David Plouffe isn’t a Republican, but he is experienced in running campaigns and has a good record behind him. Particularly, he ran Obama’s 2008 campaign, a massive winner for which Plouffe, even if we don’t like what he did, deserves a good bit of credit.
All that’s to say that, if he appears on MSNBC to discuss campaigns, as he recently did, he’s at least worth listening to. Maybe he’s wrong, but he’s at least likely to have something insightful to say, assuming he’s relying on his experience running campaigns.
So what’d he say on MSNBC? That former President Trump won’t run about in 2024. In his words:
“I said for some time, and I may end up eating these words, I doubt he ends up running. Because I think, at end of the day, you can see the trend lines.”
And why does Plouffe think that? Because, in his view, Trump has gone out too far on a limb in endorsing certain people that Plouffe thinks can’t win, and thus will wreck his own brand and hurt the party to the point of making people not want to vote for him. As Plouffe put it:
“In some focus groups that have been reported on Republicans, even people like him say it’s time for something new. Because they think that is the best route to win. And what is fascinating about the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago is I believe it’s likely Republicans that are most successful this November, in true swing competitive Senate, Governor and House races, are those that show a little distance from Trump.
“What Trump is doing is deeply damaging his party. You remember back in ’10 and ’12. The Republicans left three, four, five Senate races on the cutting-room floor because they nominated people that could not win general elections. I think that some of the people Trump’s laying hands on may lose winnable races.”
Concluding, Plouffe tossed in one of those nonsense throwaway lines that the leftists love, muttering about how “our democracy” is under attack and saying:
“The reason I say I don’t think he is not going to run, and I’m way out on a limb here, is we saw our democracy is just about ended right now.”
Given that America is a republic, our democracy, it’s not clear what exactly the “our democracy” is and how it’s under attack.
Regardless, it seems likely that Plouffe is at least right in reasoning, if not his prediction.
He has a point that if Trump nominates lots of people that can’t win and wrecks the party by doing that he probably wouldn’t run in 2024 and wouldn’t win even if he did. That’s probably true.
But it’s after that that Plouffe fails; as shown by his withdrawal of his endorsement of Mo Brooks when Brooks fell far behind, Trump knows when to pull an endorsement when it’s untenable and many of his endorsements are of winners.
There are a few bad ones, Dr. Oz being at the top of the list, but other than those few Trump has mainly endorsed winners.
So no, he won’t create a disaster by nominating certain people and then not run as a result. Perhaps he won’t run, but that probably won’t be because of a GOP collapse in the 2022 midterms.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will, Author at Trending Politics