Mike Murphy has led more than 26 Republican gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns to victory. He’s worked on five GOP presidential campaigns. In 2016 he led the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise.

“Could Donald Trump be, um, primaried?” That’s the whispered question I hear more often than you might think from plenty of exhausted Republican elected officials, particularly after a long week of dodging reporters looking for comment on the president’s latest antics. “I mean, he’s just killing us!” they say, before hustling away to safety.

Could the president be beaten in a primary? The short and easy CW is, lots of luck! Only two incumbent presidents have faced serious primary opposition in the past 50 years: Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford in 1976, and Ted Kennedy took on Jimmy Carter in 1980. Both lost after spirited contests. Two others faced less serious opposition; George H.W. Bush dispatched Pat Buchanan in 1992, and Richard Nixon crushed the two Republican congressmen — one from the left and the other from the right — who challenged him in 1972. The sole president in memory knocked out of office by the primary process was Lyndon Johnson, who abandoned his reelection campaign after Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy stunned observers by finishing a close second — 7 points behind LBJ — in the New Hampshire primary.


Could such an early state stumble happen again? (I suspect Ohio Governor John Kasich is particularly curious, having run second to Trump in 2016’s contest in New Hampshire). Doubtful. While such a sign of political weakness might once have driven an honor-bound president to resign, shame is a nonfactor to Trump. To defeat him, you would have to actually win early and often in the primary states and assemble a majority of convention delegates. That’s the simplest way and the hardest.

So how would a Trump opponent plot out such an audacious caper? Polling today looks grim. Despite Trump’s toxic numbers — the worst of any president at day 433 in the history of polling — his strength among rank-and-file Republicans is formidable. Recent Marist data show a Trump favorable rating among Republicans of 78 percent and a job approval rating of 87 percent. If any GOP primary contests were held today, Trump would slaughter any opponent.

So it’s hopeless, correct?

Maybe not. Any Trump primary isn’t about polling data today, it’s about polling data in late 2019. What could make those 2019 numbers far different than today’s? A Republican wipeout in the 2018 midterms. Such a disaster, which is certainly now possible, would destroy Trump’s brand as a “winner” and smash the GOP’s D.C. apparat. We conservatives would lose control over the House appropriations process and watch the Democrats gleefully torment both the White House and our political allies with endless investigations and subpoenas. Even if we hold the Senate in November, a very nervous group of Republican senators would eye their own loss of majority when they face 2020’s dire Senate map, chock-full as it is of Democratic leaning states. None of this is a recipe for Republicans to stagger home from what could be a very long election night this November and immediately snuggle up to the president. Instead, Trump will slide across on GOP balance sheets from very imperfect asset to huge scary liability.

Trump will sense all this and boil with resentment. He might even compound his troubles by bringing back his old 2016 campaign message and snarl that House and Senate Republicans caused their own demise and are just another big swampy part of the D.C. problem. I can even imagine him musing aloud about running for reelection as a third-party candidate, damning both parties.

Also threatening to upend 2018 and beyond is the grim parade of Rumsfeldian “known unknowns” that loom over the president’s future. Will the Mueller investigation drive Trump out of office or into real legal jeopardy? Could there be a hurricane of future Stormys, or an “et tu Trumpus” moment from the long-suffering Melania? Will the stock market cave, ruining the Republicans’ economic success message? Will a trade war break out, with China acting on its threats to crush American exports—from GOP farm states—of pork and soybeans? Will there be a military crisis with North Korea or Iran, and will it hurt or help Commander in Chief Trump?

We simply don’t know, but if major political defeat, legal scandal, internal party warfare and growing economic distress does erupt, the 2019 primary soil could become far more fertile. How might a Trump challenger best take advantage of it?

Three key elements must come together. First, the field must quickly narrow to one major Trump opponent after the winnowing of Iowa and New Hampshire. As we’ve seen before, a large flock of candidates only helps Trump. This is easier said than done, since the weaker Trump looks, the more opponents he is likely to attract.

Second, it sure helps to be famous. Trump was what Hollywood calls a “pre-aware title.” He was well-known from “The Apprentice” as a can-do outsider — amazing what firing Gilbert Gottfried in a fake boardroom on a product-placement TV show can do for you—and he put that image to work. Challenging Trump is no job for an unknown ham-and-egger.

Finally, message is everything. Political organization has always been overrated by the news media. But in this era of smartphones and social media, a resonant message by a prominent political (or nonpolitical) “brand” can spread quickly, powerfully and cheaply. Organizations can be built upon that excitement and energy. The best political tactics to beat Trump are his own.

If 2020’s Republican voters are worn out by drama, defeat and despair, the message that wins 50 percent of them will be clear: It’s time to change the channel on the Trump show to his opposite. It is a reliable truism that voters weighing candidates often look for what they perceive they didn’t get the last time. If Trump in year three stands for wild Keystone Kops disorder and endless legal, ethical and porn-star drama while Republicans lose election after election, any alternative candidate should be all about competence, winning and nice, boring conservative normalcy.

Who could run? It’s far too early to name names, but for a tested, highly competent potential contender with immaculate conservative credentials, I’d keep an eye on political developments in Utah. Another potential archetype would be a candidate promising a return to conservative ideological purity after three big-spending years of braying populism. There is no shortage of potential “real conservatives”—many promising generational change as well—itching to run for president.

My bet? I’m far from sure the president will even run again, but if he does I think he’ll be in bad enough shape to catch a primary, just like Carter and Ford did. As a Day One Never Trumper, I might be underestimating his long-term hold on the Republican base, but after 30 years in politics I’ve seen how fast support can crumble when a party sees its very survival at stake. While defeating an incumbent president in a primary is the longest of political long shots, if 2018 goes badly it is a shot worth taking.