How Will The Presidential Race Play Out?

While talk shifts to the Democratic ticket - and Michelle Obama - how will a fall Trump v. Biden contest play out? Or will that be the choice?

With Donald Trump’s slo-mo coronation likely to continue after yesterday’s New Hampshire primary, we outlined last week how the Trump campaign’s seven months leading up to July’s GOP national convention might play out. You may refresh your memory here.

Then what?

We have thoughts on what may and may not happen, depending on who the Democratic nominee is. But first, a few preliminaries. The Democratic nomination generates a pulse, and the patient deserves a little attention.

Several months ago, we predicted that neither Trump nor Biden would be their respective party’s nominees. We were wrong about Trump, with a slim majority of Republicans firmly convicted (pun intended) that the former President deserves another shot, undeterred if not reinforced by his legal challenges. But we’re not ready to give up on our Biden prediction yet.

Side note: There are many critical post-mortems on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s failed campaign, comparing it to the failed 1980 campaign of former Texas Democratic Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally. Connally’s campaign produced one delegate, Arkansan Ida Mills, who eventually voted for someone else (probably Ronald Reagan, who won the nomination and the election that year). Others, such as old friends and campaign colleagues Alex Castellanos and Curt Anderson, have performed instructive, if damning, autopsies.

It’s my view that DeSantis’s campaign, or anyone else’s, was never going to upend Trump, especially after the heavily politicized legal broadsides - lawfare - launched against him by New York, Atlanta, and federal prosecutors. Sure, DeSantis’s campaign has problems from the start, including his disastrous Twitter/X launch. He tried every message, and the attacks on his personality were frankly over the top. Nothing worked, nor was it going to. That wasn’t so obvious when DeSantis first looked at the race and before Democratic party elites launched their taxpayer-subsidized legal broadsides against Trump.

But keep your eye on DeSantis for the future. Even now, he looks to many Trump voters as his natural successor and already leads in prospective 2028 polling. It might explain why and how he dropped out of the race. It may not matter whether he’s chosen as Trump’s running mate (unlikely).

Trump voters have surmised that the 45th President is the only thing standing in the way of destroy-democracy-to-save-it Democrats, their constitution, free and fair elections, their freedoms, and their country and its constitution. Just ask them. It’s now a race between the Washington Beltway and Acela Corridor elites versus everyone else. (The Acela Corridor refers to the expensive, high-speed Amtrak train that ferries bureaucrats, politicians, and media between Washington, DC, and New York’s Penn Station beneath Madison Square Garden, with stops in Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, and two places in New Jersey).

With Trump the all-but-certain nominee and a GOP nomination contest that has lost drama, the media is now scouring for something to cover on the Democratic side. After all, most polls now show Trump defeating Biden not just on the ballot test but on almost every major issue other than homelessness and “climate change.” Trump leads mightily on the top issues of inflation, the economy, crime, and, most of all, the southern border fiasco.

A quick recap of the Democratic primary. The Biden White House canceled Iowa and New Hampshire as the first in the nation caucuses and primaries - where Biden finished fourth or worst in 2020 - to South Carolina, where he won handily. New Hampshire state law requires it to be the “first in the nation” primary, so national Democrats punished them by keeping Joe Biden off the ballot and denying them any delegates.

That hasn’t deterred US Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and self-help/spiritualist/Oprah guru Marianne Williamson from campaigning there for today’s primary. Phillips, Minnesota's millionaire gelato magnate, has steadily climbed in polls while traditional Democrats push a write-in campaign for Biden.

This is Dean Phillips, then a candidate for Congress.

Dean who, you ask? In the Democratic wave year 2018, he unseated incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen (R-MN) in the Gopher State’s previously GOP-leaning 3rd Congressional District, representing Minneapolis's highly-educated and predominately wealthy western suburbs, including Minnetonka. He was the first Democrat to win there since another Democratic wave year, 1958. Phillips made millions when he sold his terrific Talenti gelato to Unilever, the Dutch mega-purveyor of frozen desserts, including the uber-lefty Ben & Jerry’s. He also owns a house-brand liquor company. Despite being a consistent lock-step supporter of Biden’s legislative agenda, the audacious Phillips mostly cites Biden’s growing infirmity as the basis for his candidacy.

And Phillips says he’s being blackballed. From Politico:

Since declaring his candidacy on Oct. 27, Phillips says, he hasn’t been interviewed once on the favorite network of his fellow Democrats. Ditto big Sunday shows. He’s been on CNN a handful of times, but never given the town-hall treatment afforded fellow single-digit candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, both of whom happen to have challenged Donald Trump rather than Biden.

The only broadcast outlets that seem to want him, Phillips tells me, are the ones that deploy him as a way of tweaking the Democrats.

“Right media has been more than invitational,” Phillips says. By contrast, “I don’t think there’s an MSNBC viewer that even knows that I’m a congressman, because what’s being portrayed is designed to prevent that education.”

Bill Ackman to the rescue. The anti-woke billionaire hedge fund manager, mad at Harvard’s wokeness and attacks on his wife, has tossed $1 million of his lunch money at the ignored candidate. Phillips is suddenly engendering a modicum of attention and climbing in polls. We'll determine whether it will be enough when you read this on Wednesday morning. That’s not money going directly into Phillips’s campaign - that would be illegal - but there’s no limit on how much he can direct to a “super PAC” supporting Phillips that is not “coordinating” directly with the campaign.

American Research Group polling

Phillips won’t be the nominee, but there’s no doubt that Democratic insider panic is reaching the boiling point. Thus, the recent spate of speculation and reporting that Michelle Obama, under the tutelage and sponsorship of her formerly presidential husband, is looking to descend from upon high and rescue the Obama legacy the party. From Cindy Adams, a columnist for the New York Post.

Biden won’t debate. Can’t. Our codger-in-chief can’t even read the prewritten script in front of him fast enough to pronounce the words.

So, forget him — which most of us already have.

Coming back now — Obama. Not him. HER!

We’ve heard this drumbeat for a while. Now it’s louder.

Plans are to grab Michelle for the Democratic presidency choice. Making the music is Barack the orchestra leader.

Michelle says she’s “terrified” Trump will win. No casual burp. Was programmed. She’s sent a survey to Dem biggies asking their feelings about her candidacy.

Obama’s quietly angling for Joe to go. He’s weaseled up to this for a few weeks. Mouths aren’t talking. But mouths are knowing.

Over one year ago, summer of 2022, she was in NYC meeting several big hedge CEOs, and said, “I am running, and I am asking for your support.”

It is a little hard to take a 93-year-old gossip columnist too seriously, including one for the very gossipy New York Post. But this has been rumored about for weeks, if not months, in Republican circles, with fear and trepidation. Michelle remains highly popular, especially among suburban women, and exited her husband’s presidency with high marks. She’s also never been interested in running and is disdainful of Washington politics. At least publicly. And she’s never run for anything in her life.

Just ask Vivek Ramaswamy and a few others. Running for president as a first-time candidate is a challenge.

The Obamas still mostly live in Washington, DC, after promising to leave town after daughter Sasha finished school. She’s long gone, but the Obamas spend considerable time at their house in DC’s tony Kalorama neighborhood, just off “Embassy Row,” one of their four mansions. According to an interview of historian David Garrow by Tablet Magazine’s David Samuels, the 44th President meets frequently with Biden staff, most of whom cut their teeth in his administration.

To many, Joe Biden has the unmistakable aura of a puppet president, especially after he didn’t know that his Defense Secretary went AWOL for four days amid a Middle East crisis. And if that’s true, rumors about Michelle make sense. But if it’s true Michelle (and her husband) wants the nomination handed to her, two people are standing in her way - Dr. Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The latter still polls slightly highest on favorite Democrats to succeed Biden if he were not running, and I don’t think she’s going to step aside for Michelle. The nomination won’t be gifted to the former First Lady, at least without a hefty price tag.

My money is on Michelle not running unless Biden drops out voluntarily, Kamala takes a hike, and the nomination is delivered to her. Dream on.

Here’s the thing: For all the talk that Trump’s nomination helps Biden, the nomination of an increasingly infirm Biden may have the opposite effect of helping make Donald Trump the 47th President of the United States, polls notwithstanding. And that’s the challenging case Democratic party elites have to persuade Joe Biden and especially his chief enabler, Dr. Jill, for him to retire. Biden helps Trump more than vice versa.

Republicans want Biden (or Harris) to lead the Democratic ticket in 2024, even more than Democrats who may want Trump to be the GOP nominee.

Counting on Trump’s legal woes and courtroom challenges is no guarantee of electoral success. Perhaps the opposite:

Good luck with that. Biden firmly believes he’s the only person who can beat Trump, and good luck persuading him otherwise, no matter who on his campaign or White House senior team are ultimately loyal to. There’s also the problem of a weak Democratic bench. California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, has a massive budget deficit issue, not to mention rampant homelessness, decaying energy and water infrastructure, and a cascading flow of overtaxed people and their money exiting the once Golden State. No amount of hair gel can fix that.

Kamala Harris’s word salads, annoying cackle, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard speaking style, and unpleasant personality make the unlikeable Californian less popular than Joe Biden and on par with COVID and hemorrhoids. Not a winning formula.

Democratic governors Jared Polis (D-CO) and Josh Shapiro (D-PA) look good on paper. The multi-millionaire entrepreneur Polis, in particular, has proven a popular and successful governor with a libertarian and pro-business bent. But neither excites the woke and wildly delusional Democratic base. This is despite Shapiro positioning himself by breaking a campaign promise right after he was elected to support school choice in the Keystone State as a sop to teacher unions.

Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) and spouse Marlon Reis.

So it looks like the Democrats are stuck propping up their ancient mariner. A fall campaign against a 78-year-old but very energetic Donald Trump looks like this:

You thought Biden’s 2020 campaign was spent “in the basement.” His 2024 campaign will be a “Rose Garden” strategy of carefully staged events, although Biden’s growing inability to read a teleprompter is obvious. The only place he’ll travel to is his Rehoboth Beach house. Look for a couple of carefully stage-managed overseas trips to Israel, Ukraine, and maybe Africa to appeal to specific demographic groups in the US. Look for a “Biden to China” surprise trip that will be sold as a “new era” in a more peaceful relationship. And hold on to your wallet.

Meanwhile, we are feted to endless Trump rallies in most states.

There were two debates with Donald Trump in 2020. There will be none in 2024 so as “not to give a platform to a proven liar, insurrectionist, and threat to democracy,” they’ll say. MSNBC, CNN, and possibly others will set the stage by refusing to air any debate featuring Donald Trump before Biden declines debate offers.

And, of course, the networks won’t cover the Biden impeachment hearings later this year over how he allowed the vice presidency to be used to line the family pockets, including his own, trading official actions for cash. Son Hunter’s legal foibles will be unavoidable fodder except for the most loyal official state media. You know who they are.

Might there be a vice presidential debate? Probably not, since any surrogate of Donald Trump’s is just as bad as he is—guilt by association.

Biden will not only rely on surrogates but our increasingly official state media - the major broadcast networks and what remains of their allied print media, the failing Washington Post, New York Times, and the Gannett empire - to do his campaign’s dirty work. They will again rely on anonymous sources at the FBI, CIA, and elsewhere to manufacture a new round of stories about Trump. They won’t have the same effect as 2016 or 2020, but no doubt Facebook and other social media outfits will take their cues from the government and censor accordingly.

It won’t work this time. Unless, as we warned in 2020, Donald Trump makes the race narcissistically about himself instead of the issues on his side, comparing the records and asking Americans what Ronald Reagan famously asked 44 years ago. Are you better off than you were four years ago?

You may think Biden and his team know that question is coming. Perhaps they’re ready for it, focusing on Trump’s past miscues and controversies, including COVID and his “chaos.” But it is unlikely to work unless Biden can deliver an effective retort in person during a debate - which won’t happen.

Yes, the polls are close for now, just as they were up until the weekend before election day in 1980. Yes, never underestimate Trump’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and yes, Democrats could use and abuse election rules and procedures involving absentee ballots coupled with dirty voter rolls to obfuscate their way to victory in some key states and jurisdictions, especially southeast Pennsylvania (Philly and it’s close-in suburbs). Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket doesn’t help GOP down-ballot candidates, especially those in suburban districts.

Yes, and the GOP should also be ready for all that and promote, not discourage early voting. Several states where shenanigans happened, especially Georgia, have fixed many of their issues. And we’ll see if Ronna Romney McDaniel and her minions have learned their lesson from 2020 in corruptly run election regimes elsewhere, especially in Pennsylvania.

Trump will still have challenges in the suburbs, where he suffered in Iowa and, very likely, in New Hampshire. Chardonnay-swilling suburban women are still bothered by him, among others. The never-Trump GOP faction is big enough to be a concern. But independents - a growing segment that includes increasing numbers of disaffected Democrats - will be the key to a Trump or Biden victory in November.

My money is on the orange guy for now. The polling suggests that, as a Republican, the election is almost too good to be true. But get ready for the roller coaster ride of your life.