Swing state trouble for Trump

Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recently told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that her “door is completely shut to voting for Donald Trump.” Hutchinson then sounded the alarm, warning that “I think everybody should vote for Joe Biden if they want our democracy to survive. In September, she similarly told CNN’s Jake Tapper that she thinks Trump “is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history.”

Hutchinson can’t be attacked or dismissed as some “liberal snowflake,” and her position in the Trump administration enabled her to share an authoritative perspective. Given the existential threat she described that we all now face, it’s easy to lose hope. One way to stay positive about America’s democratic future is to learn about new causes for optimism that point to Trump losing the 2024 presidential election.

One example is reporting this weekend from The Hill about several “fake elector” probes in the pipeline that “could spell more trouble for Trump.” The attorney general’s office in several swing states are still weighing whether to bring charges in connection with people who fraudulently tried to certify a Trump win in 2020. The potential additional states include Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

If any one of these swing states’ investigations moves forward, it would come on top of the progress of the federal and Georgia election subversion cases, putting Trump and his team in even greater legal peril. Ongoing developments such as this one that are running quietly in the background don’t get covered much by the media. But these additional multiple legal threats to Trump are real and can “prove consequential.” So, it’s not surprising this article is The Hill’s most popular (at the time of this writing).

Another cause for optimism is the fact that Trump’s odds of retaking the presidency in next year’s election (which would be the first presidential rematch since the 1950s) may be even worse than most people think. According to NBC News, “Election losers usually lose the rematch, too.” In a new analysis, NBC News points out that nearly 77% (53 out of 69) of senator and governor rematches since 1950 have gone to the original victors.

It is hard to imagine a single bit of news or positive poll between now and Election Day 2024 that could totally quell the defeatist monster than lurks inside us all. However, the fact is that there is plenty of reason for optimism—and it is often more than we know.