Sometimes Rich Lowry will pose questions to his guests on NR’s The Editors podcast that require some prognostication on their parts and, in the process, shed light on their priors. So it was when Rich recently asked his guests what they thought the odds were of Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
As I told him then, I do not think the odds are good. Campaigns matter, and Republicans are likely to be outspent by their Democratic opponents this election cycle. Trump will continue to be compelled to spend inordinate amounts of his time in courtrooms as the year progresses, which will play very differently with general electorate than it does among Republican primary voters. To win, Trump will have to do one of two difficult things: Either he must convince voters who cast their ballots against him in 2020 to vote for him (a high psychological hurdle to clear), or he must remake the electorate with low-propensity voters, who are unlikely to be as drawn to his campaign as they were in 2016 now that he is the establishment candidate representing an all-but-unified Republican Party. Barring unforeseeable events that shake up the race, the general election will be a tough slog for him.
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