How Trump Can Win in November
Examining the legitimate and nefarious cases
Will Donald Trump blow another election? The future is not certain when The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is asking that question of the Republican nominee for President.
Despite Trump's slump during Kamala Harris’s honeymoon period as the Democratic candidate, this election remains Trump's to lose. Harris may have gained in the polls — to the point she’s now leading (as of this writing) in most battleground states — but Trump has not lost much support.
The other week I explored how Harris can win in November, and this week we’re focused on Trump. To be clear — this is not an advocacy piece for Trump, but instead, an objective analysis of his political chances while weighing numerous factors from inflation and January 6th, to the strategies he might use if his loss is apparent.
Similar to the Kamala Harris piece, I will also focus on what Trump should do if he wants to win in November. On a more nefarious note, I will conclude with what I think he will do to gain every advantage possible, even if he loses.
Why the 2024 election is Trump’s election to lose
The general rule in American presidential politics is that incumbent U.S. presidents tend to win reelection. See Obama, Bush (junior), Clinton, Reagan, etc. Since 1980, out of seven presidents, only two failed to win reelection (Bush senior and Trump). If you extend the analysis, the trend is clear — incumbent U.S. presidents don’t lose reelection bids too often.
You may think this would benefit Kamala Harris, given her role as Vice President in the incumbent Biden administration. But not so fast.
There’s a major exception to this general rule; one that was responsible for taking down both Bush senior in 1992 and Trump in 2020.
The economy.
Incumbent U.S. presidents tend to win elections unless there’s a recession or other bad economic events. Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville famously coined their winning campaign slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Biden’s team hammered Trump on his administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic and the unstable state of the U.S. economy.
If you go back further, Jimmy Carter lost reelection to Reagan in 1980 following rampant inflation (the Iranian hostage crisis didn’t help Carter either). Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide as The Great Depression ravaged the country.
Americans care about their economic positioning first and foremost. And while Biden often does not get enough credit for the economy he’s overseen (great stock market, real wage growth, low unemployment, etc.), there are multiple economic factors Trump can point to that may convince even more moderate Americans that he’s the better choice for their economic well-being.
The first is inflation. The second round of stimulus the Biden administration pumped into the economy caused rampant inflation, and a few banks even failed when investors realized how many unrealized losses they had on their balance sheets (as interest rates go up, bond prices go down). We can debate the merits of this second massive stimulus round to get America out of the pandemic, but the reality remains — inflation went wild during the Biden administration.
The average year-over-year inflation rate during Trump’s presidency was 1.9%, while it has averaged 5.7% under Biden through 2023.
There is a psychological component to inflation too. It’s a big reason why Biden does not get enough credit for his economic successes and the relatively soft landing America has enjoyed from a period of higher inflation.
This psychological component is the feeling people get when they go to the grocery store. It’s how they feel when they eat at a restaurant. Fill up their gas tank. Try to book an airplane seat.
While data may suggest that inflation has stabilized or decreased, it doesn’t mean all prices have followed suit. And it doesn’t mean your feelings about the prices going up have disappeared. People don’t forget what hurt their wallets. And whether justified or not, the sitting President usually gets blamed.
What Trump should do to win the 2024 election
If I were Trump, inflation is the main thing I would be talking about, but of course, he’s not doing it. Instead, Trump prefers to discuss climate change and culture war topics with Elon Musk and go to events like the recent one with the National Association of Black Journalists where he grew hostile and asked this question about Kamala Harris: “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Beyond inflation, Trump could hit on a myriad of foreign policy topics that could pose political problems for Harris given her role in the Biden administration. The world has been on fire since Trump left office with major wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The Afghanistan exit was a complete disaster and an embarrassment for America, and as I previously argued, likely emboldened Putin to attack Ukraine in the first place.
Instead of banging on the inflation and foreign policy drums, however, Trump will probably do what he always does — criticize border security (even though he sabotaged a potential bipartisan deal), spread fear about high crime (even though crime has been down since Trump left office), engage in election denialism (even though he lost every 2020 case challenging the results), and fight culture wars that only play to his MAGA base (not the moderate/independent voters he’s trying to win).
In short, Trump must moderate his messaging if he wants to win. He needs to play the tough businessman who won in 2016, even if it was all a charade and purely motivated by self-interest and power. A moderate Trump that doesn’t promise dictatorship for “one day” or tell far-right extremists to “stand back and stand by” could win in November.
A winning message for Trump is one directed at upper-middle-class suburban voters who want lower taxes, less regulation, and more support for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
But if there’s anything we’ve learned about Donald Trump since his foray into presidential politics in 2016, it’s that he can’t help himself or get out of his own way. We also witnessed his actions in the days following his election loss leading up to January 6th, all of which are detailed in the multiple lawsuits from the Department of Justice and the state of Georgia.
A desperate Trump is a dangerous Trump. We must anticipate how Trump will act if his prospects for a second term get worse.
The nefarious moves Trump will likely make in order to win, especially if it looks like he will lose
Since Trump’s 2020 loss, his MAGA base and its conservative allies have been determined to prevent a repeat defeat. That’s how we got Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation. And it’s also how we received a glimpse at Trump’s new strategy for 2024 (should he need it) — state election boards.
Trump revealed it at a recent campaign rally in Georgia where he praised their state election board. Please keep in mind — positions on state election boards are largely administrative and nonpartisan. The goal is to administer a free and fair election, not make sure that 11,780 votes suddenly appear for “your guy” should they call up asking for the exact number they need, as Trump did in 2020.
Republicans in Georgia have installed Trump loyalists on the Georgia State Election Board since Trump’s 2020 defeat. The Board recently passed a rule that could delay election certification until “after reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.”
You may not think much of this rulemaking, but Trump sure did. At his recent Georgia rally he personally thanked the three Republican members of the Board — Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King — by name. He called them “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”
Trump and the Republican-dominated Georgia State Election Board are actively working to delay election certification, despite there being no evidence in 2020 that election fraud made a material difference to the results.
Georgia is not an isolated instance of this effort to control election boards. Republicans supporting Trump have made a national effort to do the same thing in other key swing states.
And let’s not forget the evidence cited in the indictments against Trump that he and/or his campaign attempted to coordinate a scheme to replace real state electors with fake ones loyal to Trump. Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis (who was indicted in Arizona) recently agreed to provide information and materials about this scheme and to testify against Trump.
In addition to influencing state election certification and installing fake electors, Trump might also challenge the constitutionality of Kamala Harris as the legitimate Democratic nominee. He has already floated his thoughts that it might be unconstitutional for Harris to be the nominee without winning a single primary as a Presidential candidate. This ignores the completely legal nature of Harris’s nomination, as I explained here, not to mention America’s rich history of contested conventions.
But with a Supreme Court that includes three Trump-appointed justices and a strong conservative majority, anything could happen. A constitutional challenge to Kamala Harris’s candidacy should be a guaranteed loser by any objective and nonpartisan jurist, but I would have said the same about Trump’s presidential immunity argument that he won in Trump v. United States.
Even in the event of a Trump loss, the aftermath of this election could drag on for an extended period.
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