Array
It’s January 20, 2025. Donald Trump places his hand on a Bible. He’s standing at the US Capitol that, four years earlier, a mob of his supporters attacked in his name.
Trump recites the oath of office. He grins and flashes a thumbs-up. He’s president of the United States.
Again.
It’s a scenario that Trump-skeptical Republicans wish and pray won’t happen but still concede is a possibility.
On Tuesday, November 15, 2022, Trump announced the start of his 2024 campaign at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“He has surprised everyone before,” said Alex Conant, who managed communications for Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “I don’t think anyone should write him off. I don’t think Democrats are writing him off.”
Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and is a Trump critic, described the prospect of another Trump win as “disturbing.”
“It’s scary,” he said. “It’s way more likely than people think.”
But Trump’s political baggage could fill a cargo hold: He was twice impeached, accused of inciting the US Capitol attack, faces grave legal jeopardy in multiple jurisdictions, and along the way has bludgeoned many top Republicans — up to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — with personal attacks. The list goes on.
Yet Trump maintains a loyal, enthusiastic base that unsettles even some of the most traditional Republicans in Congress. Since leaving the White House, he has maintained a robust political operation and continues to conduct campaign-style rallies across the country.
Recently, this momentum was hobbled by Republicans’ poor performance in the 2022 midterms, but Trump still remains a strong candidate for the GOP nomination. What would happen after that is decidedly less certain.
To get a sense of how Republicans view Trump’s future, Insider asked seven experts from previous presidential campaigns to imagine a world in which Trump runs again in 2024 — and wins. Here’s what they had to say.
Charlie Black, a founding member of Prime Policy Group who was a campaign advisor for John Kasich’s presidential campaign, is clear: He predicts neither Trump, nor President Joe Biden, nor Vice President Kamala Harris will be their respective parties’ nominees in 2024.
But when pressed on a hypothetical scenario that would involve Trump both running again and winning the presidency, Black said Trump must stop talking about the 2020 election. Trump frequently says the election was stolen from him, though no evidence has surfaced to support allegations of widespread voter fraud.
“One reason he could lose the nomination to someone else if he ran is his maniacal focus that he stole the election,” Black said. “Politics is about the future and never about the past, and he doesn’t get that.”
Other strategists also had their doubts about the prospects of President Trump 2.
