be held accountable.
ELECTION DENIERS ADVANCE IN NEVADA
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Why Does It Matter
Wisconsin sided with the Democratic candidate in all presidential elections from 1988 through 2012, although sometimes by very narrow margins. In 2016, Trump managed to flip the state despite his underdog status in the polls.
Americans are also electing members to the two chambers of Congress, the main law-making body of the US. Those chambers are the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Without support in the Senate and the House, the president’s ability to enact key policies is severely limited.
The winner of the election is determined through a system called the electoral college. Each of the 50 states, plus Washington DC, is given a number of electoral college votes, adding up to a total of 538 votes. More populous states get more electoral college votes than smaller ones.
A candidate needs to win 270 electoral college votes to win the election.
In every state except two Maine and Nebraska the candidate that gets the most votes wins all of the states electoral college votes.
Due to these rules, a candidate can win the election without getting the most votes at the national level. This happened at the last election, in which Donald Trump won a majority of electoral college votes although more people voted for Hillary Clinton across the US.
Pressure On State And Local Officials
As the Trump campaign’s lawsuits were repeatedly rejected in court, Trump personally communicated with Republican local and state officials in at least three states, including state legislators, attorneys general, and governors who had supported him in the general election and continued to support him. He pressured them to overturn the election results in their states by recounting votes, throwing out certain votes, or getting the state legislature to replace the elected Democratic slate of Electoral College members with a Republican slate of electors chosen by the legislature. In late November, he personally phoned Republican members of two county electoral boards in Michigan, trying to get them to reverse their certification of the result in their county. He then invited members of the Michigan state legislature to the White House, where they declined his suggestion that they choose a new slate of electors. He repeatedly spoke to the Republican governor of Georgia and the secretary of state, demanding that they reverse their state’s election results, threatening them with political retaliation when they did not, strongly criticizing them in speeches and tweets, and demanding that the governor resign.
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Favorites To Win The 2024 Us Presidential Election
Shortly after the inauguration, Vice President Kamala Harris was atop the presidential odds board at +350, with Biden close behind at +400, and Trump in third place at +650. Those odds have shifted massively and Trump is now leading the field as the 2024 U.S. presidential election favorite at +250. Biden is second at +450 while Harris has dropped all the way to fourth place at +1,200 with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis jumping into third.
Other presidential betting favorites for 2024 include former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley , Trump’s VP Mike Pence , Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg , and Fox News host and political pundit Tucker Carlson . Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn is one of the fastest risers, moving from off the board to +2,800 after her criticisms at Ketanji Brown Jacksons Supreme Court confirmation went viral.
Aoc’s Odds Of Winning The 2024 Us Presidential Election
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as one of the brightest young stars of the Democratic Party but has seen her odds fall from +3,300 in the New Year to +5,000 in March and she has now plummeted all the way to +10,000. AOC is currently serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York’s 14th district.
The politically savvy 31-year-old has built a massive online following and will be turning the requisite age of presidential eligibility just before the 2024 election.
Her biggest obstacle may in fact be her own party, with her more progressive views likely to alienate some of her colleagues unless they soften over time.
She recently hit the news for criticizing the Biden administration for not doing more to help student debt while Nancy Pelosi’s new book “This Will Not Pass” accuses AOC and other progressives of vying to be “queen bee.” Ocasio-Cortez could run the risk of being another Bernie Sanders if she can’t convince the moderates that she is willing to make concessions on key issues.
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Biden Improved On Clintons Gains
Many Trump supporters have expressed disbelief that Biden won, and by such margins. But Bidens campaign won by persuading just enough swing voters, making gains in unexpected states and rebuilding the coveted blue wall that toppled in 2016.
According to CNNs national exit poll, 94% of self-described Democrats voted for Biden in 2020 compared to Hillary Clintons 89% of self-described Democrats in 2016, and 89% of self-described liberals, compared to Clintons 84%.
Bidens victory was really won on the basis of support from moderates and independents, though. He received 64% of votes cast by self-described moderates, 12 points ahead of Clinton, and won independents by 13 points a group that Clinton lost by 4 points.
Biden continued to build on the groundwork laid out by Clinton in historically red states like Arizona and Georgia. Clinton did not win Arizona or Georgia in 2016, but she did perform better than Obama in both. The swing toward Biden in those states was more than double his national swing, CNN reported.
Wasserman said he predicted prior to the election that Arizona and Georgia would flip, but the similar states of Texas and Florida would not due to their Hispanic electorate.
Fact check:Video claim that Dominion tech manipulated Georgia votes is false
We Want Different Things From Opinion Polls And Election Polls
Not all applications of polling serve the same purpose. We expect and need more precision from election polls because the circumstances demand it. In a closely divided electorate, a few percentage points matter a great deal. In a poll that gauges opinions on an issue, an error of a few percentage points typically will not matter for the conclusions we draw from the survey.
Those who follow election polls are rightly concerned about whether those polls are still able to produce estimates precise enough to describe the balance of support for the candidates. Election polls in highly competitive elections must provide a level of accuracy that is difficult to achieve in a world of very low response rates. Only a small share of the survey sample must change to produce what we perceive as a dramatic shift in the vote margin and potentially an incorrect forecast. As was shown in the graphical simulation earlier, an error of 4 percentage points in a candidates support can mean the difference between winning and losing a close election. In the context of the 2020 presidential election, a change of that small size could have shifted the outcome from a spot-on Biden lead of 4.4 points to a very inaccurate Biden lead of 12 points.
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Emboldened ‘unchanged’ Trump Looks To Re
The set of advisers around Trump now is a familiar mix of his top 2020 campaign aides and others who have moved in and out of his orbit over time. They include Miller, Susie Wiles, Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, Corey Lewandowski and Brad Parscale.
While his schedule isn’t set yet, according to Trump’s camp, his coming stops are likely to include efforts to help Ohio congressional candidate Max Miller, a former White House aide looking to win a primary against Rep. Anthony Gonzales, who voted to impeach Trump this year Jody Hice, who is trying to unseat fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger as Georgia secretary of state after Raffensperger defied Trump and validated the state’s electoral votes and Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks, according to Trump’s camp.
Trump’s ongoing influence with Republican voters helps explain why most GOP officeholders stick so closely to him. Republicans spared him a conviction in the Senate after the House impeached him for stoking the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, House GOP leaders have made it clear that they view his engagement as essential to their hopes of retaking the chamber, and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., was deposed as Republican Conference Chair this year over her repeated rebukes of Trump.
Those numbers suggest that Trump could be in a strong position to win a Republican primary but lose the general election in 3½ years. A former Trump campaign operative made that case while discussing Trump’s ambitions.
