The latest polling from Bloomberg on the rematch race between former President Trump and President Joe Biden is stunning.
Trump is being prosecuted in a show trial-circus in Manhattan that serious observers know is both complete nonsense and an utter disgrace. On top of that, Trump is subject to a gag order. He is also obliged to be in court four out of five days a week and thus not campaigning in swing states. Despite all of this, Trump is surging in the swing states according to the new Bloomberg numbers, with Trump’s lead increasing to 7 and 8 points in Arizona and Nevada, respectively and to an astonishing 10 point lead in North Carolina!
Trump is up in Georgia by six points and in Wisconsin by four. Biden ‘leads’ in Michigan by two points but that’s margin-of-error land. When Trump names any solid running mate —former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senators Tom Cotton or Joni Ernst, former National Security Advisor Ambassador Robert O’Brien or either of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin or North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum— Trump’s momentum will increase.
Vice presidents rarely matter when a voter chooses a president, but the obvious physical infirmity of President Biden changes that in 2024. People will be thinking a lot about ‘President Kamala Harris,’ and shuddering when they do. When Trump chooses a mainstream running mate who is good on the stump, the gap is going to widen in Trump’s favor.
The issues cake is baked too. My device for recalling them all is ‘A-B-C-D-E-I-E-I-I’: appeasement, the border, crime, ‘DEI,’ education, inflation and Israel. Swing state voters know Biden is on the wrong side of every single one of these issues. And not just on the wrong side by a little. Biden-Harris has gone so far left on all of these issues that detailed arguments don’t even need to be made. Trump and his running mate just have to repeat the mantra. Voters already know the score.
It’s a remarkable comeback for Trump, and he’s got the crazy prosecutors in Manhattan to thank in part. What Bragg is doing in Manhattan is appalling, and it will get worse before it gets better in terms of interference with the campaign in a trial that should never have been begun much less continued into the stretch run of the campaign. Voters are smart. Voters know when the permanent government is putting its thumb on the scale, or in this case, its entire fist.
And voters don’t like it, any more than they like the cumulative inflation of 20% since Biden was sworn in or Biden’s wide-open border. Not a bit. It’s banana republic politics and it isn’t helping Biden at all and the numbers show that. But when the Democrats committed to a frail and failing nominee, they had to commit to this approach. Biden is incapable of giving a good speech, indeed, he can barely make it around a stage. So Democrats are banking everything on a conviction in New York which, when it comes, will energize the hosts on MSNBC and almost nobody else. It’s priced in already. It’s a show trial and everyone knows how they end. I expect a spectacular backlash from this abuse of the criminal law. Most Americans have due process in their bones and Trump isn’t getting it. Again, voters are smart. They know.
Pray the rebuke Democrats receive in November is enough to reset the party back somewhere close to where the old-school liberals lived. We don’t need a two party system where one party has lost its commitment to the rule of law and to our ally Israel. Democrats have abandoned both. The reckoning is coming.
Hugh Hewitt is host of ‘The Hugh Hewitt show,’ heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Brett Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/TV show today.
