Trump returns to the electoral scene

Donald Trump does not loosen.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
28 October 2022 Friday 23:30
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Trump returns to the electoral scene

Donald Trump does not loosen. While his lawyers evaluate how to respond to the judicial and parliamentary requirements that are piling up on him for trying to falsify the 2020 elections, for hiding secret documents or for deceiving the treasury, the former president is preparing to give everything in the last stretch of the campaign of the mid-term legislative elections on November 8. A campaign in which he has blessed or condemned the candidates of his party, monopolized the scene of the great Republican rallies and, perhaps, paved the way for his candidacy for re-election in the 2024 presidential elections.

After holding massive rallies in the states of North Carolina, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Texas, at a rate of one a week, Trump has just announced his participation in four other major meetings on the eve of the midterm: the 3 November in Iowa, on the 5th in Pennsylvania, on the 7th in Ohio and on the 6th in Florida, where he has invited Senator Marco Rubio, but not the governor and candidate for re-election Ron DeSantis, his most fearsome possible rival in a primary to the presidential of 2024.

Since the start of the long electoral process for the elections that will decide which party controls the two Houses of Congress and therefore to what extent Joe Biden will be able to continue legislating and approving appointments, or instead will have his hands tied, Trump's intervention has been in every crucial case for Republicans.

Thanks to the enormous influence that he retains among the bases, the former president was able to largely determine the success or failure of the Republican candidates in their respective primaries. Altogether, he backed more than 180 of the contenders for a seat in the Senate or the House of Representatives, or for a governorship among other positions in contention in these elections: a very high number of backers when compared to the less than 90 issued in the midterms of 2018, an occasion in which former President Barack Obama supported 94 Democrats.

However, the number of Trump endorsements in these elections has a trick: a quarter of them presented themselves to the primaries without a rival, and the majority opted for a re-election that their voters did not question in general. The play went well for him, since logically most of his team won in that previous exam, although among those who lost there were notorious cases (in North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska or Alaska).

The worst thing is that, as a result of such a prominent intervention by Trump despite evidence of his central role in the January 6, 2021 coup on Capitol Hill, most of the Republicans ultimately nominated for all positions, specifically 299 of 569, are deniers who support his false claim that the 2020 presidential elections were "a fraud" and, therefore, Biden is not a legitimate president.

Trump's intense pre-election activity contrasts with the low profile adopted by the current president so far on the campaign trail. His modest involvement in it, mostly limited to small events and heavily focused on fundraising, is directly proportional to his low approval ratings in his second and peak year in office. After falling below 50% as a result of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, and after plummeting to 37.5% last July, polls now place support for his work at 43.3 %: a burden for many midterm candidates who in some cases, and more or less elegantly, have shied away from their direct support.

However, Biden has supported or promoted campaign financing in Pennsylvania – where he went yesterday for the umpteenth time – California, Colorado, Nevada and New York. And in the next few days she will go to Florida and New Mexico.

To complement this minimalist contribution, the Democrats have turned to Obama, a more popular figure as a former president than when he was in office, according to polls. He will star in large rallies planned in spaces with capacity for thousands of attendees. Last night he did it at the Gateway Center Arena in Atlanta and in the next few days he will do it on prominent stages in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Although both are former presidents, the motivations of Trump and Obama to intervene in this campaign could not be more distant. While the Democrat seeks to lend a cable to his colleagues, without pretensions of greater personal projection for the future, the Republican may be preparing the ground to announce his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections: an announcement could make judicial proceedings more difficult or more compromised in his against.

The midterms are largely a referendum on Trump, to the extent that the greater or lesser success of his candidates may or may not prove him right in his bets and reaffirm or curb his power in the party. Anyway, it is sung that the conservative leader will try to score all the profits of the formation, regardless of how his men do.

If, as planned, the Republicans reconquer the Lower House, Trump will claim victory. If, as it is not ruled out, the conservatives also recover the Senate, Trump will declare a double victory. And if the Democrats manage to retain control of both Houses, Trump will blame the rest of the party or speak of "fraud." It is not a hypothesis, but a logical deduction from what he and his people have already said or suggested. For now, Trump is still winning. Until someone stops him.