Four Courses for Fall: Scenario 2 (Trump Blowout)

Topic: Elections

Before reading further, familiarize yourself with the following introductory piece:

Link to Four Courses Orientation

And then, review the first course of action, Scenario 1: Trump Squeaker, presented last week in these pages.

What follows is the second of four scenarios I consider most likely to occur regarding the 2024 presidential election.  The two remaining scenarios will be published by mid-month.

Scenario 2

Trump Blowout

The second scenario, which falls under the two most likely scenarios outlining a Trump victory, sees President Trump capturing the White House in a fashion like George Bush’s 1988 victory, or either of Bill Clinton’s - decisively. 

After years of anticipation, anxiety, and applying pressure to local elections officials, the dam finally breaks.  A weeks long onslaught of early voting, followed by an Election Day surge and the coalition shifting of traditional Democrats to Trump en masse brings about a modern-day landslide, with Trump just 4 electoral votes shy of Obama’s 2008 national landslide total of 365, and a 53-45% popular vote victory in hand.

Once the dust settles, Trump has not only held every state he was certified as having won in the corrupt 2020 quasi-election, but has won Texas and North Carolina in mid-double digits, Florida by 18%, and carried all six of the contested states from the previous election:

·      Arizona by 13%

·      Nevada by 10%

·      Wisconsin by 8%

·      Georgia by 9%

·      Pennsylvania by 8%

·      Michigan by 9%

The storm surge struck by 10 p.m. EST, when it was clear Florida was a ticking national timebomb for the Democrats.  Just as MAGA Americans remembered it in 2016, once Florida went, Wisconsin wasn’t far behind.  The media concealed the damage in Pennsylvania and Michigan as long as possible, with Trump’s leads near 20% during the early counting and eroding slowly as mail ballots were tabulated.  The celebration was on, and so much so that the extent of Trump’s victory wasn’t fully appreciated.  Within 48 hours, it was evident Trump would also carry:

·      New Hampshire, first GOP presidential win since 2000

·      Maine’s statewide electors, first GOP presidential win since 1988

·      Virginia, first GOP presidential win since 2004

·      New Mexico, first GOP presidential win since 2004

And the crown jewels-

·      New Jersey, first GOP presidential win since 1988

·      Minnesota, first GOP presidential win since 1972 and the snapping of the streak of the longest Democrat holdout

Bush 41 had carried Connecticut, Vermont, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Colorado, and California in his similar 1988 win, but times have changed substantially in the world of electoral politics.  Codified election rigging, demographic change, and rapid suburbanization have changed those states substantially, but on the reverse, Trump carried Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and West Virginia, working-class states the elder Bush lost when he knocked off Michael Dukakis.  Even in defeat, Trump is only mid-single digits margins behind in Illinois, New York, Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon, among others.

Biden, perhaps in a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of the absurdity of 81 million votes for a candidate that didn’t campaign four years prior, finishes with 72 million votes (or ballots), short of Trump by 13 million plus.  Shockingly, Republicans again underperform in the down ticket races.  Kari Lake makes it across in Arizona and Beltway quisling “Republican” Larry Hogan manages to take the U.S. Senate race in Maryland, but Democrat Sherrod Brown somehow holds on in Ohio against a Trump-like candidate, the GOP fails to take a layup Senate race in Montana, drops the same race in Nevada, and no major shakeups occur in gubernatorial races.  Democrats take the house, and Republicans have the slimmest of majorities in the U.S. Senate – 51 seats – or enough to give full power to Lisa Murkowski to dash Trump’s first order of business, cabinet appointments.

Reasons It Would Happen

1)        First and foremost, I do not believe the above scenario would occur organically in 2024.  While I do believe all the new “red” states above would be won by Trump in fair races, Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, and Minnesota (plus Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada) all operate under Automatic Voter Registration, rely heavily on mail-in voting, and are dominated by major metropolitan areas in which cheating, such as industrialized ballot harvesting, thrives.  This map and outcome would likely occur naturally without cheating.  With the cheating, the most likely victory map resembles the one I published in the previous scenario.  Remember, my assessments reflect present reality.