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Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
Thanks for the question, SRG, and congratulations on your username abbreviation.
For the first, I think that by 2024 various present dangers will have caught up with Trump so that he won't be running:-
i) all his conman and sex-predator cases will make him clearly untenable to voters - or that one for which he is the "unindicted co-conspirator"
ii) his wayward, damaging leadership of the GOP will make the party finally reject him. How much longer can they ride along with a leader who is perpetually looking back at the last election and advising supporters not to vote
iii) something bad will come out of the Jan 6th inquiry and the GOP will have another moment like they did on, er, Jan 7th.
As for who will run on the Dem ticket; I don't know. Will Biden triumph over his advancing years and decreasing popularity? Personally I'd like Kamila Harris to run, just to have a female president at last, but I imagine she wouldn't be chosen by the Dems.
How about you, SGR? What would be your answers to your own questions?
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Personally, I'm not certain of anything either. I think Trump wants to run, but I don't know if his advancing age will result in health complications that will force him not to (very possible). I don't foresee any cases getting far enough or damaging enough to seriously impact Trump's chances at winning the nomination - when he was first elected, and throughout his presidency it was claimed that there would be a scandal big enough to impeach/remove him but as we saw, the party stood by him throughout all of it (which doesn't necessarily predict the future, but let's say I'm not optimistic about the chances).
I don't think the GOP party hacks necessarily
want Trump to run again. They'd much rather have a Jeb Bush or a Marco Rubio who will tow the line without causing much of a fuss. But if the majority of the party base still supports Trump and wants him to run, I don't think it'd be politically advisable for the GOP to quash him. I don't think anything will come out of the Jan 6th inquiry (at least in regards to Trump) that we didn't already know - I don't think they'll find any political killshot against Trump - that said, I don't think that's the point of it - it's mostly political theater designed to damage Trump/the GOP (and quite frankly, I do think it's effective political theater - the longer the Dems keep it in the headlines, the better it is for them). I think how the midterms go and how Biden's approval rating starts to trend by then will inform Trump's decision about whether or not to run.
As for your mention of Trump casting aspersion on the last election's validity and telling news media and others that Republicans won't vote in future elections (I don't remember if he explicitly told them en masse not to vote, though he might've in the Georgia runoff election), I absolutely agree with you. It's a terrible look. And if he continues to frame the 2020 election the way he has been in a hypothetical case where he becomes the 2024 GOP nominee, he'll almost certainly lose the general election, because it comes across as petty and whiny to independents - and for the most part, independents don't care about Trump's personal grievances. If I was Trump's political adviser, I'd encourage him to reframe it by promising that if he's elected, his #1 priority will be election reform and the incontrovertible auditability of future election results (regardless of whether or not that's really practical) without focusing on the 2020 election - I think that could be a winning message with independents.
If Trump does not run, he will likely play kingmaker for the GOP - and in that case, I think it'll most likely be DeSantis that gets the nomination - my runner-up guesses would be Ted Cruz/Rand Paul.
As for the Dems, I'm less confident about what will happen. Biden will be, what, 82 by the time of the next general election?. Given all the questions about age the last election, it would be a hard sell at 82 years old (the age issue would be easier for Trump to surmount given that he'll be around the same age Biden was when he was first elected). Granted, as an incumbent, campaigning would be much easier for Biden, assuming he's popular by re-election time. A big part of that will be whether or not the infrastructure bill gets passed (I'm starting to think it won't). If Republicans get a majority again by the end of the midterms, that'll basically be the death knell of that bill.
The prospect of electing the first woman president might be enough of a sell for some liberals, but I don't think it will be for independents (see: the 2016 election). It doesn't help that Kamala isn't exactly a superstar of popularity in her own party. She's got charisma and
PR issues that, to her credit, she's been trying to work on (e.g. the recent NASA space thing she did) - of course, that wasn't entirely successful, but she is obviously trying to improve on that front. I'd personally put low chances of Kamala running...unless something happens that unfortunately (with all respect to Kamala) results in her becoming the incumbent by the time of the 2024 election. If she was the incumbent, she'd be able to have more influence/leverage over whether or not she's the Dem nominee for 2024. Sooner or later, AOC will run for president though and I think she'll be elected. Whether or not she'll be the first woman president is up for grabs though.