Trump’s New Year’s resolutions: Winning the 2024 campaign trial and his trials

The year 2023 was historic for Donald Trump and the country when he became the first former president to be indicted by federal and state prosecutors.

But as Trump’s legal problems rally his supporters and Republican primary opponents around him, 2024 is poised to put pressure on the GOP and the nation’s institutions as Trump seeks both reelection against President Joe Biden and to avoid legal jeopardy.

BIDEN BEAT TRUMP ‘CHAOS’ IN 2020 — NOW NIKKI HALEY WANTS TO DO THE SAME

Between the indictments brought by special counsel Jack Smith, in addition to those of Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis, the district attorneys for New York County, covering Manhattan, and Georgia’s Fulton County, respectively, Trump is grappling with 91 criminal charges, including allegations regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Republicans risk ostracizing crucial independent voters with the former president before next year’s election. But he has an average 33 percentage point lead in Iowa, weeks before the GOP’s opening nominating contest, and a smaller 3-point edge over Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup.

Trump is at his strongest point now, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and Elections Research Center director Barry Burden.

“He is easily dispatching his Republican competitors, thriving on right-wing media, and relishing in Biden’s troubles,” Burden told the Washington Examiner. “All of this will change in the new year as Trump is forced to undergo criminal prosecutions and direct criticism from the Biden campaign.”

Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP

Excluding Trump’s civil lawsuits, the former president’s first criminal trial, Smith’s federal election obstruction case, is scheduled to start on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, when about one-third of the Republican primary’s nominating delegates will be decided. Trump is trying to have it and his other matters postponed until after the election in the hope he can sidestep a possible conviction because if he fails, there is no precedent for what comes next.

Aside from his legal strategy, Trump’s political strategy takes advantage of Biden’s perceived weaknesses, particularly his unpopularity, as captured by polling, and concerns about his 81 years of age amid his formalized impeachment inquiry.

Cesar Conda, former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), remained adamant Trump first needs to win the Republican nomination against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is doing well in New Hampshire. But the founding partner of the GOP lobbying firm Navigators Global conceded the onetime president’s “greatest strength is the fact that he looks like an older man full of vitality in contrast to Biden’s largely incoherent way of communicating.”

“Assuming Trump is the nominee, his challenge will be to focus on a winning policy agenda of closing the border, reducing living costs, and restoring American strength internationally amidst what will be an unprecedented negative campaign by Joe Biden,” Conda said.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but the Biden campaign has repeatedly underscored his losing record, citing 2018, 2020, and 2022, even last month’s off-year elections in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, as examples of so-called MAGA Republicans underperforming expectations due to issues like the former president’s anti-abortion stance. In recent weeks, Republican officials and candidates have also been required to answer for his desire to be a “dictator” for “one day” and his “poisoning the blood” rhetoric related to immigrants.

Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin was realistic about Biden’s election prospects since “he’s not going to get younger” and there is no “magic messaging bullet” concerning the economy. The Lincoln Park Strategies president praised the campaign for its early outreach and spending on base persuasion, quipping the president should joke, “‘I might be old, but I’m not crazy; which one do you want?'”

“They understand that turnout is going to be key and important,” Hankin said. “Then I think a lot is going to come down to what happens with these court cases. Obviously, there’s not much Biden should say about it. It’s just sort of, kind of wait and see what’s going to happen with this. And I think that’s going to have likely a bigger effect than anything [Biden’s] directly going to do.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

But another Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, was more confident about Biden’s chances considering Trump’s legal entanglements, contending they were “going to really hurt him,” as “he’s already in a diminished position.”

“When you add all those things up and use television advertising to make sure that voters are aware of this, it’s very hard to see how he wins the election next year because he has more baggage than any candidate who’s run for office in American history,” Rosenberg said. “Our path to victory, in my view, is much clearer than theirs. … Incumbent elections favor incumbents.”