No, it’s not your imagination: The president of the United States has been saying and doing more bizarre and erratic things than usual. He’s losing it because he’s losing his re-election bid.
The public polls contain uniformly bad news for President Trump. In Arizona, a state that Democrats have not carried since 1996, Trump has trailed Joe Biden in the last seven polls taken. Trump is also behind in Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — all states that he won four years ago.
AdvertisementMost troubling of all for Team Trump are the numbers showing that alienated voters, who don’t like either candidate, favor Biden by a stunning 40 percentage points. Four years ago, voters who strongly disliked Trump and Clinton tended to break for Trump.
It’s likely that the Trump campaign’s internal polling looks just as dire. Credible reports depict Trump shouting at his campaign manager Brad Parscale, threatening to sue him after reviewing the deteriorating political landscape, and planning a massive campaign shake-up.
One still hears the howls of disappointed Dems who believe — mistakenly — that opinion polls cannot be trusted because the polls predicted a 2016 win for Hillary Clinton. In reality, the polls accurately forecast a majority of votes for Clinton, who lost because those surplus votes were concentrated in California and not in the Midwest.
It turns out you don’t need polls to see Trump is in trouble. Just apply the analysis of American University Prof. Allan Lichtman, who predicted the outcome of eight of the last nine elections by examining what he calls 13 key factors.
If an incumbent president fails at six of the 13 keys, says Lichtman, he or his party will lose. Lichtman claims the pattern has held for every president since Lincoln (he missed in 2000, predicting a win for Al Gore).
Lichtman’s first key is legislative mandate: Did the president’s party gain congressional seats in the House after the midterm? The answer is no: Trump’s Republican Party lost seats, and control of the House.
Another key says that if the economy is in recession, it’s a knock on the incumbent; and if per capita annual economic growth under a president does not equal or exceed average growth over the previous two terms, it’s another knock.
Economic growth under Trump was 2.5% pre-crisis (compared to 2.15% under Obama), but the economy has already shrunk 4.8% in the first quarter, making it certain that Trump will fail on both key economic factors.
Another Lichtman key asks whether the incumbent has a major scandal. Trump, only the third president to be impeached, has been mired in scandal.
Lichtman also asks whether the administration has achieved a major success in domestic policy or foreign affairs. The answer, despite a fat tax cut and all the rhetoric about defunding NATO, is no on both counts
That makes six keys. Without invoking a single poll, Lichtman’s analysis suggests that Trump is heading for defeat.
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Clearly, the president knows something is going wrong. And that has led him to fall back on disruption, distraction and division.
Related Gallery(Evan Vucci / AP)
1 / 175 Donald Trump in the White HouseIn a recent 12-hour span, the president sent out 30 tweets and retweets attacking Department of Justice officials who secured guilty pleas from Trump’s disgraced national security adviser, Michael Flynn. The president later referred to them as “dirty, filthy cops at the top of the FBI.”
He has lashed out at reporters, suggesting they return their “Noble” prizes (even if Trump had spelled it correctly, there is no Nobel Prize for journalism). He has moved on to fact-free insinuations that television host Joe Scarborough was involved in the death of a former employee.
AdvertisementAs his political fortunes decline, Trump has taken to making false claims that mail-in voting is, by definition, rigged or full of fraud.
Expect more rants, accusations, childish nicknames and attacks on the voting system. They are the actions of a performer who senses the final curtain is about to fall.
Louis is political anchor of NY1 News.