Keith Naughton: Trump may not make it to the primaries

(Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.) The conventional wisdom has Donald Trump as either the man to beat for the Republican nomination or at least headed for a drawn-out fight to the finish with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But could Trump flame out and not even make it to the Iowa caucuses? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think. In fact, it’s not far-fetched at all. Trump has severe strategic problems and polling problems, not to mention his legal difficulties. They all add up to a very rough trajectory over the next several months. Everyone knows Trump hates to lose. When faced with losing, he either claims he was cheated, or quits. A year from now, Trump might be far enough behind DeSantis that quitting will be the only way to avoid losing.

Trump’s polling has been soft for more than a year, with the percentage of Republicans who want him to run consistently falling 20 points or more below his approval ratings. He has found it difficult to score above 50 percent on ballot tests against Republicans who aren’t even running yet. And those numbers are getting worse. Both YouGov and Morning Consult conducted post-election benchmarks, and Trump’s fortunes are falling across the board. Morning Consult has the best polling for Trump, but Trump’s favorable rating with Republicans edged below 80 percent. While 61 percent of Republicans still want Trump to run, 73 percent of independents don’t. Trump’s ballot test against DeSantis fell from a 48 percent to 26 percent advantage pre-midterm to a 47 percent to 33 percent advantage, down 8 points. The YouGov poll is a disaster for Trump. In one week Trump fell from 81 percent approval to 77 percent. Far worse, Republicans who want him to run collapsed from 60 percent to just 47 percent. DeSantis holds a 46 percent to 39 percent advantage on the ballot test. YouGov polled all voters on a Trump-DeSantis ballot and every demographic preferred DeSantis, except Hispanics who were split evenly. Conservatives favored DeSantis 51 percent to 33 percent, a catastrophe for Trump.