Don’t count Donald Trump out yet — 20 weeks is a lifetime in presidential politics

According to historical patterns, elected U.S. presidents seeking a second term should win reelection. Only three have lost such bids in the past century.

However, according to current conventional wisdom, including national polls disseminated by the Fourth Estate, Donald Trump is set to become the fourth such loser, and Joe Biden is finally poised to become president of these United States, the 46th such man and at 78 by far the oldest elected leader ever to enter the White House.

Here’s why neither side and everyone in between should place no stock in any of that:

We have 20 weeks until Election Day. Twenty weeks ago, more than 40 million people now receiving unemployment had jobs. Twenty weeks ago, Trump had been acquitted of impeachment (remember that?) and was cruising to reelection atop an amazingly rapid economic recovery from all those “shovel-ready jobs” that Biden promised were just around the corner in 2010 but never arrived. And many of us thought a pandemic was a special at IHOP or Olive Garden.

The next dictionary edition should have a MAGA hat by the definition of “loyal.” Nothing can dissuade them from election confidence. Never mind factual evidence. They’ve stuck with Trump through thin and thinner. And still do because “he’s a fighter,” because “the media is biased” and because “polls are always wrong.”

True, they often are wrong if you read them as predictions. Exactly four years ago this week, someone named Hillary Clinton surged to an enlarged 12-point lead over Trump, who was mouthing off again about a biased judge. Even more ominous though, 55% in that Bloomberg poll said they would never ever vote for the billionaire.

In the end, that number was quite close; 54% did not vote for Trump. But his 46% of the popular vote came from just the right places to win the Electoral College while too much of her 48% was wasted in overkill in places such as California and New York. And the 20 remaining weeks that year included her “basket of deplorables” speech and the next day collapsing and being dragged into a vehicle.

So, a lot can happen during these next 140 days. For starters, next month Biden is likely to announce his female running mate, which should bring a brief poll bounce. She better be good at clean-up and explaining her partner’s often confounding syntax and inaccuracies. He calls people and viruses by the wrong name, even with notes. He claims overwhelming support from Delaware’s Black population, which he says is the nation’s eighth largest. It’s 33rd. And as for the coronavirus, he states, “We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse no matter what.”

All this before the Trump campaign unleashes more than $150 million in ads defining Biden as muddled and extreme left on energy, taxes, immigration, among others. Never a prolific fundraiser, Biden can’t get his own federal financial bump until the official nomination at the Democratic National Convention the third week of August, possibly online.

While Biden is only now emerging from the Zoom desk in his basement, Trump has the presidential bully pulpit like any incumbent. The good news in that is Trump commands media attention anytime he wants. The bad news in that is Trump commands media attention anytime he wants.

He wants it all the time. He seems to need it. As much as loyalists love his rhetorical pugilism, Trump’s fights, insults, boasts and misstatements combined with more than 118,000 American virus deaths give hostile D.C. media ample ammo daily to attack and ignore any achievements.

All presidents make public mistakes. Barack Obama said Austrians speak Austrian, and he loved the celebration of “Cinco de Cuatro.”

Trump has more than 82 million Twitter followers. He follows only 46 people. If he bothered to read others, he’d see many pleading with him to tone it down, as they’re suffering from that unique Trumpian malady, Turmoil Fatigue.

“I wish,” one moderate Republican told me the other day, “he would just shut the hell up, be president and let me vote on his record on tax cuts, the military, ISIS, deregulation, energy.”

Democrats are counting on Trump overstepping the overkill. After five years as a politician and 1,232 days as president, Trump is not likely to change his style. Bizarrely, he’s turning the bully pulpit into his own disadvantage. Instead of making the campaign about the challenger’s mental acuity and 44 years as a denizen of The Swamp, Trump at this point is making the campaign a referendum on himself. How to Lose 101.

That might feel good in Tulsa as Trump resumes large-scale rallies this week and takes in the cheers. But as we and Clinton learned after June 2016, those warm summer feelings have a way of chilling by November. Trump needs to be more careful than she was.

This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Don’t count Donald Trump out yet — 20 weeks is a lifetime in presidential politics."