Incumbency, GOP unity and economic buzz give Trump an electoral edge
Caps celebrating President Donald Trump at the Kansas Republican Party convention Feb. 1 in Olathe, Kan. Credit: AP / John Hanna
Nine months from the election and less than a week after the Senate's acquittal, President Donald Trump holds a favorable hand for a second term.
This edge doesn't mean most Americans like his conduct or governance.
But the plain fact is that the last three presidents all won reelection despite popular concerns about their policy choices, their behavior or both.
The last one-term president was George H.W. Bush. Both he and the previous one-termer, Jimmy Carter, fell victim to intraparty dissent.
Trump doesn’t have that problem. Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican who voted to impeach him. Last week's Iowa caucuses were a walk for Trump, while the Democrats' tallies melted down in disarray.
In other states this year, the president's subordinates — no sticklers for traditional process — have even canceled GOP primaries outright.
On the cusp of the Iowa contest, the famously failed 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton declared with Trump-style contempt: "Nobody likes him." She was referring, not to the incumbent, but to her party's top-tier candidate, former rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
There also is the economy. If the massive corporate tax cuts, Trump's signature tariffs or the deficits he allows to explode should prove damaging in the long run, they sure aren't biting the president in the short term.
Record-low unemployment and record-high stock markets were the most reality-based assertions in his State of the Union speech last week.
Despite noise and questions about his foreign policy, Trump so far hasn't provoked new wars through American intervention.
Like Richard Nixon, who won a landslide reelection in 1972, Trump has no apparent scruples about smearing opponents and will use his official powers to do so, as the Ukraine affair showed. Using the White House to campaign and stage flamboyant "events" also gives him free media access others won't have.
Nothing in an election is predestined. Great opportunities have been seized or blown by others before him.
That said, Trump seems to have been dealt a particularly lucky hand for November.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
