How Trump Wins
Hello, I hope that your summer is going great in the home stretch!
A couple weeks ago I looked at the Republican Field, which is yet dominated by Donald Trump, the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee despite all of his legal troubles. I named Vivek Ramaswamy as the most likely candidate to breakout, potentially at the Republican debate this week.
But let’s say Trump gets the nomination, which is still the most likely outcome. What are Trump’s prospects in the general election, should he make it there?
Recent polling has Trump and Biden tied at about 43% apiece nationally. In other words, neck-and-neck.
But it’s not likely to be just the two of them.
Cornel West is running on the Green Party ticket. Will he be a factor?
Howie Hawkins of the Green Party got only .3% with ballot access in 30 states in 2020. That seems very low.
However, Jill Stein got 1.1% in 45 states in 2016, and is now running Cornel West’s campaign. I think that West is a stronger candidate than either Hawkins or Stein were, and 2/3rds of Americans are not excited about either Biden or Trump. Cornel West is polling at 4 – 5%. I’d project Cornel West at somewhere between 1 to 3% in the general election, with the vast majority – maybe 70% - coming from Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Keep in mind the tiny margin of victory in the key swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin in particular. The race is likely to be determined by tens of thousands of voters with a difference of less than 1% in these 4 states.
Cornel West could easily swing any and all of these states.
Will there be other candidates? RFK Jr. has been polling at about 13% of the Democratic electorate in what passes for the Democratic primary. In my view, it’s quite likely he says, “Look, the Democrats did not give me a fair shake. My campaign will continue to the general election!” His choices will be to run as an Independent or as a Libertarian, with the latter being much easier because they have ballot access in all 50 states.
What would be in it for the Libertarian Party? If a minor party gets 5% in a presidential election, that party gets federal funds of approximately $10 million to use for party building infrastructure in the next election cycle. This is one reason why the Reform Party was a viable vehicle in 1996 after Perot ran. So the Libertarian Party would likely welcome RFK Jr. with open arms in an attempt to get 5%.
I’d put RFK Jr. at a similar level as Cornel West of 1 – 4%, with a slight majority of his voters coming from Joe Biden – his last name is Kennedy after all and a lot of Democrats remain reverential of the family.
There are also consistent rumors that Joe Manchin of West Virginia is considering a presidential run on the No Labels Unity Ticket. I take this very seriously, as his alternative is to run for Senate re-election against a popular GOP governor in West Virginia, a state that Trump took by 38 points in a cycle Trump is on the ballot, on behalf of a party that barely tolerates him. Or he could make his swansong a country-unifying Lincoln-type presidential run alongside a Republican like Larry Hogan. If you were 75 years old looking for a final act, which would you choose?
You could easily have 5 presidential candidates on the ballot, with each being a significant factor: Biden, Trump, West, Kennedy, and Manchin.
I think Joe Biden manages to eke out a narrow win against Trump one-on-one if he doesn’t have a health/age problem and there isn’t an economic setback. But with West, Kennedy and/or Manchin on the ballot, he probably loses to Trump.
I view Trump winning as a catastrophe. Someone asked me what the smartest thing to do in this situation – I answered “Run the craziest person you can think of to weaken Trump.” That’s what this system is giving us.
Another plan would be to rally hundreds of thousands of independent swing voters in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada to vote for whichever candidate offers real reforms of the dysfunctional political system. Changing the primary system to allow all voters to vote for all candidates could actually be on the ballot in both Nevada and Arizona in 2024. This will be the Forward Party’s plan – I hope that you will be a part of it.
In 1860, there were 4 presidential candidates that got 39.8%, 29.5%, 18.1%, and 12.6% respectively. The winner? Abraham Lincoln. That time, the right person won even as the country was fragmenting. We are heading back in that general direction, with the two parties losing credibility at breakneck speed. Will it be for good, or the opposite?
Check the Math. What a ridiculous system. Let’s modernize it as quickly as we can.
If you want to build a new direction in politics, check out Forward today. For a fictionalized account of a third-party presidential campaign and where it leads, check out “The Last Election” my new book with Stephen Marche that comes out September 12th!
