Almost every poll shows that, were the election held today, former President Donald Trump would defeat President Joe Biden pretty easily.
Trump has reasons to be optimistic. He almost never led in any polls during the 2020 election cycle, yet he still came within a few thousand votes of pulling off a second narrow Electoral College victory. In contrast, he now leads in nearly every national poll. He also leads or ties Biden in every important swing state.
So there are a lot of Republicans doing an end zone dance on the five-yard-line right now. But the election isn’t being held today, so those polls don’t necessarily mean anything. In politics, a day can be a lifetime, and the eight months between now and Election Day will feel like many lifetimes.
In other words, there are still plenty of ways Trump could blow this thing.
For one, he can make the race all about himself. Part of Trump’s schtick is his ego. Some people say it’s real, other insist it is an act. Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem able to turn it off for very long. And even if it is part of his charm, it only appeals to people whose vote he already has — people inclined to stand in line for hours to attend a rally or pepper their houses and vehicles with Trump flags. There aren’t enough of those people to win a general election.
Preaching to the choir is great, but no primary choir is large enough to win a general election. Trump has to expand his base of support, and so far, he hasn’t done anything to that end. It will be enough for some people that he is not Joe Biden, but even that won’t be enough to win. For every person motivated to vote against Biden, there is at least one and possibly more motivated to vote against Trump. This is, at best, a zero-sum game, not a pathway to victory.
Trump could also lose by making himself into a victim. Yes, I get it, the “justice” system is absolutely targeting him. It is as much of a disgrace as it is ironic that the people doing it are claiming it’s in the interest of democracy to abuse the legal system this way. It’s even more telling that Trump continues to lead while under indictment, a sign that much of the public doesn’t take these criminal charges too seriously.
But everyone who is motivated to vote based on Trump’s alleged victimization is already in his camp. The rest of the country doesn’t care. Think of it that what you will, but voters rarely reward victimhood.
Trump could also lose by following through on his stated claims of running a “50-state strategy.” That would be a disaster. His time is already going to be split between occasional campaign events and various courtrooms around the country. Even if those cases are garbage, his schedule will not care. His time is finite, and he cannot be in multiple places at once.
The idea of wasting valuable campaign time in places like New York or California is both stupid and self-defeating. Donald Trump’s path back to the White House lies in winning the Electoral College, probably by the same margin he did in 2016. If he wins the popular vote, that’s great, but that is unlikely (although not impossible). It should not be a goal.
A lot of states are beyond the reach of one party or the other. Going into those as an ego boost or as some kind of psychological warfare would be folly, given that time and money are limited. Republicans already have a money problem. It would only be an in-kind donation to the Democratic National Committee if they were to set piles of it on fire in Massachusetts, Illinois or New Jersey.
Finally, it would be a disaster for Trump to pretend that Fox News and Newsmax are enough media exposure for him. Fox is, by far, the most watched cable news network, regularly doubling the viewership of MSNBC and CNN combined. But on its best day, it reaches only about 1 percent of the population, or 3 million people. The nightly newscasts of the three broadcast networks reach about 20 million, which is closer to 10 percent of the population eligible to vote.
Trump should not ignore Fox or Newsmax, of course. The base must be maintained. But it must also be expanded.
Biden wouldn’t even do a friendly interview with CBS News during the Super Bowl. It is likely that the closest he’ll come to a tough interview this year will be a thoroughly partisan Democratic show like “The View.”
Trump should go out of his way to give hostile interviews. He’s actually quite good at them. With the prospect of Biden refusing to debate becoming more real every day, hostile media might be as close as Trump gets to a real debate. He should take as many networks up on their offers as possible, without losing his cool and without ignoring conservative outlets.
The 2024 election has favorable winds for Republicans, with an unpopular president embracing unpopular policies. But nothing is a given for Republicans. Democrats will throw everything they have at the election this fall. Trump can handle that, but he can’t handle a series of self-inflicted wounds.
Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).