Re-election odds not in Trump’s favour
A year from now, Americans vote for the next president of the United States. It is not Yankee hyperbole to say that their choice on Nov. 3, 2020 (for president and Congress), will be the most critical of their lives.
A year from now, things will be clearer. Principally, we will know whether Donald Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives and acquitted by the Senate, as is likely.
We will also know how this came about; did the vote in each chamber break cleanly, on partisan lines, or was it mixed? That will colour the campaign.
We will also know whether Trump has been convicted in the Senate. It is unlikely but possible, if 20 Republicans join 47 Democrats to reach a two-thirds majority.
And if the president is indeed convicted and removed from office, will he be able to run again? Improbable, but that would depend on the conditions set by the
Senate around the conviction.
What is as certain as the Washington Nationals winning the 2019 World Series is that Trump will be impeached, probably by Christmas, and that he will run for re-election as an impeached (but exonerated) president. Neither of his impeached predecessors — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — sought another term. For Trump, this would be another first.
The odds are that the Vichy Republicans will maintain solidarity in both houses and remain the president’s reliable apologists, rationalizing, defending, denying. This will allow Trump to dismiss the impeachment enterprise as a partisan “witch hunt.”
It may be that there are enough defections among Senate Republicans to create at least a majority in favour of conviction.
Four of the most endangered Republicans up for re-election next year —
Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colorado), Martha McSally (Arizona) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) — would have to vote against Trump. It would not change the outcome in Congress, Trump would survive, but the Democrats could campaign next autumn claiming that a majority of both houses had voted to unseat the president. A majority would make a strong moral case.
If those four senators were to defect, it would show that their seats are vulnerable, and that control of the Senate is in play. Rest assured that the prospect of losing the Senate would alarm Republican Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, far more than losing the presidency. If that meant ousting Trump, he would.
The Senate may seem like a sideshow next year but it isn’t, regardless of who wins the White House. If Trump were to win, a Republican Senate would preserve the status quo, while a Democratic Senate (assuming a Democratic House) would mean that he would get almost nothing done domestically. The Democrats with a majority in Congress would do to him what the Republicans did to Barack Obama.
If the Democrats win the Senate and the presidency, they would enjoy the unified government (both the legislative and executive branches) that Trump had in his first two years in office. They would begin by undoing deregulation, acting boldly on the environment and preserving Obamacare. They might be challenged by a conservative Supreme Court, setting up a new confrontation.
Can Trump win again? He has three big advantages this time: experience, incumbency and money. He will hit the hustings next year having done this once before, with the advantages of power (Air Force One), and with much more cash.
Like last time, the 2020 election will come down to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump’s popularity is less than 50 per cent in these swing states, which had voted Democratic for decades. He won them in
2016 by 67,000 votes.
He could win them again, of course, if his Democratic opponent is unpopular and if the economy is strong.
But this time the Democrats will not ignore the Midwest where Hillary Clinton did not campaign and the party did not advertise.
Trump remains historically unpopular, and impeachment will be an albatross. The Democrats are likely to turn out in greater numbers than the Republicans, regardless of their nominee. A year out, the odds are against Trump.