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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
Former President Donald Trump has a better-than-average chance at beating incumbent President Joe Biden next year, according to a new election analysis that examines several elements of the race.
In a column for RealClearPolitics, veteran political consultant Dr. Louis Perron, author of the upcoming book “Beat the Incumbent: Proven Strategies and Tactics to Win Elections,” writes that Trump isn’t a shoo-in for the White House, despite all of the things that have gone wrong on Biden’s watch.
“Elections with an incumbent are foremost a referendum on the incumbent. As two-thirds of Americans think that their country is headed in the wrong direction and more than half of voters tell pollsters that they disapprove of the job President Joe Biden is doing, the 2024 election is the Republicans’ to lose,” Perron begins.
But he notes that, in his book, he warns “candidates not to rely solely on the weaknesses, failures, and even scandals of an incumbent government. They are often not enough to bring down an incumbent government.”
To explain that, he cites a focus group respondent who once said, “Voting for a challenger is like moving houses. Yes, you’re unhappy with the place you currently live in, but you want to know what the new house will look like.”
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Perron went on to say that is a problem with Trump.
“Their likely nominee, Donald Trump, is as disliked as Joe Biden, and worse, he’s not a new commodity as challengers otherwise often are. Most people have made up their minds about him, and it’s much more difficult to change public opinion than to define it in the first place,” he wrote. “I always tell my clients that the best and only starting point for effective campaign planning is brutal honesty. The reality is that being out on bail in four jurisdictions, Donald Trump is a deeply flawed general election candidate.”
That said, Perron believes the results of next year’s presidential election will come down “to the so-called double haters, those who have an unfavorable opinion about both Trump and Biden.” If the focus remains on Biden, then Trump is going to be victorious, the analyst said, adding that the opposite will be true if Trump remains more in the spotlight.
He adds:
For any challenger, the first imperative is, therefore, to keep the focus on the incumbent and lock him in. Voters are clearly unhappy with the status quo, which means Donald Trump and Republicans now need to make the case on why this is Joe Biden’s fault. Don’t let them get away with it the way Barack Obama and his team avoided blame for economic dissatisfaction in 2012 and skillfully passed it on to George W. Bush.
The second imperative is to describe what the new house, a second Trump term, would look like.
Perron went on to say that in his experience, swing voters either won’t care about Trump setting personal scores or will actually be turned off by it. He also speculated that if the wars in Ukraine and Gaza don’t lead to a third world war, “the decision issue will be, as always, the economy.” And it is here where Trump could gain the advantage, Perron believes.
“Voters used to credit Trump with economic competence, so there is something to work with. During the first three years of Donald Trump in the White House, the U.S. economy did remarkably well. Republicans should take this record as a basis to actively renew and update their credibility on the economy. There has to be more in store to get out and vote for than the usual hackneyed claims of lower taxes and less bureaucracy,” he writes.
In the realm of politics, a candidate’s greatest strength frequently doubles as their primary vulnerability. This holds true for Trump, albeit in a more accentuated manner, the analyst notes. While his base exudes enthusiasm (a facet the campaign should actively amplify and mobilize for voting), Republicans must confront the reality that relying solely on the base is insufficient for prevailing in a general election under typical circumstances, he went on to advise.
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He also said that Trump’s campaign, and surrogate Republicans, must gently remind voters that getting what they don’t like about the former president also comes with getting what they did like about him in the form of successful policies.
He then said that polls are “meaningless at this point in time” and could even serve to lull a candidate to sleep and avoid making necessary strategic changes to their campaign.
“Republicans have homework to do, and if they don’t take drastic action now, they might blow it (again),” Perron concluded.
