Trump Reelected in a Blowout?

With multiple ongoing scandals and approval ratings hovering around forty percent, one may be inclined to believe Donald Trump will be out of office in 2021. Despite these issues, Trump may actually be set for a blowout win when he runs for reelection in 2020, and here are three reasons why:

First off, in order for the Democrats to take down Trump in the next election, they need someone who is actually capable of taking him down. Even though we are still about two and a half years away from election night 2020, the only name that seems to be consistently popping up in headlines for Democrats has been Hillary Clinton. While some may argue that she will be better ready for a rematch with her 2016 rival, this is a candidate who is still plagued with scandal herself. Not only this, but her track record in presidential elections is far from good. She was upset in the 2008 primaries by Barack Obama, upset in the 2016 general election by Donald Trump, and was almost upset in the 2016 primaries by massive underdog, Bernie Sanders. In addition to all of this, the Democrats have not proven that they are running on any great message besides anti-Trump. Whether you like his message or not, Trump is at least running for a purpose of trying to ‘make American great again’. Obama’s message of hope may be something to look back on as it proved to be greatly successful. If the Democrats do not figure out how to learn from their mistakes of the past, it may come back to haunt them once again.

The second reason Trump is set for reelection is that he never ended his last campaign. Since his time of reaching the oval office, Trump has not stopped holding rallies in crucial battleground states like Iowa and Pennsylvania. Politicians are typically criticized by voters for only caring about them during election season, but Trump has been doing someone to maintain the emotional support of important, base voters. This may seem trivial, but when a state comes down to a few thousand or even a few hundred votes, this could be something that puts Trump over the edge in more than one battleground state.

Lastly, what may ultimately help Trump the most in the 2020 election is how strange the race could become. With celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, and Kayne West all hinting at possible runs in 2020, this race could be one of the weirdest ever. While all three of these celebrities (and any most likely any more that become interested in running) all would presumably be on the left in their policies, none of them are established politicians, and therefore, have no obligations to stay loyal to the Democratic Party. Couple this with the fact that voters are getting increasingly frustrated with the two major political parties and a serious third party candidate could prove a major shakeup in the next election. Assuming this third party candidate would be more on the left, and therefore, be more likely to steal votes from the democratic candidate, the Democrats could be facing the same problem that the GOP had in the 1990s with Ross Perot. Bill Clinton was about to win both of his presidential races by more than 200 electoral votes, yet he never reached fifty percent of the popular vote. This is because Perot was able to steal crucial votes in states from the GOP. If 2020 holds another third party candidate like this, Trump could, just like Bill Clinton did, not only win, but win big.

Sources:

https://newrepublic.com/article/147119/trump-wins-reelection

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-on-track-to-win-reelection/2017/10/06/91cd2af0-aa15-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?utm_term=.58352185b13d

4 Responses to "Trump Reelected in a Blowout?"

Marc Bosch Valentines says:

March 28, 2018 at 11:40 am

Thomas,

I found your blog post really interesting. It brought into the discussion a really important issue which is what is going to happen in the next presidential race. While it is clear that Trump is going to run for a second mandate as he explicitly tweeted the day of the inauguration that he was going to be in office for eight years. I also consider this poses a real challenge for Democrats because as you said they need to have someone that is capable of gathering huge crowds and that is effectively able to beat Donald Trump. The appearance of celebrities in the political sphere is not new at all, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a governor in California so it would not be weird at all that the next presidential candidate is a Celebrity. If I compare that situation with Catalonia, my country, we don’t have primaries there so each political party proposes their own candidate leaving no say to the voters. Sometimes this represents a lack of transparency for the candidate, for instance, we had the same president for 23 years, that is from 1980 to 2003. Fortunately, such a long term in office wouldn’t be feasible nowadays as most politicians do not stay in office more than two terms.

From my point of view, it wouldn’t be that bad that Hillary was presented again as the Democratic candidate. She had more votes than Trump and at the end of the day, she just has to figure out a better strategy to make their majority of votes turn into a majority of seats in the Congress.
Katherine Breed says:

March 28, 2018 at 6:56 pm

Thomas,

I found your blog very interesting and eye-opening. It brought up the key reasons as to why President Trump could potentially win another election. I agree with you that the democratic party needs to come up with a new candidate to run against Trump and have a better message this time around than just Anti-Trump. I also agree with your point that Clinton is not a good opposing option because she has her own set of scandals that lost her the 2016 election. The democratic and republican parties need to get it together and fast in the candidate forefront or Trump may be elected again in 2020. With more celebrities coming out saying they want to run for office I think it only pushes this idea of the presidential election being a joke. Americans need candidates with real experience in politics. The problem with celebrities running is that young voters will be more inclined to vote for their favorite celebrities because of their following on social media. I think celebrities create a great danger in political elections because they already have huge social media followings that can be assumed would carry out into real votes.

I really enjoyed your post and it gave me something to think about!
Langley Crisp says:

March 28, 2018 at 9:52 pm

Thomas,

This is a very insightful and interesting post. I haven’t yet thought too deeply about the 2020 election, but time passes quickly and it is soon to be election season once more. I find your opinion very interesting. The idea of President Trump winning in 2020 is difficult to consider when we have no information as to who his opponent will be.

This, to me, is a very telling fact. There are many past politicians, such as President Obama, who I would have pegged to win reelection during this time in their first term. This is because he was a good man, had a good message, had a clean record, and was doing a good job in office. I believed in him, despite who his opponent would be.

Donald Trump is someone who I measure based on their opponent. If he really will be running against Hillary Clinton in 2020, I would be moderately confident in his reelection. However, that opinion would be based not off of the man he is, but the woman she is. If President Trump ran against another reasonable Democrat who was not ridden with scandal and disconnected from the public, I would probably be confident in President Trump leaving office after his first term.

Measuring someone by their opponent, and not their own merit, displays a lack of belief in the latter. This is a disappointing sentiment considering we are discussing the President of our country.

I hope that in 2020, we are able to either reelect a Donald Trump who had accomplished big things and has a higher approval rating, or we elect a Democrat who is a good person and politician.

Thanks again for your discussion on Trump’s potential reelection.
Akshit Sharma says:

April 5, 2018 at 12:39 am

Thomas, thanks for the post, I enjoyed reading it. I like the reasons that you have given for why Trump has a shot at getting re-elected. I would agree with most of them as well. However, I do think that since he was elected, he has done a few things that the general voting population might not be very happy with. Plus America’s reputation internationally was in tatters in late 2016 and early 2017 and has since stabilized. But all things considered, people will follow the electoral reward and punishment model or the retrospective model and I believe vote him out in 2020. Even if celebrities run against Trump, they should not be written off since before 2016, Trump was exactly that.

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