Donald Trump is in A LOT of Trouble (Part XXXIV)
The Michigan Primary election is in the books. Donald J. Trump, former president, current pauper, and soon-to-be federal defendant won his fifth straight contest. Like those first four however, the results tonight demonstrate his weakness as a General Election candidate.
To date, Trump is losing approximately 30-40% of Republican primary voters in each state. That not consolidation. He is the former President of the United States. The GOP is Trump’s party. The RNC is Trump’s piggy bank. Republicans rigged the primary process to secure Trump’s third straight nomination. With all of that, Trump is bleeding soft and establishment Republican voters.
As Nikki Haley said on CNN this evening, “Donald Trump is not bringing people into the Republican Party, he’s pushing people away.” She is correct.
In South Carolina, 25% of self-identified Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for Trump this fall. That’s catastrophic for his campaign. If they all stay home, he loses. If half of them stay home, he loses. If 20% of them cross over and vote for Joe Biden, he’s in trouble. And these are South Carolinians – they don’t live in California or Illinois.
Trump’s election results are not the end of his troubles, just the beginning.
It’s Raining Men
Trump relies on white men more than any other group. Without them, he doesn’t just lose, he loses 40 states. These early election results, and that 30-40% of Republicans pulling the lever for Nikki Haley indicate he’s losing a chunk of white guys – and he can’t afford any of it.
To me, they break down into three groups.
Pro-Choice Dads
When the US Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, it was a radical act. For half-a-century, Americans understood (though disagreed) on abortion. With the Dobbs decision, American women lost a fundamental liberty. Millions of married men and Daughter Dads are now faced with the idea that politicians and unelected judges are making decisions on behalf of their families. They don’t like it.
As we approach November, MAGA states will further clamp down on women’s rights. The Alabama IVF decision and Missouri’s proposal to prevent pregnant women from obtaining divorces will push these men further away from Trump.
National Security Voters
Those of us of a certain age remember the Cold War. We remember that the Russians were the bad guys. Since 1917, they’ve never been the good guys. They’re not our allies now. Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and MAGA are in hock to Vladimir Putin, a murderous, genocidal maniac. A sizable number of older male Republican voters support Ukraine. They support NATO. They still see the United States as the ‘city on a hill’ that Ronald Reagan described 40 years ago. MAGA’s allegiance to Putin, Xi, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Emiratis and other sundry dictators will not moderate in the next eight months.
The FU White Guys
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there are millions of what I call FU White Guys. They live in the suburbs, they’re above average in education, wealth, and material success. They’re unvaccinated and dislike what they see as ‘the establishment’ despite their membership in it. And they hate everybody.
They probably voted for Trump in 2016. They might have voted for him in 2020. In 2024, I expect they’ll do one of two things: Stay home, or vote for the likes of Bobby Kennedy Jr. (I-Measles.) They saw Trump as a disrupter (which he was) but they dislike his incompetence and routine chaos. He’s an embarrassment and they don’t like being embarrassed, as well-credential as they are.
Christian Nationalist Leaders
Go with me here. Evangelical voters will support Donald Trump. They’ll support him in droves; more than 80% of them will cast a ballot for a godless heathen. While they’re supporting him, though, they’ll also be pushing more extreme policy proposals in the neo-Confederate states they control. As noted above, the judge in the Alabama IVF case included a ton of Christian nationalist rhetoric in his decision.
The Christian nationalists control the Republican Party. One of their own is now Speaker of the House (for now, anyway.) The GOP is an adjunct of the Evangelical Christian movement, and they won’t let Trump or anyone else forget it over the next eight months. As they turn the screws on individual liberty, decency and modern America itself, more soft Republicans and independent voters will back away from Trump.
The nationalists are a Catch 22 for Trump: He can’t win without them, but he can’t win with them, either.
The Republican Rube Goldberg Machine
Given all Trump’s insanity, it’s easy to forget that he’s run two terrible campaigns and is running a third stinker, now. I want to spend a minute on how badly Trump has wrecked his own ability to get voters from their houses to the polls.
You’ve seen the acronym “GOTV” – Get Out The Vote. This is key to any campaign from dog catcher to president. For decades the Republican Party developed, fine-tuned, and deployed a highly efficient and sophisticated early vote, vote by mail, and permanent absentee ballot system.
During the depths of the pandemic in 2020, many states made it easier to cast a ballot remotely over fears that many voters wouldn’t stand cheek by jowl with others and risk their health. Trump denied the danger of Covid and then took the idiotic step of telling his supporters that they should NOT vote early or by mail, that they should go to the polls.
They listened, and they continue to listen today. He calls early voting ‘rigged’ and a ‘scam’ and lies about these ballots costing him the 2020 election. They did not, but he doesn’t believe or understand that. This fall, the Biden campaign will hone its early voting GOTV efforts and optimize their voter targets. Trump will, once again, need a Hail Mary.
Time and Money
There is a trope in politics that the two most important things in a campaign are money and the candidate’s time, and they’re tied to one another. This is true for Trump in 2024, but not for the reasons we think about (a candidate refusing to make calls or raise donor funds.) No, Trump’s problems are (again) of his own making.
Trump’s financial ledgers are a disaster. Personally, he owes just under $500 million in various penalties. Politically, his small dollar donors are begging off and the Republican National Committee ended 2023 with just $8 million in the bank. As Nikki Haley noted tonight, the RNC is now a ‘slush fund.’
Why? Because the other pillar – a candidate’s time – will cost Trump, his campaign, his party, and his donors tens of millions of dollars. So far Trump has been able to defray his personal legal costs with contributors’ money. Trump sitting in a court room is a double financial whammy for Republicans. He’s not campaigning so the spigots begin to run dry. His lawyers aren’t going to stop billing just because they’re sending their invoices to 310 1st Street, SE.
That’s all before we get to the fact that Trump, his family, and his campaign operatives will be draining the campaigns accounts to feather their own nests and prepare for a Trump-free future.
As Napoleon said, “Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake; It’s bad manners.”
News and Notes
Check out the latest episode of the Lincoln Project Podcast featuring the one and only
!
Reed…all this good news about how TFG is a sinking ship and short on ‘gelt’…as my ancestors would have said , warms the cockles
of my hear!. Could it be an indicator of more wonderful things to come?…presents for the sane part of society and it’s not even Christmas!
Please keep up the good work/writing…xxG
I believe the only reason he’s in the campaign is to draw money to himself. He’s less about being POTUS than making money off the rubes. Being POTUS is attractive to him but money is much more important to him.
He’s going to need a whole lot of it to escape to Slovenia. That is if Melania lets him go with her.