Source: Brian C. Joondeph

A popular Twitter hashtag is #Trump2020Landslide. Is this wishful thinking or a real possibility? Let’s look at the electoral landscape over the next 9 months.

As an initial caveat, understand the difference between confidence and overconfidence. The former is a realistic expectation going forward of favorable electoral winds based on a thoughtful analysis. The latter is thoughtless and dangerous based on emotion and desire, rather than data and realism.

Republicans learned this lesson during the George HW Bush presidency. Bush enjoyed an 89 percent Gallup job approval in February 1991 after US victory in the Persian Gulf War. A little over a year later the bottom fell out after Bush reneged on his campaign promise, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” nudging the economy into a recession. In July 1992, his approval rating was an anemic 29 percent. Welcome, President Bill Clinton.

Could something similar befall the Trump reelection efforts? Certainly. The economy is strong, but economies are cyclic, and recessions inevitably occur. The media can’t destroy Trump as they didn’t create him. Big media has been shooting spitballs at Superman Trump, everything bouncing off him and smacking the media in the face.

The only way Trump could lose his loyal base of support is through his own actions. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg left the Supreme Court, with or without a pulse, and Trump nominated uber-liberal Lawrence Tribe as her replacement, he would lose his base. If he began tearing down the wall rather than building it or signed on to Medicare-for-all or the Green New Deal, then he would suffer and same fate as George HW Bush, but that’s as likely as Bernie Sanders denouncing communism in favor of capitalism.

What do the numbers say after President Trump’s marvelous week of the Iowa caucuses, impeachment acquittal in the Senate, the State of the Union address, and increasing Democrat chaos and confusion?

Rasmussen, the most accurate pollster predicting the 2016 presidential election outcome, tracks presidential approval by day and by president. On February 12, in their Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Trump’s total approval sits at 50 percent, a point higher than Obama exactly 8 years ago when he too was facing reelection.

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Trump today faces a headwind of hostile media, academia, entertainment industry, and the Democrat Party. In contrast, Obama had mostly tailwinds and sailed to easy reelection over Pierre Delecto, aka Mitt Romney. Trump has hovered around 50 percent approval for the past two years, usually a few points higher than Obama, despite the multifront attack on his presidency and person.

Despite his many flaws, Mitt Romney was a far more serious candidate for president in 2012 compared to the current Democrat clown show – an old socialist, a gay socialist, a fake-Indian socialist, a bully socialist, and a short socialist.

Gallup also has a presidential tracking poll which shows Trump at 49 percent approval, the highest number during his 3 years in the White House. Everything the media and the Democrats (sorry for the redundancy) has thrown at Trump has only made him stronger and the Democrats weaker.

Other numbers trend in Trump’s favor. The Dow is pushing 30,000, unemployment is at historic lows, wages are up, family incomes are as well, and the latest jobs report of 225,000 new jobs in January beat expectations, as CNN tearfully admitted.

Gallup has taken those blockbuster economic numbers and translated them into how they affect people’s lives, rather than simply as favorable statistics. A week ago, Gallup reported, “59% in U.S. say they are now better off financially than last year and 74% say they will be better off financially in a year.”

The rising tide is lifting many boats and voters may think twice about sinking the boat of peace and prosperity by voting for a socialist just because Trump tweets and uses coarse language.

Gallup also tossed in this tidbit,

Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup’s four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003.

Good luck to any of the angry Democrats selling dissatisfaction over satisfaction.

The two recent primary elections provide some interesting numbers. Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted,

Despite running against 16 opponents, President @realDonaldTrump won 100% of delegates and the highest number of votes for an incumbent in the modern political history of the New Hampshire primary. This includes both parties!

So much for the media claim that “no one likes Trump” and can’t wait to vote him out of office. Quite the opposite.

ABC News crank Jonathan Karl noted the obvious regarding crowd size, another number, and enthusiasm. Republicans are enthusiastic over President Trump, while Democrats are melancholic over their gaggle of angry socialists.

After the President held a pre-primary rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Karl observed, “Trump supporters are as fired up as I have ever seen them.” How about that? Not what the wizards of smart on cable news have been telling everyone.

Karl went on, “We have a bigger crowd without a doubt simply for Donald Trump than we had on Saturday for every one of the Democrats.”

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For those who want something more quantitative than crowd size and energy, there is this from Bloomberg, the website not the candidate, reporting three economic models predicting a #Trump2020 victory.

An enduring U.S. expansion puts President Donald Trump on course to win re-election in 2020, according to economic models with a track record of predicting who wins the White House.

I did suggest a possible landslide. Am I just a starry-eyed Trumpster, overly optimistic but unrealistic? Perhaps, but Politico is not in that category and they agree with me. This is their headline from last March, “How Trump is on track for a 2020 landslide.”

CNN surprisingly concurs. In June, they proclaimed, “If economy holds, Trump wins 2020 in a landslide.” CNN, in October, reported Moody’s forecast, “Trump will win election in landslide.”

Remember that President Trump isn’t even in serious campaign mode yet. He is busy draining the swamp of NSC saboteurs like the Brothers Vindman and Roger Stone’s prosecuting attorneys. Senate investigations into deep state sedition are set to begin, China is floundering as badly as the Democrat party and the Dow keeps rising.

AG Barr and Durham toil away, quietly, without leaks. Does anyone really believe Trump will not demand a reckoning for those who wronged him, his family and friends, and his presidency? As the enigmatic Q predicted, “Accountability is coming.”

Could 2020 be a Trump landslide? Very possibly, but the election is many months away. Be confident but not complacent, and most of all be happy you are not a Democrat or NeverTrumper. For them the worst is yet to come while for America, as Trump said, “The best is yet to come.”