There isn’t a plausible explanation in my mind why Donald Trump thinks he can realistically expect to win the 2024 Presidential election. Even on his most simplistic explanation – his claim that he lost due to massive fraud in 2020, there is little reason to believe there would be less fraud in 2024.

You can debate what counts as election fraud but ultimately the rules of elections are defined primarily by incumbents and few changes to election law favorable to Republicans have occurred in blue states. If anything with Democrats winning several state legislatures in 2022 post-Dobbs decision, the terrain has become more unfavorable to Republicans. If Trump wants to win back the presidency in 2024, he obviously has to win back states he lost in 2020.

Incumbents often win re-election because they have previously perfected the strategy to win election plus have had several years of the state’s apparatus to further their candidacy. Doesn’t always happen that way, incumbents either do a bad job or are of unfortunate circumstances and get voted out of office, witness Donald Trump. But all things the same, a re-run of the 2020 election against Trump in 2024 only is likely to produce the same result – Biden re-elected.

Like it or not, the most likely thing to happen in a Trump – Biden rematch is just another 2020 election. Same result in most states, same amount of fraud and voter turnout. States that were blue in 2020 are likely just to be as blue in 2024. If anything, Biden might pick up additional states assuming that Trump is even less popular after his multiple felony indictments and trials.

Biden himself doesn’t have an automatic ride to the presidency though, he does own the economy and everything else that has happened in the past four years in the country. Inflation and crime are down slightly after peaking in the first years of his presidency after COVID-19 but they are still leaving a sting in voters minds, especially as gas prices creep back up. Recession fears continue even if they’ve slowed lately too.

I don’t know but I don’t think Trump is a good candidate at all for 2024 – but I could be wrong. Not the first time.