2016 parallels scaring some Trump haters

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These should be celebratory times for Democrats. An uneasy déjà vu has set in.

“Last time people were rooting for Donald Trump, he ended up president of the United States,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif). “We’ve seen this story before.”

The electoral potency of Trump is once more the central element of the Democratic Party’s internal debates. Back in 2016, Trump was supposed to have been the perfect opponent: too crude and way too outrageous to win a general election. As Hillary Clinton’s campaign geared up for that November’s race, many were rooting for Trump to be the GOP nominee, believing that he’d be the easiest Republican to beat.
It didn’t work out as planned. And the shock many in the party experienced because of it compelled them to pledge that they’d take a more sober-minded approach to the possibility of a Trump revival.

But with Trump once more eyeing the White House, the conventional wisdom is again forming that he would be the easiest Republican to defeat, owing to the myriad of legal problems he’s facing.

I’d say in a general election Trump may be the weakest of the major GOP contenders,” said Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh. “And he likely will take on more water over time as several of the other legal cases play out.”

Tommy McDonald, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist who worked as a media consultant for Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign, conceded that the “universal consensus” was that Trump was “the weakest candidate” in the GOP field. But he said he’s personally not sure of it — given the passionate following he maintains and the historic underappreciation of his support.

Inside the White House, a more bullish view of the race has come into focus.

President Joe Biden’s most senior advisors have watched Trump’s GOP poll numbers surge, which have only reinforced their belief that the nation’s 45th president will stand as the Republicans’ nominee to be its 47th, according to four Biden allies not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

And they believe Trump is also likely the Republicans’ most beatable nominee.

First and foremost, Biden world points to the 2020 election as the top reason for confidence in a potential rematch: We beat Trump once, they say, and will again.

Trump won in 2016 by the slimmest of margins, losing the popular vote to Clinton but squeaking out victories in a series of battleground states to capture the electoral college. He did so in part because swing voters, Independents and some late-deciders broke toward him after a series of October surprises, along with Clinton fatigue and a thirst for change. Some first-time voters and disaffected Democrats also went for Trump, while some on the left opted to stay home.

But four years later, many of those same swing voters broke away from him, weary of his chaos and frustrated by his handling of the COVID pandemic.

Biden advisors are confident that those swing voters are now permanently out of Trump’s reach, according to the four senior people. They have a difficult time imagining that a voter who went for Trump in 2016, but then ran away from him in 2020, would return to cast their ballot for the former president after the Jan. 6 insurrection, several criminal investigations and years of election denialism.

“What possibly would you like about what Trump has done since Election Day 2020?” one Biden aide mused.

Anne Caprara, who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 super PAC, Priorities USA, argued that 2024 is a fundamentally different political moment than when Trump defied the odds and captured the presidency.

“When we dealt with Trump the first time around, he was a different quantity. People knew him as an entertainer and he had this kind of bulletproof image … people saw him as this successful businessman who they’d grown up with or seen on TV for so many years,” she said. “And I just think he’s got a much different image now.”

But even as many Democrats are quietly betting that Trump is the most damaged potential GOP nominee, some are wondering whether that viewpoint misses something fundamental about his support. They fret that they might jinx the election too.

“Trump is a tremendously flawed candidate who has hurt his party in every election since 2016, but it’s impossible to say that he is the weakest because none of these other Republicans have been on the national stage before,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama. “Given the Republican bias in the Electoral College — any Republican, including Trump, could win the election.”

Trump defied the odds once before. While his portion of the electorate may have shrunk since leaving office, he won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 and his MAGA base remains fervent.

In private conversations, top Biden allies share two chief concerns.

The first is Biden’s age. He’ll turn 82 years old soon after he faces voters again and he moves and speaks noticeably slower than even two years ago. If he were to suffer some sort of health crisis, that would rattle voters and dramatically intensify the scrutiny on the person who is just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Already, Biden advisors are preparing for a greater number of Republican attacks on Harris this coming campaign as a means of stoking fears about the president’s age and the vice president’s readiness.

The other concern is that there could be a significant economic downturn. Few incumbent presidents fare well in the face of stiff economic headwinds. And while Biden advisors aren’t predicting it, they do worry that a recession could drive some voters to decide to ignore the chaos surrounding Trump in favor of nostalgia for what he sold as a strong economy under his watch.

But while the White House was spooked by last month’s bank collapses and inflation that is still running too high, they believe that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

They may not be in a rush or exuding any sense of panic. But other Trump opponents are beginning to.

Rick Wilson, the anti-Trump strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project, listed all the ways that 2024 is shaping up to be like 2016: The media covering Trump wall-to-wall despite promises not to, Trump’s GOP opponents planning scripted zingers about him that don’t land, and Democrats feeling suspiciously confident that Trump will sink himself.

“A lot of Democrats in 2016 were like, ‘Oh yes, Hillary will wipe the floor with Donald Trump.’ And I warned them at the time: Don’t you bite that apple,” he said. “I feel like we’re in a very, very twisted time loop where God is punishing us for our sins.”

Prosecuting Trump was a stupid move that makes the US look bad to the rest of the world.

Really? It looks like proof that no one's above the law, speaking as someone from the rest of the world.

Think it just looks like they were out to get him & now they found a trivial accounting charge to pin on him.

Doesn't matter if you like or hate him. It looks politically motivated against the main opposition candidate and that`s the point, it makes the US look less democratic to the rest of the world

Prosecuting Trump was a stupid move that makes the US look bad to the rest of the world.

The outside world will just see the main opposition candidate being taken out on trivial charges

Something that happens in Russia and other less democratic countries.

When news broke earlier this month that Donald Trump would be indicted in New York, leaders of a pro-Joe Biden group met privately to decide what to do. Should they fire off tweets broadcasting what had happened, or maybe send an email blast opining on Trump’s fate?

In the end, they did nothing.

“Why get your hands dirty if you don’t have to?” a person familiar with the group’s thinking said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. “When you get into the ring with him [Trump] in this capacity, you’re no better than he is.”

No guidebook exists for dealing with the first former president ever to face criminal charges, let alone one who is the current front-runner for the GOP nomination. Lacking any precedent, an ecosystem of Democratic strategists, Biden loyalists and outside groups is gaming out how to wring advantage from Trump’s mushrooming legal woes.

They’ve reached no consensus and, for now, are feeling their way through a fraught moment that presents both opportunity and peril for all sides, interviews with more than a dozen political operatives suggest. When opponents are struggling, every campaign’s instinct is to capitalize on their misfortune. Yet Trump is presumed innocent in a legal system that Biden has pledged to uphold, creating a conundrum for the operatives working to defeat Trump in 2024.

“Democrats are a party guided by lawyers,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime party strategist.

With more criminal charges possible in the coming months, Trump’s indictment in Manhattan may prove a dry run for how Biden’s outside supporters respond.

A group called Facts First USA is plunging in, planning to showcase Trump’s difficulties in digital ads and social media messages while targeting congressional Republicans who’ve chosen to defend him. The group convened a Zoom call to discuss the indictment after it was made public Tuesday and has since had additional conversations about how “it can be leveraged for our purposes,” said David Brock, president of Facts First.

“The indictments,” he said, “are going to be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats.”

Another group is trying to nail down an effective message. Anticipating that a Trump indictment in New York was imminent, a coalition of liberal pollsters late last month tested various ways to explain his legal troubles. Navigator Research surveyed more than 1,000 registered voters — Democrats, Republicans and independents alike — to gauge the best way to rebut Trump’s argument that he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”

In a memo titled, “Trump Indictment: A Guide for Advocates,” Navigator Research concluded that the most effective counter-argument is that “No one is above the law, not even a former president,” citing their finding that 61% found that idea more convincing than Trump’s claim of political persecution.

The message also draws a useful contrast from the Democrats’ perspective. If he decides to run again, Biden is expected to portray himself as a symbol of stability, compared to the tumult that surrounds Trump.

Still, many in the party are holding back, preferring to keep a tight focus on Biden’s record with the idea that Trump’s difficulties will draw so much attention that no amplification will be needed.

For Democrats, another complication is the belief among some inside the party that the indictment might not damage Trump all that much. Details of the pay-for-silence allegations have been widely known for the last five years.

“There’s a realization on the Democratic side that a lot of Donald Trump’s character flaws are baked into the cake and there’s limited mileage we can get out of them,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential bid.

But the calculus could always change depending on what happens next. Some Biden allies view the case in Georgia as more consequential.

Inside the White House, Biden and his staff are sticking to a simple script: say nothing. Anything Biden says about Trump’s entanglements would invite complaints that he’s meddling in the multiple criminal investigations that the former president faces.

The charges announced last week in Manhattan surprised the White House. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, alerted him after aides learned of the indictment from news reports, White House aides said. Privately, people close to Biden have been trying to think through what the indictment might ultimately mean for the country, with one suggesting that it could speed up the federal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith. (It’s not clear why that would be the case; there is no indication that Jack Smith is taking cues from the prosecution underway in New York).

One perk of having essentially cleared the field in the 2024 Democratic primary is that Biden can say as much or as little as he wants, knowing that the entire party apparatus is looking after his interests.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who co-chaired Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential bid, said: “Who in their right mind would want to run against Donald Trump? God bless the president for wanting to run. Would you want your family to go through this against Donald Trump?”