REPORT: Democrats are rooting for Trump to win the primary

by The Right Scoop

Just like in 2016, Democrats are rooting for Trump to win the Republican primary because they think he’ll be the easiest Republican to beat in the general.

It didn’t work out for them in 2016 and now they are getting very nervous with all of this press coverage of Trump.

Here’s more via Politico:

These should be celebratory times for Democrats. But as Donald Trump is set to get booked on Tuesday over a hush money payment he made to a porn star, a chunk of the party is growing anxious. 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.

The White House Biden Democrats believe that they beat Trump in 2020 and they can beat him again in 2024. And they’re banking on all of these investigation to make Trump less appealing to the broader electorate:

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.

Nate Silver weighed in on this, saying he thinks Democrats may be underestimating Trump:

What makes all of this worse for Biden is that Trump’s argument, should be he the nominee, will be that Biden’s administration was the one investigating him to try and destroy him and help Biden. Ergo Biden was trying to use his government to destroy his political enemy, and that argument would play well for Trump.

It’s a long way between now and the primary, but I can’t imagine all of these so-called investigations will hurt Trump as much as Democrats think it will.


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