Election ‘Guru’ Charlie Cook: Trump ‘Historical Underdog’ in 2020

The veteran political prognosticator who infamously declared a month before the 2016 presidential election that the race was “over” in favor of Hillary Clinton argues that President Donald Trump will be a “historical underdog” in 2020.

According to a Friday Washington Post report, election guru Charlie Cook believes that the structural challenges ahead of Trump are “at least as great as those faced by any of those eight previous elected presidents seeking reelection in the post-World War II-era.”

The Post’s “Power Up” newsletter got a preview of Cook’s introduction to the 2020 Almanac of American Politics in which he points to four factors that will make Trump an underdog in 2020 despite Trump’s strong economy and the many incumbency advantages Trump will have, including a monumental fundraising advantage and Democrats running for president who are essentially doing Trump’s opposition research for him.

First, Cook reportedly believes it is unlikely that the Democrat running against Trump in 2020 will come close to being as unpopular as Hillary Clinton, who, according to 2016 exit polling, had the “highest unfavorable ratings, 54 percent, of any nominee of her party.”

Second, Cook reportedly observes that Trump’s job approval ratings “have trailed not just those of the six [incumbent presidents] who were successful, but in many ways, the two that didn’t win re-election.”

The Post points out that, perhaps more importantly, Trump’s “disapproval rating has also run exceedingly high and is backed by a signature intensity.” As Cook notes, “in the two years of weekly Gallup tracking in 2017 and 2018 and monthly since the start of 2019, Trump has not only never had a job approval rating of 50 percent or higher, as every other president had.”

Third, Cook does not think Trump will get another inside straight in the Electoral College like he did in 2016 when Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio:

The electoral college: 2016 marked the first time in 140 years that a candidate won the popular vote by two points or more but lost the electoral college. It’s unlikely that Trump will be able to repeat such a feat, Cook argues.

Fourth, Cook argues that having learned their lesson in 2016, Democrats will not take states like Wisconsin and Michigan for granted in 2020 like Clinton’s campaign did in 2016. Cook reportedly points out that “Clinton was the first major party nominee since 1972 to not set foot in the state of Wisconsin, then unexpectedly lost the state by seven-tenths of a point.”

Montana Governor and presidential candidate Steve Bullock (D) warned Democrats this week that they are already well on their way to losing in 2020 if they lurch further to the left.

The question going into 2020 will be if the 20 percent of the voters that Cook says is up for grabs—presumably in places like Waukesha County, Wisconsin, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania—will be more turned off by the Democrats’ embrace of socialism and the far-left “Squad” or by Trump’s “go back” tweets and impetuous rants.

According to the Post, “Cook’s examination of national polling shows that roughly 35 percent of the vote is squarely in the Trump camp versus 45 percent of the vote that is solidly in the opposition corner.”

Cook reportedly notes that “Trump could find a cure for both cancer and the common cold, ensure peace and tranquility for eternity and eliminate all unemployment and this 45 percent would remain militantly opposed,” which means, according to Cook, “Trump would still need to win between two-thirds and three-quarters of that 20 percent to stay within three points of a Democrat, a pretty tall order.”

Trump is banking on an electoral strategy of turning out his base and adding potential swing voters in 2020 who are fed up with Democrats and the establishment media smearing them as racists and bigots, and Cook notes that though Trump has indeed “perfected the art of talking to his base of support” the president “seems unwilling or unable to reach or even talk to those beyond that base, those situated between his core support and the opposition camp.”