In 2016 a total of 63 million American
voted either for Donald Trump or against Hilary Clinton. Many more
people for Hilary who had 65.8 million votes. Due to the US Electoral
College process some where around 100,000 voters pushed Trump’s EC count
over the threshold for the win.
Several factors will be working against Trump’s re-election chances.
Several states are passing legislation requiring all candidates to
release multiple years of tax returns in order to have their name one
the ballot. There is no double that a write in campaign would be mounted
to offset that fact. However, it would be a disadvantage to not have
his trademark name printed on the ballot.
Also there is a two part movement by some states to either allocate
their EC votes by the percentages each candidate in the popular vote.
The other variation is the awarding of all a state’s EC votes to the
winner of the national popular vote counts.
Both of these developments likewise work against a candidate who neither
won the popular vote nor won the votes in densely populated urban
areas.
In 2020 Donald Trump, if he is free to run, will not have an opponent
who had been besmirched for 30 years and had a sizable hatred mounted
against her. Trump must face the fact that a sizable number did not FOR
him but AGAINST Clinton.
Another factor working against a Trump re-election win is that in the
intervening 4 years many balloting systems have been switched back to
paper trail protocols, the counting will have a far greater scrutiny.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The balloting
districts will be watching this time. Ballot irregularities will be
seen much earlier.
Lastly, the voters who put Trump in the Oval Office now know what to
expect. They see the mendacity of the incumbent. They will have
experienced losses of income, health care, and all around wellbeing.
Also after there has been the natural attrition of their numbers. The
average age of a Trump voter was much than for Clinton. The 50-64 and
65+ demographics leaned toward Trump while the 18-29 and 30-49 cohorts
favored Clinton or it could be reasoned voted against Trump. Her younger
voter base was larger than his older voter base. The people all will be
4 years older and more of the older Trump supporters will have died.
Undoubtedly, Trump will have a far more difficult time replicating his
2016 results. Malcolm Gladwell wrote on the phenomena of the Tipping
Point. Events sometimes tip and result in a wildly successful outcome
for someone. The problem resides in trying to make the events tip.
Rarely do the same causes result in a second tip. One could say “tip
happens, but try to do it again, it’s futile.”
