Trump Winning in 2024 Would Be the Real Election Nightmare
The United States was unprepared for the scope of President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election. By Election Day, Trump had spent months calling the election “rigged,” and historians and democracy experts warned of the damage that these false claims could make. But when the president stepped to a lectern in the White House late on Election Night and insisted he’d won, many Americans were taken aback. Much worse was still to come: Trump calling Georgia’s secretary of state, asking him to find 11,000 votes; attempting to weaponize the Justice Department; and instigating the failed January 6 insurrection.
Americans are ready now. If anything, they’re overprepared. Many members of the uneasy coalition of Democrats and former Republicans who oppose Trump are frantically focused on the danger of Trump and his GOP allies trying to steal the 2022 and especially 2024 elections. This is not without justification; many of Trump’s henchmen, meanwhile, are frantically focused on stealing it. But these watchdogs risk missing the graver danger: Trump could win this fair and square.
Trump winning in 2016 was a serious wound to the American experiment. His clinging to power in 2020 poured salt in that wound. Trump losing in 2024 and trying to steal the election would be even more catastrophic. But a straightforward victory—a very real possibility—could be a mortal injury.
A Trump candidacy in 2024 is almost certain, and a nomination is probable. He has already done everything except declare his candidacy officially, flirting (unusually demurely for him) with an announcement in public statements. Some skeptics still think it’s a feint, but why wouldn’t he run if he can win? In 2016, Trump won only a plurality of GOP-primary voters, and faced nearly unanimous opposition within the Republican establishment. If anything, he’ll head into 2024 with the party far more unified around him, even though polling suggests more ambivalence among GOP voters.
A large group of Republicans are eyeing the 2024 race, but several have said they won’t run if Trump runs. Others, like Chris Christie, say they won’t defer to Trump, but Christie proved to be not even a speed bump for Trump in 2016. There’s no reason to think that has changed. On Saturday, Trump held a rally in Iowa featuring Senator Charles Grassley, an old-school Republican in both temperament and chronology—a symbol of Trump’s takeover of the party. Many Senate Republicans privately hope that Trump doesn’t run, but the more telling fact is that they won’t say so publicly. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sharply castigated Trump after January 6, has since said he would “absolutely” back Trump if he’s the Republican nominee.
Could he win? Of course he could. It is unlikely—though not impossible!—that the current air of chaos and free fall around the Biden…
Read More: Trump Winning in 2024 Would Be the Real Election Nightmare