Trump 2024: will the former president get the support he needs to return to the White House?

Donald Trump famously likes to run against the odds, and if there is one-way political analysts have learned is not to bet against him.

That said, here we go again.

On Tuesday, Trump announced his third U.S. presidential campaign, with a 50-50 record so far. If successful, in 2024 he would become only the second president in US history to be elected to a second term after a four-year break - the last was Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Just as in 2015, a growing chorus of voices this week assailed his latest bid for re-election, from conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to some former White House staff and Republicans in Congress. Just as significant perhaps, his own daughter, Ivanka, announced she would not be joining her father’s 2024 campaign.

“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” she wrote.

Can Trump repeat history in 2024?

In case anyone forget, Trump ran against the Republican Party establishment in 2016, and swept it aside in unceremonious fashion. In 2022, donors are once again running away from him, some already banking their money with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump already has a nickname for DeSantis, who he has called 'Ron DeSanctimonious.'

Some experts have been quick to point out that it was another Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, who ran away with an early lead in the 2016 campaign, with $150 million in the bank. But his campaign fizzled and he was one of the earliest to drop out by mid-February.

And unlike 2016, Trump has since built his own grass roots MAGA movement, (Make America Great Again) and has also wrestled control of the Republican Party leadership, the Republican National Committee (RNC).

“There is a move away from Trump. I don’t want to overstate this. He is still the front-runner. He is still the establishment,” The New York Times political reporter, Maggie Haberman, told CNN this week. “But there are number of people in the Republican Party who are going to start making it clear that they think he is really bad for the party in ways that I think they didn’t quite articulate the same way in 2016, because he didn’t have record,” she added.

No longer a political novice, Trump now has a record to be judged upon

After Trump’s denial of the 2020 election results and the events of January 6, 2021, U.S. voters now have much more of a record to judge him upon. And, in the November 8 midterm elections, voters rejected many pro-Trump candidates, though not all.

“I don’t think this damages his brand in the party as it stands right now. The election is a long way away and politics is fluid,” says Carlos Díaz-Rosillo, who served in the Trump White House as Deputy Assistant to the President.

Trump still popular

The preference for Trump among Republicans is no longer in the 80-90% range, but polls still show him well ahead of DeSantis with 40-50% support, according to website FiveThirtyEight.com. However, that doesn’t mean Trump’s popularity has fallen much among Republican voters, just that he’s got some new competition.

Six in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (60%) say they "feel warmly" toward Trump, including 41% who feel "very warmly", according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in October.

He’s been damaged in the media just like he was in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, but not with his supporters, according to Democrat pollster, Fernand Amandi.

Until he is defeated in a Republican primary no one can say he has been damaged.

Historically, governors are highly favored candidates due to their greater executive experience. That makes DeSantis a genuine contender material given his almost 20 percentage point margin of re-election victory in Florida, especially at a time when other Republican candidates under-performed.

Some have questioned if Trump is just going through the motions by seeking re-election, addicted to being in the spotlight and in need of a new injection of cash to pay for his mounting legal bills.

Trump will be 78 in 2024. Does he still have the energy?

Trump’s campaign announcement speech on Tuesday was surprisingly subdued, some analysts felt, saying he lacked the usual energy. The speech, which lasted more than an hour, was largely a mix of boasts about his presidential record and attacks on the first two years of Joe Biden's presidency. But he studiously avoided denial of the 2020 election and made no attacks on DeSantis.

But Trump was speaking from a teleprompter to a small number of invited guests at Mar a Lago and has never hidden the fact that he prefers to ad lib before a large arena, feeding off the crowd’s adoration.

Those critics are guilty of a double standard, says Díaz-Rosillo. “They say he needs to be more scripted and when he does that they say he lacks energy. There is nothing he can do and nothing he can say that will elicit a positive response,” he said.

While Trump no longer commands the unquestioning loyalty of the Republican party, Díaz-Rosillo and other point out that the primary process potentially favors his large political base of MAGA supporters. In most states, it’s a winner-take-all system, with no proportional votes carried over to the national tally.

Efforts within the party to block Trump from running look unlikely. The National Republican Committee (RNC) which oversees the party has traditionally stayed above the fray, opting not to influence the nominating process. Several other candidates besides DeSantis could jump into the race in 2023, including former vice president Mike Pence, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and current Virginia governor Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Trump could be the only candidate for months, which is possibly a mixed blessing. If he joins the race, DeSantis could wait until next summer. After all, he was just re-elected to a second term as Governor with the annual legislative session running from March until May where DeSantis will get to present his agenda.

As a lone candidate for the time being Trump won’t have rivals to bash as he famously enjoys doing, though he will have the opportunity to hold rallies, raise funds and lead the Republican attacks on Biden.

Trump facing a new wave of criticism

Still, the criticism of Trump has come fast and furious this week, with some Republicans seething over the below par performance in the midterm elections.

Alabama congressman and once-zealous Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, had this to say: “It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024.”

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said the party lost centrist voters who saw “too much chaos, too much negativity” in what many took as a slap in the face to Trump.

The conservative New York Post, owned by Murdoch, ridiculed Trump this week, suggesting the 76-year-old “Florida retiree” was yesterdays’ news. The editorial board of The Wall St Journal, also owned by Murdoch, said it was time that Trump “ceded the field to the next generation.”

The board said Democrats would be elated to see Trump run again because they view him as the easiest candidate to defeat.

But how many times has the conservative media cooled on Trump in the past? asked Díaz-Rosillo.
“They did this before. I wouldn’t read too much into it,” he said.

Only one thing is guaranteed right now, he added. “Trump is the front-runner. After all, he’s the only candidate... at the moment.”