US President Donald Trump is “slightly” favored for reelection in 2020, and to defeat him the Democratic Party must seek a young and charismatic candidate and little political experience to combat some of his own weapons.
This is the opinion of David Wasserman, one of the most prominent political analysts in the United States, who in an interview with Efe reviews the situation in his country after the legislative elections of last November and the way to the presidential elections of 2020.
Wasserman, one of those responsible for Cook Political Report and who two months before the 2016 election predicted that Trump had the possibility of winning with a lower popular vote (as it finally happened), is in Spain to participate in a series of conferences.
According to his analysis, the US president is still very popular among voters and Republican supporters, with 85% approval. Trump maintains “a strong loyalty from his base,” summarizes Wasserman.
Even more so because the political environment in the United States is “very polarized,” especially since Trump came to power, and that favors the president to keep mobilized his followers through their compulsive use of social networks.
That and the good performance of the US economy means that barring a recession or some really powerful event that damages his image, Trump could move peacefully until the elections of 2020 despite the “ethical cloud” that surrounds him, explains the analyst. .
As Trump is not a normal candidate in the political spectrum, and given the peculiarities of the electoral college, which can be president with fewer votes than the rival (as happened in 2016), Wasserman suggests that Democrats must present a ” anti-Trump “.
In his opinion, that means looking for a young candidate, with a lot of charisma and little political experience – having a lot of experience in Washington, being a legislator for a long time is increasingly seen in a more negative way by an important part of the population – and this analyst suggests the name of Texan congressman Beto O’Rourke, who was on the verge of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in November.
O’Rourke, whom some already compare with former presidents Barack Obama or John F. Kennedy for his magnetism, would be for Wasserman a candidate with more possibilities than senators with much experience in Washington, such as Joe Biden or Kirsten Gillibrand, but whose messages they seem corseted and lacking in freshness.
For this expert, the new congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez could be an alternative, but at 29, the youngest legislator to step on the Capitol is still far from the minimum age of 35 to aspire to the White House.
Given the very good quality of some of the new congressmen, especially women, elected in November, Wasserman anticipates that “the Democrats will have a much better roster of aspirants by 2024.”
Ocasio-Cortez is Latina, and despite the growing weight of this community in the US population and electorate, the expert acknowledges that this progression will have a “limited” impact due to its geographical distribution, which is very abundant in states where they are not. decisive, such as California, New York or Texas.
Due to the composition of the electoral college and the distribution of forces, it anticipates that the 2020 presidential election will be decided in six states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida, and Latinos are only important in the last two. .
Looking to the immediate future, this analyst does not believe that the Democratic Party, despite having recovered the majority in the House, launch a process of impeachment against Trump, unless there is some scandalous news.
That procedure begins in the House, but the impeachment takes place in the Senate, where there is a majority of the Republican Party, which makes it virtually impossible to achieve two-thirds votes there to dismiss the president.
Also, remember how in the impeachment of then President Bill Clinton in 1998-1999, that procedure was “counterproductive” to the Republicans. “An ‘impeachment’ could reinforce” even more Trump, cautions Wasserman.
This analyst Wasserman also foresees that the Democratic Party will assume a more leftist position with the arrival in Washington of the new batch of young congressmen, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who embarked on politics with Bernie Sanders, the only senator who calls himself a socialist.
Sanders has removed “toxicity” from the term “socialism”, and in addition young people have not known the former Soviet bloc, he explains. “I see the Democrats clearly in that direction,” he says.
By Rafael Cañas (EFE).
