OPINION:
No less a political operative than David Axelrod — who essentially invented President Barack Obama — made an excellent observation recently.
Mr. Axelrod tweeted: “One thing that separates Trump from [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis and much of the rest of the field is that Trump’s core supporters don’t see him as a politician. They see him as the blunt-talking leader of an anti-establishment insurgency.”
That’s about right. His supporters want him to take a wrecking ball to the federal establishment and aren’t particular about where he starts or finishes.
There’s a problem, though. To lead a successful insurgency, former President Donald Trump has to get elected and then has to be able to govern.
The dark side of being the populist party is that you tend to become the home of low-information voters who are (in this instance) more interested in “owning” the liberals on social media than in winning elections and governing.
Until this adolescent wing of the new Republican Party figures out that governing — and not merely winning rhetorical battles — is the purpose of the exercise, Republicans will continue to lose elections that they should win.
On that point, it seems material to note that polling indicates that Mr. Trump loses most head-to-head matchups against President Biden, typically by the same 3 percentage points he lost to Mr. Biden the last time around. It has started to appear as if — in the event Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee — his most likely path to victory in the general election is the presence of a third party on a sufficient number of state presidential ballots.
That the presence of a legitimate third party on state presidential ballots would help Mr. Trump contains a certain amount of intuitive sense. A hard-core group of voters is prepared to vote for Mr. Trump no matter what. Another group of voters is prepared to vote against Mr. Trump no matter what.
Then there are the voters who have serious reservations about Mr. Biden and his record (which, by any metric, has not been great for most people) or his physical and mental capacities. Some of these voters may be prepared to turn to Mr. Trump as the better of two bad choices.
The good news for the Trump campaign is that there are also progressive voters who believe it is time for a more muscular brand of progressivism. These voters are prepared to back the candidacy of Cornel West and the Green Party, which is already on the ballot in about two dozen states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and New Mexico.
The Green Party has a history of helping Mr. Trump. Recall 2016, when Jill Stein, some Democrats say, cost former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
The bad news for Mr. Trump is that if he is the nominee, there is also likely to be a third party from the waning and desiccated establishment wing of the Republican Party. Former Republican-ish governors Asa Hutchinson and Larry Hogan are out there, ready to be spoilers.
Hanging over the entire campaign is the persistent reality that about 70% of voters would prefer to have someone other than the two major-party candidates from which to choose. Eventually, voters find a way to register their disapproval of policies and candidates. This election will be no different. What will be different is its complexity and confusion.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.
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