Former President Donald Trump wants to engineer a landslide in 2024.
In 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush won monumental 49-state, 44-state, 49-state and 40-state landslides in their respective re-election and election bids.
Eventually earning the moniker, Reagan Democrats, the appeal was to working class Americans who were underrepresented by elites in both political parties. It was critical to Trump’s narrow win in 2016, picking up the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and in 1992, it was a great deal of the reason why Bush lost with Ross Perot in the general election and Patrick Buchanan in the primary eating a great deal of those voters who were not being adequately represented by the Republican administration.
In 2020, those voters did not fully turn out for Trump, who although he improved on his 2016 showing, could not overcome the economy temporarily jettisoning 25 million jobs during Covid lockdowns, and Trump went on to lose Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and also losing Georgia and Arizona in President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
To restore and broaden the Trump coalition, he is going back to his 2016 playbook in selecting his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and with a selection of convention speakers who were once adversarial to Trump, whether model Amber Rose or Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien (who didn’t endorse but whose appearance also green lights members to vote for Trump), but also in his determination to campaign in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and other blue states that have not supported a Republican candidate for president in a long time.
Vance agrees with Trump’s positions on trade, illegal immigration and foreign policy, supporting tariffs on Chinese goods, closing the U.S. southern border and opposing U.S. intervention in Ukraine. He also comes from humble origins in a working-class family, and whose personal story of self-determination and serving his country in the Marines and now the Senate, plus his youth — he’s only 39-years-old — makes him an able-bodied heir of the Trump legacy.
As for the convention, instead of putting on nothing but supporters, Trump has opted for at least a few speakers who looked at Trump and discovered he wasn’t who or what his opponents and media said. Vance, who was once highly critical of Trump, also fits this mold.
Trump is making a play for blue states. If the broader strategy works, it will do so by winning the so-called Reagan Democrats who Reagan’s successors took for granted, and could be a landslide and also prove pivotal to helping Republicans get elected in Congress. Trump will need larger majorities to get anything done.
It’s a higher risk strategy — some Republicans and conservatives were offended by the Rose and O’Brien appearances at the convention, for example — but also one that can produce a higher reward when voters get to the ballot box.
This is also a part of Trump’s new national unity message after his touch with death following his near-fatal assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, Pa. Trump is now a direct victim of both political violence and political prosecutions, the twin harbingers of anarchy and tyranny.
This might come as a shock to many who spend their time in closed circles, but wishing violence and death on your political opponents, much like political prosecutions, are deeply unpopular with the American people and I believe polls will bear this out in the coming days. Just ask actor Jack Black, who recently laughed on stage at a joke told by one of his bandmates wishing that Trump had been killed, before issuing a public apology and ending his tour with the band.
Imagine a hypothetical civil war with partisan factions intent on killing one another as civil order collapses. Maybe 5 to 10 percent of the population are combatants. Therefore 90 to 95 percent including families are bystanders, caught in the crossfire. When we imagine such a struggle, or wish for it (which is what calls to political violence and imprisoning opponents imply), we are sacrificing the civil society that a republic depends on for its very survival. It’s representative government’s Achilles’ heel.
Biden prosecuting Trump is unpopular, attacking the police is unpopular and so forth. The danger of political violence and prosecutions is that it’s a recipe for totalitarianism, as it has been in the past. For Trump supporters, many who want to see Trump do the same thing in the way of prosecutions to the other side, I would just say that legal force is still force.
The only way to stop weaponization of the government is to prevent it. And to stop violence that begets violence, we have to make peace with our opponents and restore civil society. The alternative threatens all of our families and those that we love, and is an abyss that when countries fall into can take decades to get out of. If you don’t think you’d do well in the state of nature or even if you do, please don’t wish for it. Tyranny is what awaits the other side of that. It always does.
Trump’s unity message will include that he’s not out to “get you”. You don’t need to feel threatened by him. He wants to protect all Americans. This might appear curious to Trump supporters already in his camp, but to voters who are looking at Trump again with new eyes after he was falsely demonized as a threat to democracy who wanted to install himself as dictator for life and then was nearly killed in that environment, this is an important message.
The strategy is aimed at changing hearts and minds about Trump and in extension Republicans, a necessary step to win over the working-class elements of his coalition who have proven to be the kingmakers in American politics.
Trump has been leading national polls since Sept. 2023 against Biden, implying that the national popular vote was already in play before either the June 27 debate or the July 13 assassination attempt.
After almost being murdered on national television on the crucible of political violence that might have touched off civil strife or worse, Trump will appear on Thursday, July 18, as a changed man of strength who is ready to once again lead America — and to get there he believes he needs to represent a broad swath of the American people. Trump is showing his base how he thinks previously adversarial voters can be persuaded, but whether the strategy is effective or could become a permanent feature of Republican politics remains to be seen. For now, it’s Trump’s party and this is his show. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
