A recent analysis conducted by a duo of political strategists presents favorable prospects for former President Donald Trump, indicating a potential opportunity for him to engage in a subsequent electoral contest against President Joe Biden in the upcoming year.
In an article published by The Daily Caller, Troy Olsen, an Army veteran and political author residing in New York City, and Gavin Wax, a GOP strategist and executive director of the National Constitutional Law Union, observe a prevalent discourse suggesting that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s departure from the Democrat Party and his candidacy as an Independent for the presidency may potentially undermine Trump’s electoral prospects rather than adversely affect Biden by siphoning away votes.
“While early polling on this question is not very numerous, there is little evidence for their argument and much evidence that an RFK Jr. independent run will hurt his party’s incumbent president,” according to the pair.
“President Joe Biden is in a historically weak position. Arguably the weakest incumbent since President Carter or even before,” the analysts went on.
The authors of the upcoming book, “The Emerging Populist Majority,” highlight the historical impact of third-party and independent candidates who secure 5 percent of voter support. They argue that such candidates have a detrimental effect on the incumbent president, “similar to a viable primary challenge within the president’s party.”
“It weakens the president’s political standing. Arguments against this idea will cite the ideological orientation and similarities to anti-establishment populist candidates. The problem with this analysis is that independent voters are not nearly as ideological as the politicians and partisans who endlessly obsess over these details,” the two continued.
The analysts argue that “independent and unaligned voters are all over the map ideologically. If they had a broad agreement, you would have an easier time building an actual third-party option around that, yet none has emerged despite attempt after attempt to do so. At a time when the American people report record dissatisfaction with institutions, political parties and the direction of the country, all of these factors play against the incumbent party. While Kennedy Jr. and Trump may agree on some of the most significant issues of our time, the reality is Kennedy Jr. is a pretty solid old-school liberal who today comes off as heterodox because the Democrat Party has moved on from liberalism across most dimensions.”
Subsequently, the authors proceeded to provide illustrative examples of past presidential elections were the presence of third-party candidates had a detrimental impact on the incumbent presidents.
— “In 1912, incumbent President William Howard Taft was done in by the Republican establishment Bull Moose split over Theodore Roosevelt’s attempt to rectify his mistake of retiring too early.”
— “Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond were no help to incumbent Harry Truman in 1948, and a Democratic vote split similar to the Republican one of 1912 in the incumbent party as the solid south left the New Deal coalition, an event the coalition has never recovered from.”
— “Even though he was a Republican in Congress, John Anderson proved to be no help for President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, vs. a challenging Republican in Ronald Reagan. In 1992, it’s been widely remarked that Ross Perot’s candidacy hurt incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush.”
According to the researchers, the votes garnered by Gary Johnson, a former Republican governor, and the leftist candidate Jill Stein in 2016, played a significant role in favor of Joe Biden in the 2020 election, “which means they could have just as well been decisive in 2016.”
It has been suggested that historical instances of voting against the incumbent, regardless of the rationale, can be interpreted as indicative of a referendum rather than a deliberate choice.
“Rather than opine how Kennedy Jr., who will exhaust considerable resources to get on the ballot, will hurt or spoil the chances of reelection through a final round of misplaced Camelot nostalgia, the more interesting analysis will be where elections are decided — in the electoral college,” the analysts observed.
“And if Kennedy Jr. has no path to victory through the electoral college, much of his vote will likely come home to Trump and Biden near the end anyway,” according to them.
According to a prominent pollster, the Republican primary battle has effectively concluded, with former President Donald Trump emerging as the victor several months before the commencement of the electoral process.
Furthermore, John and Jim McLaughlin assert that, based on their empirical findings, Trump exhibits robust polling performance in comparison to President Biden, so indicating a genuine possibility of his triumph in the upcoming year.
According to their article on Newsmax, “Since our last national poll, Donald Trump has gone to Iowa, New Hampshire, and to court. The most attention Joe Biden received was when he flew back and forth to Israel, where he may be talking tough while appeasing Hamas and Iran.”
According to them, “The result: President Trump destroys the Republican primary field and widens his lead over Joe Biden.”
Source: Daily Caller
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