Trump Can Win, by Dan McCarthy

Articles like this are predicated on the questionable assumption that we will have a semi-honest election in 2024. From Dan McCarthy at americanmind.org:

Odds are that 2024 will look a lot more like 2016 than 2020.

The final RealClearPolitics polling average for the 2016 race showed Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 3.2 points. As of May 1, 2023, the same polling average shows Trump ahead of Joe Biden by 1 point.

Of course, Trump can’t win. Any Republican would do better. Every pundit says so. And when have they ever been wrong?

Trump didn’t enter the 2016 race until June 2015, so a direct comparison between his current polling numbers and those of the last cycle isn’t possible. But those who remember the 2016 race will remember that for most of the cycle, Trump trailed Clinton by rather more than the 3.2 points—as shown in the final RCP average. And of course, Trump won. The press underestimated his appeal.

Even in 2020, Trump significantly outperformed his polling. The final RCP average in that race showed a 7.2 point lead for Biden. His actual lead wound up being 4.5 points.

If not for all the experts saying otherwise, one would think that Trump has an excellent chance of winning the 2024 election. If the polls now are as far off as they were in 2016 and 2020, Trump will win.

But what about last year’s midterms? Didn’t they prove that Trump is a spent force?

Conservatives would have to be extremely stupid not to notice that, long before Trump came along, the Republican establishment and the mainstream media had a consensus about how to interpret elections.

Any time a right-wing candidate lost, it was always proof that the Right was unelectable and that candidate was a millstone around the Republican Party’s neck. But any time an establishment candidate lost—like John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012—nobody argued the party was too centrist or that establishment candidates were lead balloons.

Continue reading