Opinion | With Trump, It’s 2015 All Over Again

After watching Donald Trump ascend to power and crash back out, after all the feuds and drama, after all the tweets and endorsements, after all the tell-alls and investigations, we are back in 2015.

Seven years ago, Trump was a political neophyte not taken very seriously by most analysts as he embarked on remaking the Republican Party and demonstrating the power of his attention-grabbing, controversy-fueled mode of politics.

Now, he’s a former president and kingmaker that most in his party won’t dare cross and few, presumably, will underestimate again.

Yet, on the cusp of another potential run, some of the same questions and dynamics surround Trump as the first time around, including whether he will actually make the plunge or is just teasing, and how strong and enduring his apparent support is.

These doubts are perhaps another sign of wishful thinking on the part of people hoping Trump will fail to launch or go away, just like when he was about to descend the famous escalator. It is certainly the case, though, that Trump is now in his weakest position since 2015 or the first part of 2016 — when, of course, he won the nomination, although it wasn’t quite as inevitable as it came to look in retrospect.

First, there’s the threshold question of whether Trump will run. In 2015, there was much doubt that he would. He’d talked about it so much before. And would he really want to go through the paces of disclosing his finances? This time around, there are fewer doubters. Still, there’s a school of thought that believes he hasn’t truly decided whether to run and could pull up short if conditions don’t look propitious or he doesn’t feel up to it for some other reason.

Trump still draws big crowds. In 2015, when the Trump rally first became a thing, some commentators dismissed the size of his events. Candidates who were huge draws before — think Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012— didn’t amount to much in the end. In 2015 and 2016, these pundits thought people might be showing up for the entertainment, or to see what the fuss was about. Their attendance, that thinking went, didn’t mean they’d caucus or vote for Trump when push came to shove.

This, we now know, was flagrantly wrong. The Trump rallies showed a passion and commitment on the part of his supporters that no other candidate could come close to matching and was extremely important. As much as anything, the rallies were a metonymy for the larger Trump phenomenon.

How about now? Well, there’s doubt about the rallies again. Are they the redoubt of die-hards who show up in considerable numbers but are also a relatively small number of Republican voters? Are they an echo of the past rather than a sign of future vitality? The right-wing and now vociferously anti-Trump pundit Ann Coulter discounts the events on grounds that Sarah Palin could still draw a crowd even as her influence ebbed after the 2008 defeat to Barack Obama: “In case you don’t remember, for three years following that loss, Palin was packing stadiums with tens of thousands of Trump-like fans.”

Trump’s polling also looks strong, although there should be some skepticism about that, too. When he first popped up to the top of the polls in 2015, it was easy to believe he was another one of those unserious Republican candidates who momentarily catch the imagination of voters before fading back into the pack.

This, again, proved completely wrongheaded. What about the polling now?

Trump has had monstrous 30- or 40-point leads in the national polling over potential competitors, but a recent USA TODAY/Suffolk poll had him at just 9 points over Ron DeSantis nationally. The Florida governor isn’t exactly closing the gap in the average — Trump is up 2-1, 50 to 24 percent — but a national survey that has Trump up by less than 10 points is a blast from the past.

Almost exactly seven years ago, in early August 2015, Trump led the field by about a 2-1 margin, 24 percent for Trump to 13 percent for Jeb Bush. Most individual polls had him up by double digits nationally in that time period, but some had him only up by single digits. This would remain true until he got the nomination in the spring of 2016.

Or consider Florida. A couple of polls conducted the last couple of weeks have DeSantis beating Trump in Florida. Needless to say, it’s very favorable terrain for the home-state governor. But it is still a notable result. According to the RealClearPolitics run-down of primary polls from Florida in the 2016 race, Trump hasn’t been losing to another Republican in the Sunshine State since July 2015, way back when another native son, Jeb Bush, was leading in Florida.

Maybe the softening in Trump’s numbers is part of an inexorable trend. Perhaps it’s only a minor downdraft that will quickly reverse if he announces for president. Who can know?

There are other echoes of 2015. There’s derision directed at Trump’s extremely small team of loyalists that would form the nucleus of his campaign — just like the first time around.

There’s a very strong possibility that if Trump ran for the nomination and lost he’d try to poison the chalice — the reason for the Reince Priebus-orchestrated “loyalty pledge” back in 2015.

Trump benefited during his first run from a multi-candidate field that divided his opposition. At the same time, no one quite knew how to handle him, and many candidates spent time ducking and covering. The same could well be true in 2024.

The biggest difference with Trump’s first run is that now he’s been president of the United States. He’s shown he can win a presidential race (as well as, it must be added, lose one).

Rather than an outsider who has to be grateful for every small crumb of support from Republican officialdom, Trump owns the RNC, has elected officials he endorsed — from governor to dogcatcher — scattered all over the landscape, has a government in waiting in the form of various “America First” entities, and is lavishly funded. This time around, Trump will have his own establishment — a MAGA establishment that he and his loyalists have fashioned in recent years—at his back.

This will make him, in effect, the establishment frontrunner in the race — assuming he really does run.

That’s a formidable position to be in, although history shows it’s not necessarily impregnable.

If people are fundamentally looking for something else, all the name ID, the money and support from elected officials will mean nothing. Trump will also have trouble seeming as fresh as he did out of the gate as he nears a decade at the top of national politics. And his obsession with 2020 inevitably means a backward-looking focus. These are the kinds of pitfalls that can drag down front-running campaigns.

In short, 2015 means Trump 3.0 is not to be trifled with or lightly dismissed. It also means, once again, there are potential chinks in his armor.