ANDY MCCARTHY: The Democrats’ 2024 Plan Is Still Working to Perfection.
The media–Democrat complex is dying to run against Trump — so much so that press outlets couldn’t contain themselves last night, announcing that he’d romped to victory while caucusing was still under way and before many Iowans had voted. Democrats want Trump to be the nominee, which requires convincing skeptical Republicans that he is a juggernaut who can roll over Biden. Hence the early victory projections last night that touted Trump potentially getting over 70 percent of the vote. At this point in the game, Democrats want you to believe Trump could annihilate Biden. Are they unnerved by Biden’s astonishingly low poll numbers? Sure they are — but that’s all the more reason to double down on inducing Republicans to nominate the one guy they’re confident he can beat, the guy he’s beaten before by laying low and letting Trump beat himself.
In reality, when the dust settled, Trump got about 51 percent in Iowa. That would be a huge margin in a normal primary, in which a broad field was making first impressions on voters. But this isn’t a normal primary. It’s, in effect, an incumbent primary in which everyone knows exactly what to expect if Trump were president again. Based on last night’s result, 49 percent of Republicans don’t want that. Some significant percentage of them will never vote for Trump under any circumstances. They’re not getting to know the options; they’re against the option they know quite well.
Mind you, Democrats have barely jumped into the election-messaging fray at this point. They haven’t yet begun the barrage of billions of dollars in negative campaign advertising they are going to start running at Trump once the GOP nomination is sewn up (which it may already be).
The biggest factor in Trump’s early clinching is the Democrats’ lawfare. Phil Klein explained this well a few weeks back. Before the first indictment, Ron DeSantis was within striking distance. Once the indictments began, the base rallied to Trump and he blew the field away. As Phil notes, even DeSantis now concedes that the indictments “distorted the primary.”
And if all else fails, expect plenty of lawfare after the election as well: Advocacy groups preparing litigation in case of Trump reelection.