Trump hits the road
Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid has the feel of a band that, having hit a dead-end in the studio, hits the road in a bid to get the creative juices flowing. This weekend, the former president will hold rallies in South Carolina and New Hampshire, his first in a while, amidst a growing sense things aren’t quite going to plan.
A quick recap of that campaign so far: the former president spent most of 2022 delighting in the will-he-won’t-he pantomime over whether he’d have another run at the White House. Then, with the midterms approaching and everyone expecting a red wave, he prepared to own the results, teasing a campaign launch for the week after Election Day. When it became clear that the red wave failed to materialize — and with plenty of evidence to suggest that he was a big part of the reason why — Trump went ahead with the launch, inviting the press to Mar a-Lago for a splashy event and promising to “again put America first.” And since then… nothing. Or almost nothing, from the former president.
With Trump keeping a low profile, the polls since November have shown his numbers come back down to earth, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis making big gains and the former president no longer in the impregnable position he once was was. The numbers allow observers to argue both sides, choosing to focus on the direction of travel if they are bearish on Trump, or the still-impressive raw numbers if they are bullish.
And as is often the case with Washington narratives, the persuasive — Trump is badly damaged after the midterms — quickly morphs into the bombastic — Trump is toast.
In the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti offers a characteristically level-headed assessment, noting that if the final months of 2022 were bad for Trump (terrible midterms, underwhelming launch, dinner with antisemites), the start of 2023 has been a lot better. His man came out on top in the House leadership fight, the Biden documents discovery has neutralized one of his big 2024 liabilities and he is set to jump back onto mainstream social media.
Continetti argues that elites in both parties are repeating the mistake of 2016 and flirting with writing him off: “Their failure to learn from history has made it possible not only for Trump to win the GOP nomination for the third straight time, but to pull another inside straight in the Electoral College and return to the White House. For decades, Trump has said that the political class is corrupt, insular, and incompetent, and that Republican leaders lack guts. Washington is doing its best to prove him right.”
One sign of Trump’s enduring clout is the fact that so few other presidential contender have jumped into the race.
Perhaps the most important point is the most basic: it’s still extraordinarily early. In Politico, Jeff Greenfield offers a helpful reminder of how things have ended for early primary frontrunners in the past. “Judging by history, you may want to hunker down in a cave for much of the coming year — you’d likely understand the state of the 2024 race just as well as if you were consuming non-stop news,” he writes. As the author of a three-times-a-week newsletter on Washington politics, I’m not going to suggest you take his advice. But I will suggest that you take anyone suggesting anything definitive about 2024 — especially when it comes to Trump’s chances — with a giant heap of salt. If I ever fall into that trap, please do send me an angry email.
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California’s Senate race is going to get crowded
How crowded will the race to be the next senator from California get? The latest to throw his hat into the ring to replace Dianne Feinstein is Congressman Adam Schiff, who has just been booted off the House Intelligence Committee by Kevin McCarthy. He joins House colleague and notoriously bad boss Katie Porter in the contest for a plum seat. Barbara Lee also plans to run. Others are sure to follow, setting up a ferocious fight. The most awkward thing about it? The fact that Feinstein is yet to announce whether she will run again or not.
Into the economic unknown
Thursday brought better economic news than expected. America grew at an annualized rate of 2.9 percent in the final quarter of 2022, the Commerce Department said yesterday, beating economists’ 2.6-percent forecast. This positive development adds to a mixed, if improving, economic outlook. The Commerce data also shows slowing investment. Elsewhere, job growth is slowing while inflation shows signs of easing but is still high. America’s near- and long-term economic prospects are a big unknown hanging over President Biden — and politics more generally.
What you should be reading today
Jacob Heilbrunn: Biden is the war president Ukraine needs
Spectator Editorial: United States of Paranoia
Teresa Mull: Should Pennsylvanians pay billions for public school sex abuse cases?
Eric Felton, RealClearPolitics: The indictment of Charles McGonigal
John O. McGinness, City-Journal: Headwinds in the windy city
Charlie Cook, Cook Political Report: Off years aren’t so off anymore
Poll watch
President Biden job approval
Approve: 37.7 percent
Disapprove: 56.7 percent
Net approval: -19.0 (RCP average)
New Hampshire GOP primary poll
Ron DeSantis: 42 percent
Donald Trump: 30 percent
Nikki Haley: 8 percent
Chris Sununu: 4 percent
Liz Cheney: 4 percent
Larry Hogan: 4 percent (University of New Hampshire)
