I have managed property for years and I learned early on that location is everything. The nicest building in a lousy neighborhood is still a bad investment.
Context in news is analogous to location in real estate
You might have a candidate the polls show is winning, but if you don’t consider context, you will be fooled into believing the numbers mean something they don’t.
Take the Iowa caucuses, for example. Yes, 51% of Iowans who participated voted for Donald Trump. But that also means 49% didn’t. That’s 49% of the people in Iowa, the heart of Trumpland. Nearly half of the most adamant Trump supporters in the country showed up in extreme weather to vote against Donald J. Trump.
This might not mean much since he was running against other Republicans. However, it speaks to the cult-based following Trump has and the fact that even in Iowa, loyalty to Trump is not all-encompassing.
Polls are flawed
Polls are generally flawed mechanisms for predicting the future. Remember the big “red wave” or “red tsunami” Republicans predicted in 2022, which never materialized? Part of the reason is that too much of the polling was biased. When people were asked if the country was moving in the right direction, and they said, “No,” pollsters interpreted that to mean people were unhappy with President Biden. This was a mistake.
I happen to think the country is moving in the wrong direction, but that’s because Republicans in Congress have chosen to support Trump instead of protecting their constituents from Trump. Yet the pollsters would put my “No” response in the same bucket as those who are dissatisfied with the current president.
A variety of polls were taken during the Iowa caucuses, and at first glance, they may seem to show Trump has a chance of winning the 2024 election. But if you look closely and consider the context, it doesn’t look good for the four-times indicted, twice-impeached ex-president.
Trump loses substantial support if convicted of a crime
When pollsters asked voters if they would consider Trump disqualified if he was convicted of a crime, 31% of caucus attendees in Iowa said they would consider Trump unqualified if criminally convicted. That’s 31% of the Republicans in one of the reddest states in the country. Now imagine if that same percentage applied to the national vote.
When Trump won the Electoral College vote in 2016 (he lost the popular vote, as you will recall) his Electoral College victory was 306 to 227. If Trump’s support had dwindled by 31% nationwide in 2016, all else being equal, his percentage of national votes would have been 15.09% vs. 46.09%. Even with current Republican-favored gerrymandering, there is no way for him to win the Electoral College vote with those numbers.
The evangelical vote won’t save Trump
We hear a lot about the Christian right, specifically the evangelicals who support Trump.
While 55% of Iowans claim to be evangelicals, the nationwide percentage is significantly lower. Estimates range from 14.5% to 24%, depending on the source.
Granted, we can’t automatically assume those are the only votes Trump will get, but it’s worth noting that even some of those claiming to be evangelicals are rethinking their support of Trump. So, while we don’t have numbers yet, we do have reason to believe the tide is moving in the wrong direction for Donald J. Trump in terms of the support he can expect from the evangelical continent.
And now that his lawyer, Alina Habba has been quoted as saying Trump’s legal woes are the result of “demons” and his son Eric is telling interviewers that his father is “being guided by God every day” they may solidify the most hardcore members of the evangelical community at the expense of everybody else.
Nobody will forget Trump’s hand in overturning Roe v. Wade
Republicans seem to think the rest of us will simply forget that Trump was responsible for seating three extreme right-wing activist judges (Coney Barret, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch) on the Supreme Court. They need to think again because, without them, Americans would still have the right to abortion care and family planning services.
This affects every person of childbearing age as well as anyone who has children or grandchildren of childbearing age — in other words, it affects almost everyone. If we can’t choose when to have a child, how will this affect the parents and grandparents of those forced to have children they do not have the resources to support? This is not a consequence they can ignore.
In Iowa, where Trump was victorious in the caucus, 61% reportedly said they favored an abortion ban. But in every state where abortion rights have been on the ballot since Roe v. Wade was overturned, voters even in deep red states, chose to support the right to choose.
So, while Republicans may think the abortion issue is a done deal, they are mistaken. This issue will only be resolved when the people of this country get back this freedom Republicans have so cavalierly taken away.
In a CNN/SSRS poll conducted in August, for instance, 64% of US adults said they disapproved of last year’s Supreme Court decision that women don’t have a constitutional right to abortion. Just 16% of people polled didn’t see abortion as a major issue, a record low in CNN polling dating back to 1996. — CNN
Iowa is not America — it’s just Iowa
The results of the Iowa Caucuses tell us one thing: how Iowans who showed up for the caucuses feel about Trump in comparison to the other Republican candidates. They do not tell us how the country, as a whole, feels about anything. That’s because Iowa is mostly white and predominantly evangelical — which is not representative of the country writ large.
Two-thirds of Iowans attending the caucuses said Biden did not win the 2020 election legitimately. This tells us that two-thirds of Iowan voters either know nothing about the 60 court cases Trump lost while attempting to challenge the 2020 election, or they believe those cases were somehow rigged. Fortunately, this is not true of the nation as a whole.
Nationwide, over 60% of the country still believes Biden was elected legitimately. However, once the criminal trials against Trump begin and are covered by national news outlets, this number will likely increase significantly.
Trump needs to be acquitted on all charges before the election to win the presidency in 2024
The bottom line is that for Trump to win in 2024, he will need to be acquitted of all criminal charges. Even if the trials are all delayed, and are only beginning by election day in 2024, once the criminal trials start, the evidence will come out.
Why would anyone vote for a man who may not be free to occupy the Oval Office in January of 2025? It’s a huge risk for Republicans to put all their efforts toward one person who is such a volatile choice. How likely are they to successfully pivot to another Republican once they realize Trump is not a viable candidate?
Maintaining Trump as the Republican front-runner and making him the nominee is nonsensical, regardless of what you think of him. He’s not just unqualified, he’s an enormous liability for a party desperate to maintain political power.
The odds do not favor Trump in 2024
The bottom line is that the odds do not favor Donald Trump in 2024. Even if Trump is acquitted on all charges, he will still have to overcome the anger over his orchestration of the reversal of Roe v. Wade. In addition, judges are currently evaluating the value of monetary judgments against him in two separate civil cases — one of which has already proven he’s a fraud and may cost him the ability to operate his real estate business in New York City.
When taken in context, the facts working against him are far greater than those working in his favor. Trump will go down in history not only as the worst president in the history of America but as the biggest loser in the history of politics. And that is as it should be.
Finally, if you are one of those who think Joe Biden is too old and mumbles or stutters too much to be president, click the link below for a few final words that pretty much say it all — and you’ll get a good laugh as well.