All You Need to Know, June 2024
Four years ago, I wrote a weekly column for my friend summarising what was going on in the race between Biden and Trump. I called it “All You Need To Know” and I ended up bundling everything into a book about US politics. Then I stopped and moved on to other things. But I’m dusting off the format after four years. This one’s for you, Anthony.
Trump is ahead in all of the swing states
The national race is about even, or has Trump with a slight edge. But as I’m fond of pointing out, the national numbers don’t matter. All that matters are swing states, which are these beige ones:
And right now Trump appears to be ahead (or in a statistical tie) in all of them. If those numbers hold, Trump becomes president. But even this is a bit of a mirage that makes Biden look stronger than he is. There’s no way Biden takes Georgia again. Nevada and Arizona are tilting away too. So if we fill those states in for Trump, here’s what the map looks like:
Trump needs 270 to win, and those states get him to within 2 electoral votes of that. If Biden can get his “blue wall” across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, He’ll win 272 to 268. That’s doable. It won’t be easy, but it’s not a ridiculous stretch like Georgia is.
A reminder: Republicans are only 27% of the population
People (especially Republican strategists) love to talk about how we’re divided, because then they can talk about how “half the country loves Trump and half hate him.” But it’s a rhetorical trick. Republicans are a minority, as are Democrats. 27% are Republicans, 25% are Democrats, and a whopping 45% are independents.
So when you hear that 75% of Republicans support Trump, that sounds close to “about half the country mostly supports this guy.” But that’s not true. If Republicans are 27%, and 75% support him, that’s 20%. Much lower. Stop calling him “polarising.” He’s flatly unpopular.
All eyes on indies
So just like solid-red Texas and solid-blue California don’t matter because they’ve been baked in to the calculus, the same is true for Republicans and Democrats. We know Democrats are voting for Biden. We know Republicans are voting for Trump. The only mystery is what the independent voters will ultimately decide.
One poll says that 49% of independent voters think Trump should drop out now that he’s a 34-time convicted felon. In comparison, 15% of Republicans think the same thing. We need to take these numbers with a grain of salt, of course. The election is a long way away, polling slumps and bumps can provide misleading data, we need to look at longer term trends, etc. But let’s stack some assertions on each other and see where we end up:
- Assume that if you think Trump should drop out, you’re less likely to vote for him.
- Assume that if you’re less likely to vote for him, you’re more likely to consider Biden.
- Assume that Biden needs 0.1% in Wisconsin, 0.5% in Michigan, and 2.3% in Pennsylvania to win, the latest numbers from the right-leaning RCP.
- If 45% of voters are indie, and 49% of them think Trump should drop out, assume that a 2.3% gap is not insurmountable. (Also notice that 15% of his own base think he should drop out!)
But it’s just too far out to know right now. We still have debates, trial results, Supreme Court rulings, and so forth. We’ll have to see.
Trump’s under-reported soft support
It’s easy to assume the Republican party is solidly behind Trump, but that’s not what the primaries taught us. In state after state, Trump’s support dropped between 2020 and 2024, even as his overall mainstream reputation seemingly rebounded. Let’s analyse the two states Biden needs to win to see how Trump’s support has changed in the last four years with his most die-hard supporters:
Trump’s share in the Pennsylvania primaries
2020: 92.1% (1,053,616 votes)
2024: 82.8% (790,477 votes)
Trump’s share in the Wisconsin primaries
2020: 97.87% (616,782 votes)
2024: 78.97% (477,103 votes)
Trump only lost PA by 81,660 votes in 2020, and he’s since lost 263,139 Republican voters. These are his bedrock voters, people who love him enough to register their approval in a sleepy primary. Losing that many of his own base — before we factor in indies’ disapproval of his conviction — does not paint a good picture for him.
The same story is true in Wisconsin. He lost the state by 20,682 votes, but he shed 139,679 of his own fans in four years! That’s before indies register their opinions of him, which will not help his numbers.
Interesting historical footnote: I wanted to do a similar comparison with Michigan, but I can’t because there’s a Republican civil war happening there now. Here’s a great This American Life episode about it. The summary is that the GOP is so against the status quo that they’re tearing down their own Republican leaders and the party may actually disappear from the state if they can’t figure it out. This is bad news for Trump, who needs a robust Get Out the Vote effort from this must-win state.
What if Trump wins?
Trump can win. He’s never been in a better position to win than he is in right now, so I’m as terrified as anyone. If he wins, he’ll seat Supreme Court justices, solidifying an intolerable far-right grip on the Supreme Court for a generation. He’ll award Ukraine to Russia. He’ll follow through on his proposal to let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza. He’ll do his best to break up NATO, and may well succeed. He’ll sign executive orders that will make his first presidency look like a cake walk.
But there’s one detail no one’s talking about: he might not be able to pass any laws because the GOP may lose the House. Which could be an existential threat for the entire party. Here’s why.
- To pass laws, you can’t just sign executive orders. You need to get the House and Senate to agree with bills, then pass them to your desk.
- Right now the Republicans hold the House, but only barely. Many (including me) are predicting that Democrats take the House in November.
- If Trump wins, but Democrats control the House, it means he won’t be able to pass any laws. He’ll do lots of damage, but not the kind of damage he could do with unified control of congress.
- Parties in power do poorly in midterms. This is why Democrats lost in 2022 and Republicans lost in 2018. This is a consistent enough pattern than you can set your watch to it. If Trump is president, 2026 will be a bloodbath for Republicans at the ballot box.
- This would mean 4 years of not being able to pass any meaningful laws, which brings us to 2028, where we know Trump will either be dead or will try to run again, illegally. In either case, things will look very different. And it won’t be good for the Republicans.
I desperately hope Trump doesn’t win. It would be bad, to put it lightly. But we’re overlooking the midterm curse, and the fact that Democrats winning the House will be a massive hedge against Trump’s worst efforts. And then, cheer up, he’ll be dead soon! He’s an old and unhealthy guy.
Immunity and the death of democracy
None of the rest of Trump’s trials are going to happen before the election. But in a few weeks, the Supreme Court is going to decide whether or not presidents have diplomatic immunity. His lawyers literally argued that Trump could assassinate political rivals because a US president needs unlimited power. They argued this with a straight face. And the Supreme Court seemed sympathetic to this argument. Which is very bad.
Recent oral arguments seemed to point to a pretty clear next step. The Supreme Court is going to claim they can’t possibly determine what is an “official act” as a president. They will shrug and claim that a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States is perhaps protected speech. They’ll send the matter to a lower court, who will stare at the brief blankly, unsure how we got here. They’ll rule that, uh, no, presidents are not kings who can kill political rivals without consequence, and a shudder will go up their spine that they even need to say this out loud. They’ll send it back to the Supreme Court, who will sit on it and wait for the election.
If Trump wins, they will award him immunity, which would include the broad power to overthrow the government, this time knowing he’ll get away with it. If Trump loses, they will say “Well of course Joe Biden shouldn’t have the power of a king. Why would you ever ask such a thing?”
If you live in America, and you have an option to get out, I’d start taking that research more seriously. We’re not talking about a horse race. We’re not talking about the lesser of two evils or gaffes on the election trail. We are now literally talking about awarding presidents the powers of kings, and a candidate who openly talks about moving the US from a democracy to an autocracy. Students of history know how that pans out. Get ready.
And vote.
