According to the polling aggregate at The Economist, if the 2024 presidential election were held today, it would result in a tie.
Many of the people who served in the Trump administration are saying the same thing.NEW: Republican Voters Against Trump
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) March 12, 2024
We are elevating the voices of former Trump voters who have had enough of Donald Trump and will never vote for him again. pic.twitter.com/agN4DODyB9
Fact: the majority of the people who worked for Trump now say he’s utterly unfit for office.
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 12, 2024
Never Trump.
pic.twitter.com/IgbWZnxB4G
Conventional wisdom has historically suggested that once a candidate becomes the nominee, they broaden their appeal to reach out to a larger audience for the general election. Given the split inside the GOP, you'd think there would be a massive outreach effort underway right now. But the RNC is doing the exact opposite.
Lara Trump says when she becomes co-Chair of the Republican Party, “anyone” who doesn’t support Trump and MAGA will be told to “leave” the party pic.twitter.com/R6nn5hsf2n
— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) March 4, 2024
Issues
Trump has made it clear that he is proud that the judges he appointed to the Supreme Court overruled Roe v Wade. He has also promised that he will not support any effort to halt gun violence and that he will end efforts to mitigate climate change. On day one he's promised to "drill baby drill."
I've already written that the policies Trump is actually proposing would be a disaster for both the United States and the globe.
As of a few months ago, it looked like the Republican message would be focused on what they defined as Biden's failures: the economy, crime, and the border. The first of those two have been fairly neutralized with slowing inflation and an historic drop in violent crime. But once it became clear that Trump had ordered his minions to kill the bipartisan border bill, that one was neutralized too.
Of course, Trump and Republicans will continue to lie about those issues. But they've botched things so badly that refuting their claims is not difficult. For example, they are actually attempting to revive the Reagan question about whether or not you're better off than you were four years ago when a pandemic that killed one million Americans was sweeping the country and the economy was in the midst of collapse.
Trumpism
This one could take a while to type out. So I'm simply going to let Seth Myers do the work.
Donald Trump is going to be the GOP presidential nominee once again. Here’s a refresher on the former president. https://t.co/kjilDAKRx8 #ACloserLook pic.twitter.com/QEr8PuyGmt
— Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth) March 7, 2024
Beyond all of that, mental health professionals are speaking up to point out that not only is Trump a malignant narcissist, it is becoming increasingly clear that he is showing "unmistakable signs strongly suggesting dementia, based on his public behavior and informant reports that show progressive deterioration in memory, thinking, ability to use language, behavior, and both gross and fine motor skills."
The issue is that, unlike narcissism, dementia is a progressive disease - meaning that it will get worse over time. To the extent that Trump's handlers are trying to cover it up, they're probably just making it worse. In other words, this could be a real powder keg.
A caveat to all of this would be that eight months is a long time. All kinds of things can happen between now and November. Some of them might be good and others catastrophic. That's why I'll never be in the position of predicting outcomes to an election.
I also suspect that some people might respond to this list by saying that none of the above will affect MAGA voters - and I would agree. The point is to back up what Rosenberg is saying. Polls aren't everything. In the end, I'd much rather be us than them.