Within the Margin

Oh, hey, it’s Matt. So, it’s been kind of a while since I wrote here (like a long while). I apologize, but I have been doing stuff on the sidelines like the WTM ratings with Brian. As the end of the 2024 Cycle is fast upon us, let’s explore what I think is the most and yet least controversial take one could have at the end of a cacophony of punditry and pontifications across the political spectrum (we at Within the Margin, withstanding): that the fundamentals of this race never favored Trump. Whether you start the clock on the evening of January 6th, 2021, or the dreaded afternoon of June 24th, 2022, the bell tolled for Donald Trump’s chances of winning. It is through the sort of manufactured luck that typically gets you thrown out of profitable casinos that this character kept drawing inside straight after inside straight to “luck” his way to the final table. We can only hope that this table spells the end of him and the beginning of the end of the vile ideology that will still need to be electorally exterminated over who knows how long.

Now, let me state unequivocally that Trump’s re-nomination was never in doubt. From January 6th to his official clinching earlier this year, Trump was never truly challenged for the party’s apparatus. Ronna McDaniel remained as HIS RNC Chair (until she conveniently wasn’t); his word carried weight in State Party Committee selections and the overall composition of the RNC. It’s effortless to ice out everyone when you control the infrastructure. As much as the Ron DeSantises or Nikki Haleys of the world thought there were ashes out of which to rise, they were never seriously going to challenge for the “crown.” From his announcement, the nomination was his. 

It is easy to argue that prior to President Biden’s exit from the race, everything favored Trump. On the Economy, and with the double-haters likely favoring the challenger, this would be superficially true. On the economics question, there’s a lot to unpack given the overall tax cuts from 2017 and their long term effects, the effects of the pandemic, and the long recovery from it in terms of general affordability. The economy is still something of a pain point, but one side declaring a tariff through extralegal if necessary means is sort of self-disqualifying. There was also a burst-through on immigration (a position purposely poisoned for the SOLE purpose of the election, most egregiously by Donald Trump but with huge assistance from Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis) as well. But let’s pull the lens back from the simple narrative of an unpopular incumbent in trouble due to the economy. 

Fundamentally, Donald Trump wasn’t running a political campaign. He was using the RNC and his campaign as a slush fund vehicle to underwrite his legal issues. Across every case, he was utilizing the campaign and the RNC to fund his legal expenses. They were not building out campaign infrastructure. They weren’t focusing on voter persuasion and active voter mobilization and registration. Now, it can be argued that these were being taken on by other groups and therefore not a need for the RNC and the Trump campaign…but that’s not a guarantee. Look no further than the “GOTV” of Elon Musk’s America PAC. Prior to America PAC’s actions, the RNC had Turning Point USA running their Field operation and doing… what, exactly?They were not dedicating time in the states that were going to be the tipping point or that sat a knife’s edge. At no point were these vehicles benefitting the campaign. Finally, the registration efforts…we’ll see how effective they were. In the end, there was no effort to run a campaign in the traditional sense; tons of money came into the Trump coffers, and the RNC, but most of it went right back out. 

Next, Trump never addressed the elephant he happened to drop into a room by way of the Dobbs Decision. It is certainly my hope that June 24th of 2022 will mark the beginning of the end for the era of Trumpism and that while beating him at the ballot box one last time may be sweet, the ideas and ideals fester. Dobbs was the bomb that changed the supposed “Red Wave” of the 2022 midterms. It kept Democrats in play to keep the majority in the Senate and to only lost the House by a handful instead of 20 seats. Dobbs created that. It’s impossible to say if Dobbs was the major contributor to the first special election after it came down (the Nebraska 1st on June 28th of 2022), but it possibly played a role there and definitely played a role in a number of other special elections and the 2022 general elections. Dobbs led to successful efforts to save reproductive rights in Kansas and Ohio – you know, bastions of liberalism, both – and other states. When asked, all Trump ever answered was, “I did the thing – I gave it back to the states and everyone loves me for it, I don’t know why Kansas and Ohio did what they did, but they did and what of it.” His running mate gave an attempted gaslighting in his debate with the framing that “yes, the GOP hadn’t had answers on Dobbs and its immediate aftereffects, but trust us, we’ll get it right.” Of course, not helping anything in that reframing was the fact the former President stated unequivocally at the one debate he chose to do with Vice President Harris that “I don’t talk to my selection for Vice President.” From that point the VP selection was rendered null and void in this writer’s eyes. Dobbs changed the midterms but remains the biggest known-unkown of the cycle. As of writing, women make up more than half of the early voting electorate. Now, is this indicative of a blow out? No. But it’s more of an underlying factor that was its own self-persuasion event and we still don’t know its total impact. That might be a little word salad-y, but in short: Dobbs changed a lot of things and discounting its effect is to the detriment of those who do so.

The former president never had to address anything of significant import in his third attempt at running for the Presidency. The supposed air of inevitability that he spun up after the midterms helped him glide through the primaries completely unchallenged, to the point that he never took a debate stage to answer for anything in front of GOP voters. Primary debates, even those that otherwise seem useless, still help frontrunners in campaigns and expose frontrunners who don’t have what it takes to win. Trump avoiding the primary debates was brilliant in terms of maintaining his aura of invincibility, but would have led to an actual campaign at a time he wasn’t using campaign money. Beyond the primaries he never let an infrastructure be built to fight anything resembling a close race. The plan for the third attempt was the same as the plans for the first and second in that sheer cult of personality and force of will would prevail. The adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix i,” is true – however, there were actually some serious “breaks” that were pushed aside as unimportant. There were no investments of time or money to answer the most critical problems of a third Trump run: any help in building a voter contact network of any value and never being able to provide a substantive answer to what’s after Dobbs. Despite that lack of investment, yes, this race has (and was) too close to call. But the fact remains that Trump was never fundamentally favored. Why? Sheer dumb luck and cowardice.

In terms of sheer dumb luck: the President got gifts from his primary opponents generally being incompetent; and he ran the table inavoiding consequences in his various trials. Of those challengers only Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy had any semblance of a plan for a campaign, and Haley was the only one who had an actual theory of a case. Ramaswamy made himself a mercenary at Trump’s disposal to take on and take out any opponent that could pose any threat to Trump. At the debates his aim was mostly at Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Why?ell, they presented somewhat credible threats to Trump. Ramaswamy used his time to take shots on behalf of Trump and was doing so in order to gain some sort of favor after his exit (though it’s debatable what he’ll get as a prize.) Haley was the sole credible challenger, and presented an actual Theory of a case and became THE outlet for Republican dissatisfaction of Trump in the primaries. It wasn’t enough to displace Trump as the nominee (and this would be a much worse race for Democrats had she prevailed), but it’s not unnoticed that the theory she presented as a need for a new generation in leadership was heard by the Democrats and manifested in the change in candidate from Biden to Harris. Trump could hold this theory in a Republican Primary, especially in a primary he effectively wrote the rules for by controlling the RNC. And it wasn’t a concern before Harris – but it should have been givenurther thought after Harris became the nominee for the Democratic Party. Now, the trials were generally dumb luck, especially in Georgia. There’s no other way to put it. 

Onto cowardice: Donald Trump benefited from the lack of serious questioning in a primary setting, and from the Press ever since he first announced. Press outlets fear Trump for justifiable reasons (shooting at local papers), but they laid down time and time again. At the outset, it was for ratings and the spectacle of his rallies. Later, it was gaslit into “equal time” and equivocation, especially from the print media, as at the end of this campaign cycle we saw a number of high-profile papers reject the recommendation of their editorial boards and endorse Harris out of fear of retribution had Trump lost. It was always cowardly. Trump benefited from cowardice like no previous presidential aspirant in history.

In total, Trump never had the fundamentals of a campaign, and he never had the fundamentals for a changed race in August. Since that time, none of the fundamentals we think of for a presidential race favored Trump. He skated by on his own hubris and that of his campaign, and on the lack of courage to call him out. Trump ran a bad race in total. The extreme polarization in the electorate is the only reason it ended as close as it did.