Former President Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s sworn enemy. She’s hoping for revenge.
And now Clinton has learned something about Trump that could flip 2024 upside down.
Everyone knows that Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to win against the political class darling Hillary Clinton back in 2016.
All the experts relied on the polls that suggested that Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump in a landslide victory on her way to moving into the White House.
The upset victory for Donald Trump sent shockwaves throughout Washington, D.C. and stunned the political class. The impact of that election is still being felt to this day.
Today, however, Donald Trump finds himself in a very different position than 2016.
He is once again the challenger rather than the incumbent, and some suggest that he’s a more difficult opponent to deal with as a challenger than as an incumbent.
But there’s one key difference between the 2016 election season and the 2024 election season. That difference is that Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite this time around.
Not only is Donald Trump a huge favorite in the Republican primary race, but he’s also pulling away from Joe Biden in surveys of voters when asked who they’d vote for between Trump and Biden in November 2024.
But could Donald Trump fall victim to the same fate as Hillary Clinton back in 2016 when she was also the clear favorite in all the surveys and polls? Some think so.
Adam Geller, an expert political strategist for the Republican party says that there’s definitely “some truth” to the idea that Trump may be hatching his eggs too early.
“It’s his softer supporters who are maybe reporting as a Trump voter in a poll but could be very well looking around, getting a little nervous, getting a little less comfortable as things evolve. The ardent supporter is all in, still wearing the MAGA hat and putting signs up in their front lawn. But then there is that other layer who could get peeled off, who is reporting as a Trump voter in a poll. But some of those doubts are starting to seep in,” Geller shared with the media recently.
Additionally, a number of surveys have indicated that though Donald Trump leads the Republican field so far, it’s possible for that to change.
How? Because voters are indicating that they are open to being convinced by another candidate before they cast their primary votes in the first half of 2024.
A poll out of New Hampshire, an early primary state, demonstrates that nearly 75% of GOP voters who are currently planning on voting for Donald Trump early next year say that they might change their minds between then and now.
A former top advisor for President George W. Bush, Mark McKinnon, argues that there may be more Republican voters who plan on voting against Trump in the primary who simply aren’t making their voices heard at this time.
Similar to how in 2016, the “silent majority” that was made up by millions of Trump voters who were sick of the political class carried Mr. Trump to victory against Hillary Clinton.
“In 2016, we experienced the phenomenon of the silent Trump voter, those who were secretly for Trump but feared being ostracized if they said so publicly,” McKinnon says. “This cycle, we may have precisely the opposite: Republican voters who are afraid not to say they are for Trump publicly and yet quietly acknowledge he’d be likely to lose the general election. These are the Trump ghost voters. They appear to be there…”
Simply put, the idea that both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are dead in the water is not accurate when you look at the history of how a number of favorites lose out in the end.
If Donald Trump wants to face off against Joe Biden once more, then he shouldn’t count his eggs before they hatch. He will need to contend with the strong Republican field and win the primary first.
Shrugging off DeSantis and Haley may backfire if he’s not careful.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
