In the 2016 general election, I told readers to vote for Trump, over and over and over again, because he was better than the alternatives, like Hillary Clinton. But it is clear that he will be defeated in the 2020 general election. He is incredibly unpopular with swing voters, who dislike him more than they dislike the Democrats. In polls, he runs far behind not only Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner, but also behind Biden’s more radical rivals for the Democratic nomination, such as Socialist Bernie Sanders.
To stave off a general election defeat, Republicans should vote for Trump’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, such as former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. All of these rivals would be better than the 2020 Democratic nominee. And all of them would have a better chance of winning the 2020 election than Trump — especially Sanford.
Republicans should also urge Trump to not run for re-election, and to let Vice President Pence be the Republican nominee instead. Pence has less personal and political baggage than Trump. He fares a better chance of winning the 2020 general election than either Trump or his current rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Only by dumping Trump will Republicans have a chance to avoid America drifting toward
socialism. If Trump is on the ballot, not only will Republicans lose the presidency, they will also lose control of the Senate. That will give the Democrats control of both houses of Congress, and the opportunity to fundamentally transform America in a left-wing direction.
Trump is desperately unpopular in the suburban battlegrounds that will decide the 2020 election. Female voters disapprove of him by a whopping 64-to-30% margin in a recent poll. In a recent Quinnipiac poll, “Trump’s disapproval numbers hit 51 percent among white voters, 54 percent among seniors,” and “60 percent among independents.”
All major Democratic candidates for the presidency lead Trump by substantial margins, in recent polls from Fox News, ABC, and Quinnipiac. The Fox News poll shows Trump losing to Biden by 12% and to Sanders by 9%; the Quinnipiac poll shows Trump losing to Biden by 16% and to Sanders by 14%.
Suburban women mostly hate Trump. Prosperous suburban dads, who were once the mainstay of the Republican Party, view him as erratic and unstable and support him much less than they support down-ballot Republicans. Many suburban women vote against other Republicans on the ballot to punish the GOP for Trump.
Another Republican would likely fare better in the general election. In the 2016 election, Republican senators in swing states fared better than Trump, such as Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Marco Rubio in Florida, Richard Burr in North Carolina, and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s unpopularity has already cost the GOP dearly. In 2018, despite a booming economy, the GOP lost 40 seats in the House of Representatives, giving the Democrats control of it.
Trump even runs behind Democrats like Biden and Sanders in polls conducted in conservative Texas! He has made the GOP lethally unpopular in the sunbelt metropolitan areas that were once the GOP’s cornerstone. In Texas’s major metropolitan areas, voters removed virtually every Republican judge from the state Courts of Appeals, replacing them with liberal Democrats in metro areas like Dallas, Austin, and Houston. As Chase Hoffberger of the Austin Chronicle noted, there was “an absolute wipeout of GOP incumbents at the Court of Appeals level in Texas. Of 32 contested races, the Democrats won 30, and took 15 seats from GOP incumbents.”
It is critical to do whatever is necessary to prevent a Democratic victory in 2020, because that could lead to socialism and huge increases in unemployment.
Socialism continues to gain ground in the Democratic Party. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats now wish America were more socialist, according to a recent poll. Most Democrats have a favorable view of socialism but not capitalism. On June 1, the California Democratic Convention booed former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), when he said “Socialism is not the answer.”
Most of the leading Democratic candidates have endorsed the incredibly costly Green New Deal, which would radically expand government control over the economy and probably lead to the U.S. going bankrupt. Researchers say the Green New Deal would cost at least $50 trillion, and perhaps more than $90 trillion — four times the size of the entire U.S. economy and four times the size of America’s national debt. Key elements of the Green New Deal blueprint could backfire and actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to energy experts like Michael Shellenberger and Thomas J. Pyle.
Some of them also support economically-destructive policies such as rent control. Economists say rent controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll, 93% of them agreed that rent control “reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.” The Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck said that “next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to be the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities.”
Most of the Democratic contenders also support reparations, which the New York Times says could cost “several trillion dollars.” Race-based reparations have harmed the economy of countries that used them, such as Zimbabwe.
