Trump’s Surge Past Biden Blunts His GOP Rivals’ Primary Argument Against HimPublished 09/27/23
Joe Concha
The predominant argument against Donald Trump throughout this odd primary season has been one of electability. Nobody motivates the other side quite like Trump as evidenced by the 2020 election, so the argument goes, and thus someone else — perhaps Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), former governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former Vice President Mike Pence, or entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — is the only Republican who can beat President Joe Biden in the general election.
Yet polls in recent weeks have shown a decided shift to the former president. According to RealClearPolitics.com, Biden enjoyed a stretch of 11 straight major polls over the summer showing him tied or leading by as many as six points. But the month of September has been a disaster for the current president on multiple fronts, prompting even some of his allies on the left to urge him not to seek reelection.
Those fronts include:
The inflation report showing a second straight increase for the month, putting the Consumer Price Index number almost three times as high compared to when Biden took office.
Gas prices hitting their highest levels for 2023 in the month of September.
A slow and apathetic response to the Maui wildfire which included photos of Biden lounging on the beach and not visiting the island until 13 days after the blaze killed nearly 100 people. He promptly returned to vacation afterward.
The rollout of the “Bidenomics” messaging offensive, with the president and his team telling voters the economy is great. This flies in the face of the reality on the ground, with only 28% of voters saying the economy is better than it was two years ago.
Add in the United Auto Workers strike, a border crisis that has become so horrid that even NBC's TODAY show made it the lead story this past week, and the president's son being indicted on a gun charge, and it's safe to say Team Biden isn't enjoying their September.
Just how badly is the president struggling? Sitting at 37% approval in the most recent ABC News-Washington Post poll is one thing, but trailing in a hypothetical matchup against Trump by 10 points is quite another. At least when Biden has polled lower than usual in the past, Trump didn't necessarily benefit. But things appear to have changed lately.
On cue, many in the media demanded that we all ignore the Post-ABC News poll, including pollster Larry Sabato who called it a "ridiculous outlier" and "an embarrassment" to the Post and ABC.
Make no mistake, though, the trend is real. Another poll released by The Messenger/HarrisX this week shows Trump again with a relatively sizable lead over Biden, 46% to 41%. Overall, the last nine major polls showTrump tied or leading.
The reasons around why may be several. Perhaps enough Americans see the 91 felony counts against a leading presidential candidate and former president as politically motivated or as election interference. Perhaps Biden's age has made the electorate pessimistic that his best days are in front of him.
Many voters may not like Trump personally but, on the question of who they trust to better handle a top issue like the economy, more Americans say they trust Trump more than Biden, 47% to 36%. Narrowing that to independent voters, the margin in Trump's favorjumps by 20 points, 46% to 26%.
So as Trump's GOP opponents debate again at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., without — again — the opportunity to debate him, one has to wonder what ammo they have left to somehow wrestle away the nomination. The obvious and enormous challenge for DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Haley or Scott is that — at least on tax policy, crime, immigration, the border, or education — there is no discernible difference between Trump's views and theirs. And when Trump's lead is anywhere from 44 to 50 points over his closest opponents, how can they make this race even remotely competitive, especially since Trump's base is as rock-solid as it gets in politics.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to have an impact on this race,” Frayda Levin, a Republican donor from New Jersey, told CNN this week. “Every Republican’s dilemma right now is: Do we try and undermine and destroy Trump, only to have it come back and haunt us because he’s the candidate, and it’s Trump or Biden?”
The only chance for anyone not named Trump seeking the nomination may be for Trump to be convicted in one of the four cases he currently faces.
“I think the chance of getting elected after being convicted of a felony is as close to zero as you can get,” DeSantis told CBS News recently.
But the Florida governor joined almost all of the GOP candidates on the Milwaukee debate stage in August in saying they would support Trump as the nominee even if he’s convicted, so there's that.
After the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, Trump was as toxic as anyone in the country could be. It was almost impossible then to imagine he could possibly be competitive during a third run at the presidency. Now, it's looking like that he'll not only be the party nominee without breaking a sweat but very easily could occupy the Oval Office again in January 2025.
"I truly feel that in the end, we’re going to win. I think we’re going to win an election the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before," Trump predicted on Meet the Press recently. “I don’t think anything’s going to stop it. Nothing’s going to stop it, because people see what’s happened to our country.”
The argument against a Trump candidacy was a good one: He's unelectable. He's undisciplined. He's a walking get-out-the-vote ad for the Democratic Party.
But, as we're seeing, even someone with dozens of felony counts against him could very well win back the presidency … likely leaving his opponents on another Republican debate stage, scratching their collective heads.
https://themessenger.com/opinion/trumps-surge-past-biden-blunts-his-gop-rivals-primary-argument-against-him
