How Donald Trump Could Drop Out
Former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has found himself in an unenviable position these days. Just a few short weeks ago Trump held a comfortable lead in nationwide and swing state polls. Add a disastrous performance by President Joe Biden during a June 27th debate, and a second Trump term seemed inevitable.
Then, in a show of patriotic sacrifice, President Biden chose to step aside and not seek reelection. It was a decision that invoked visions of George Washington choosing to leave after two terms, a move that had King George III of England say “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
The political world has changed drastically in the three weeks since President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the potential nominee. What many expected would lead to a chaotic, messy free-for-all that would play out at a contentious Democratic National Convention instead turned into a party unification behind Harris.
An outpouring of endorsements and support from Democrats and Republicans alike has shaken up the presidential race with less than 100 days left before the election.
What This Means For Trump
To put it bluntly, Trump is scrambling for his political career right now. Recent polls show that key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are trending more and more toward Harris by the week. She is currently averaging a four-point lead across those states, far and away better than Biden’s nearly double-digit deficit from a month ago.
States that were expected to be safely in the Republican column like Ohio and North Carolina are toss-ups based on recent polling. Even worse for Trump, his “home” state of Florida is now close to being within the margin of error.
The bulldozer that was MAGA is now stuck in the mud with the Trump campaign struggling to find an effective attack message against Harris. It certainly doesn’t help that the momentum swing to the Harris campaign has gotten under Trump’s famously thin skin. One only needs to look at his most recent media appearances where the bulk of his time was spent on completely unrelated topics or taking jabs at President Biden.
Trump has seemingly aged overnight, with his usual stream-of-consciousness diatribes appearing closer to the frantic ramblings of someone dealing with memory issues.
Why He Would Drop Out
While Trump’s cognitive ability may be on the way out, his hubris certainly is not. He is more than happy to wax poetically about his self-perceived economic and policy successes as president and soak up praise from his sycophantic supporters.
This hubris is why most observers would never expect Trump to potentially drop out of the presidential race. I argue that the very opposite is true. Trump’s inability to face defeat is what will lead him to abandon his reelection efforts.
To say that he hates to lose is an understatement of massive proportions. This is after all the man who provoked a crowd of his supporters to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election by storming the Capitol Building.
A potential loss to a woman of color after leading the polls nearly the entire way would be more than Trump’s ego could handle. Rather than face that defeat and further stain himself as a loser, Trump would undoubtedly find a way out.
An Exit Strategy
With the why in place, now we get to the how. With so little time left, Trump is essentially stuck on the ticket. Barring him dropping out in the next week or so, most states will begin to print ballots in late August for early voters. For all intents and purposes, Trump will be the Republican candidate that appears on ballots.
That doesn’t mean that he will still be campaigning for the presidency come Election Day, though.
There are two scenarios that could play out where Trump is out of the running and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, is left to run essentially by himself.
The first scenario is a sudden decline in health or mental capacity. Trump is the oldest presidential candidate in history at the age of 78 and he has begun to show it at times. Time stops for no one and it may eventually catch up to Trump given the amount of stress he is under with the campaign and all of his legal troubles.
While possible, I think this scenario seems unlikely. If Trump were to leave the race, he would do so more in a symbolic way.
Burning It Down
Trump has been vocal in his displeasure over the switch from Biden to Harris. The campaign had its points of attack ready for Biden and was hammering him over his age and very visual decline. With the much younger Harris now his opponent, Trump and his team are faced with being the geriatric campaign. Trump even exclaimed, “Why did I debate him?” at a Montana campaign stop, lamenting Biden’s departure after their debate.
Trouble has also come from within the campaign itself, with insiders saying that Trump is severely unhappy with his running mate Vance. Remarks by Vance about “childless cat ladies” running the country have sent women voters running to support Harris in droves. Vance has doubled, and even tripled, down on his comments, stating that people without children aren’t as invested in the future of the country.
Vance’s rollout was certainly not helped by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris’ VP pick, characterizing the GOP’s platform as “weird.” What started as what appeared to be an off-hand comment has gained traction as a derogatory label for many Republican policy points and one that has gotten under Trump’s skin. Trump even went so far as to say that people were not calling him weird, but rather Vance.
With a running mate that he wishes he could replace and steadily losing ground in every poll, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Trump to find a way to exit the campaign in a poor attempt to save face.
A last-minute decree for supporters to stay home in protest on Election Day would be a fitting end to Trump’s political career. He would undoubtedly blame Democrats for a bait-and-switch with Biden and Harris and blame the Republican establishment for sabotaging him with Vance. It would all but ensure a Harris victory and leave Trump pulling away supporters from the GOP to continue his cultish adoration fantasy he seems hellbent on living.
While any scenario with Trump leaving the race seems highly unlikely, his rise to the presidency and the aftermath was just as unlikely at one point.
Only time will tell how this race will play out and whether Trump will see it to its end.
