At this rate, President Trump is going to win reelection in 2020. Easily.
You heard it here first.
Trump has a money advantage, a unified party, excellent polling numbers, and a booming economy. He commands total loyalty from a fanatically enthusiastic base, and he is a gifted, tireless campaigner. Most importantly, however, the president’s Democratic opposition is hopelessly dysfunctional and incompetent, beset on all sides by bitter infighting, unfocused messaging, toxic identity politics, and a total unwillingness to understand what motivates the president’s support.
Democratic dysfunction, probably more than anything else, is what will win Trump a second term in office. Their general ineptitude, coupled with the likelihood that Democratic leaders back a creature of the establishment to lead a halfhearted, poorly executed challenge to the president’s reelection campaign, will make it such that Trump will have to try to lose in November.
On Monday, the party that hopes to take back the White House in 2020 managed somehow to botch the Iowa caucuses. Iowa Democratic Party leaders scrambled together emergency meetings late into the evening after an untested, poorly designed smartphone app marketed by Democratic operatives imploded, calling into question the accuracy of all precinct reporting. This happened just one day after a highly anticipated poll of likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers was shelved out of an “abundance of caution” following complaints of polling irregularities.
Iowa represents the Democratic Party’s first big showing in the 2020 election. What a showing it was. Democrats have had since 2016 to get their act together as a party, and they could not even pull off a smooth day of voting in Iowa. On an organizational level, they are not ready to take on the president and his well-oiled and well-funded political machine. And on just about every other level, including polling and the economy, Democrats are similarly ill-equipped.
Primaries, of course, are the time for parties to work out differences and electoral strategies ahead of a general election. And the time between now and November 2020 is basically an eternity in politics. There are still chances for Democrats to turn this thing around and unseat a president who presides over a strong economy. But the way things are now, and with this current crop of 2020 primary candidates, the path to victory for Democrats does not look just narrow — it looks impossible.
First, there are the Republican National Committee’s fundraising numbers. In a word, they are fantastic. As of December, the RNC has seven times as much cash on hand as its Democratic counterpart: $63 million versus $8.3 million.
Next, there are Trump’s approval numbers, which clocked an all-time high of 49% in February, according to Gallup. This comes after everything that the opposition party and its allies in the press have thrown at him, including Russian collusion, wall-to-wall negative news coverage, and impeachment. Through all of it, Trump’s numbers have improved. Democrats have taken their best shots, and nothing has landed. The president has not only survived, but he has come out on the other end of these attacks with his strongest-ever approval numbers.
Other surveys should have Democrats worried, including a recent Marquette Law School survey showing the president defeating top-tier 2020 Democratic primary candidates in hypothetical matchups for Wisconsin.
To be fair, there are still polls showing Democratic candidates winning in head-to-head matches against Trump, but that seems like poor comfort considering everything else the president has going in his favor, including an enthusiastic base, a clear campaign message, the absolute loyalty of the Republican Party, and, crucially, a robust economy.
The current unemployment rate is 3.5%, the lowest that number has been since the year we first landed a man on the moon. The U-6 unemployment rate, which is a broader measure of real unemployment, registered at 6.7% in December. Good luck convincing voters that the president who claims responsibility for these these numbers does not deserve a second term in office.
If all holds steady, and even if the president becomes nastier and meaner than usual between now and Election Day, Trump will win another four years in the White House. Even if he runs against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who stands the best chance of defeating the incumbent president, Trump will win. The Vermont lawmaker may have a lot going in his favor, including that, like Trump, he has an enthusiastic following and a winning message about jobs and the economy, but America is not ready for an avowed democratic socialist to take the Oval Office, not according to recent polling at least.
And that is if Sanders wins the nomination. It sure looks like the Democratic establishment is trying again to block the Vermont lawmaker from making it that far. If the establishment is successful, and Sanders is once again denied the opportunity to be nominee, there will be no reconciliation among the party’s various factions. It will be more of the same chaos and dysfunction for the Democratic Party, only angrier and more personal. There may even be a permanent split.
Meanwhile, as the opposition party devolves further into infighting and disunity, arguing endlessly about the correct vision to offer voters in 2020, Trump, aided by a clear message, a unified party, mountains of campaign cash, and a strong economy, will coast basically unopposed to another four years as president.
The way things look now, the 2020 election will be like the 2016 election all over again, except this time with even more failure and humiliation for the Democratic Party.
