There is a word few on either side of the political aisle dare utter for fear of either jinxing or encouraging the 45th president as he campaigns to become the 47th: landslide. After all, everyone from left to right, it seems, is taking it as a given that the 2024 presidential race will be every bit as tight as 2016 and 2020 when several thousand votes in a trio of states swung both elections. But what if conventional wisdom is off the mark? What if it is based on the lazy assumption that, since Joe Biden won narrowly in 2020, both he and Donald Trump will certainly be locked in another nail-biter?
Is it within the realm of realistic possibility for Trump to not only win, but win decisively, or even in a landslide or something close to it? It may not be as far-fetched as you think. Here are ten reasons why.
First off, unlike previous younger presidents with dismal or wavering job approval, Biden can do nothing about the principal issue of concern to the vast majority of voters, namely his age and cognitive decline. It is obvious to all who watch him fumble helplessly from one event to the next, unable to find his way through by himself. The problem is not going to get better, and in fact, is almost certain to get worse as Election Day approaches.
The second reason one could envision a big victory for Trump is his leads in recent polls – more than two points over Biden according to the Real Clear Politics average, and up to five points in the current five-candidate field for the general election. Then there is the increasing likelihood that Joe Manchin, whose identity is built around his oft-courageous stand against the most egregious excesses of his fellow Democrats, will enter the race on the No Labels ticket. As much as that bodes well for the former president, the outlook is even more favorable for him when you examine his lead in all of the battleground states, with few exceptions, in most recent polls. And while the media and Biden campaign will dutifully claim Trump’s lead means nothing this early, keep in mind there is hardly anything else the left can throw at Trump which would shock voters – though things could definitely change if Trump is found guilty of a single charge. They have thrown the kitchen sink at him, and at this point, all that has done is make Trump, if not more popular, at least an object of sympathy.
Joe Manchin (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
A Trump Landslide? Just Look at the Issues
With their minds no longer clouded by COVID-19 and violent BLM-inspired mobs as in 2020, voters will vote their pocketbooks as they almost always do. And no matter how the Biden administration spins the numbers, voters see high prices on the basics – food, gas and energy – and are recoiling in large numbers, unconvinced that what they are seeing with their own eyes is not real, as Biden persists in his claim that all is well, whistling past the metaphorical graveyard. Biden stubbornly refuses to accept responsibility for any of his unpopular policies. And most voters remember that he was elected merely to normalize the Swamp again, not to advance or tacitly accept radical ideas in an attempt to live out his fantasy of being the next Franklin D. Roosevelt. He stood by as his radical leftist colleagues attempted to pack the Supreme Court, turn leftist territories into states and abolish the electoral college. Trump will certainly remind the voters of their dramatic overreach. And that is reason number three to consider a Trump landslide.
Fourth, the biggest difference between this election and the last is that both candidates now have a record, unlike in 2020, when Biden could just throw stink bombs from the comfort of his basement and was merely a concept as president. Which president would you suspect will the voters remember as superior on the core issues of peace and prosperity?
Fifth, the Biden family has been exposed for its flagrant influence peddling, for which more and more evidence will be presented between now and November. This official corruption by DC elites is one of the principal reasons Trump was elected in the first place, and it largely squelches the conversation about Trump’s multiple indictments, widely seen by the voters as lawfare designed to stop Trump in court so voters will not have the chance to vote for or against him. The actions of four left-wing judges in Colorado and a Democratic functionary in Maine will almost certainly be thrown out, thus providing Trump the benefit of yet another obvious instance of him being targeted without the drawback of actually being removed from the ballot. In eight years, Democrats have failed or refused to learn their lesson about Trump, that he thrives on any publicity, whether positive or negative, as they continue to insist he will be a dictator, forgetting that the voters are not buying it because they already witnessed Trump as president for four years.
Sixth, reliable reports indicate Trump is prepared to center his campaign around reversing Biden’s charge that he is a dangerous extremist and throwing it back on the left. That should not be difficult. On top of his foreign policy failures which have brought him low, he has adopted unpopular far-left positions on ending fossil fuels, keeping the border effectively open, and allowing crime to continue unabated in Democratic-run cities, chasing people from blue to red states. Blue California just lost population, once unthinkable, for a third straight year, while people are moving into red Florida in droves.
Seventh on the list of reasons why Trump could possibly win in a landslide is that the argument on the left about the existential threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump has lost all its punch now that leftists are trying to remove him from the ballot – after impeaching him twice and arresting him on 91 charges in four venues. Good luck trying to press the issue of Trump’s authoritarian extremism. The left fears him so mightily, and they now have no ammo left, at least not for fair-minded voters not already committed to voting for Biden just because he’s not Trump.
Even Minorities and the Young are Abandoning Biden
Eighth is perhaps the most significant liability for Biden. He is hemorrhaging support among his most crucial backers, minorities and the young. He has fallen behind among Latino voters after carrying that vote by more than 30 points in 2020, and clings to the narrowest of margins with young voters, who supported Biden overwhelmingly the last time around.
Ninth, Biden has nothing to fall back on, like some executive order designed to buy off voters – think canceling student debt – or some legislation in the offing. Presidents with 40% approval do not get to call for risky major reforms in an election year, knowing it will be viewed as desperation.
Tenth and arguably most important, Trump’s strengths play directly into Biden’s weaknesses. It is something of a reversal from 2020, when Biden’s promise to calm the country and return a sense of “normalcy” hit the right note for many Americans who had tired of Trump’s bombast. Now, instead of focusing on the fallout from a once-in-a-century pandemic, voters will vote on traditional core issues. And when they are asked to compare Biden’s record to Trump’s, the ex-president finishes ahead of the current president on every issue except abortion. And Trump plans to actively flip that issue and call Biden and the Democrats extreme for supporting abortion up to the point of birth, which should finally put leftists on the defensive.
Joe Biden may not yet have even felt the full wrath of Democratic voters who are at a loss to understand how this geriatric president who promised to be merely a transitional figure insisted on running again. If he had done what his party wanted, and what he promised, settling for one term, he could have taken a victory lap after vanquishing Trump and cleared the way for a candidate who, at a minimum, does not appear long past his prime. But now it is too late. 2020 was a referendum on Donald Trump. This time around, the judgment will be yea or nay on Joe Biden. On that count alone, it is possible to envision Donald Trump, with almost every issue favoring him, winning far more than a squeaker.
