(01-28-2019, 02:29 PM)TJBender Wrote:

(01-28-2019, 01:37 PM)Adam2012 Wrote: Pretty sure the Demo nominee will move more to the center once nominated. That's what usually happens.

What the Democrats have going for them is - Donald Trump. Trump won't have Hillary to run against. This time he'll be Hillary.

What's Trump going to run on? A tax cut no one seems to have benefited from (unless you're a CEO)? The economy might not look so rosy in 2020. Someone somewhere might actually care about the debt/deficit. Not the Trumpettes, but someone. What else will Donald be able to crow about? His agenda is going/has gone no where, and with a Democratically controlled House it's ain't going anywhere. And the Mueller Report will have been issued by then, I would think. You think that's going to make Donald look good. He'll look sleazy and/or stupid. Yeah, he really hires the best people.

The question will be - since Donald isn't even trying to widen his base - are there enough middle-age, middle-class, white men and those who watch Fox and are afraid of the Coming of Socialism and Immigrant Invasion to overcome everyone else? How many of the everyone else will vote?

Except that Obama and Hillary did not move to the center. If anything, in 2012 and 2016, they moved further left.

Trump is a liability for the GOP, but he also carries 30% of the population with him. The Mueller report isn't likely to hurt him with his base, because all he has to do is snap his fingers and say, "Lock her up!", and they're chanting about someone who lost four years ago. Amongst independents and right-leaning Democrats...you know, the people who won the election for him in 2016...a sufficiently damning report that puts some facts around the level of corruption in his campaign, even if it can't be traced directly to him, would do real damage.

What's also going to hurt him is the jobs he promised to restore that, thus far, haven't come back. And, of course, not getting a wall won't prompt his base to vote blue, but it could prompt some of them to stay home. If he goes back to the campaign trail spitting fire about immigration, he will rightfully be asked why he didn't keep his word the first time around.

None of this means that Trump will lose. The election is almost two years away, and we don't know who the Democrats will run. If it's a far leftist like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris, forget it. Trump's won already because all he'd have to do is say "Pocahontas" a few times and set her off. If it's a centrist like Tulsi Gabbard who can stay centrist and still win the nomination somehow, I think his odds go down. The worst thing that could possibly happen to Trump in 2020 is a legislator who has worked very effectively with both sides of the aisle (including working with Steve Bannon during Trump's transition) and has strong appeal to millennials.