If Hillary Clinton Had Won In 2016?

[Satchmo Distel]

Would Trump be about to beat her in 2020?

[San Bernardhinault]

We'd be preparing for 16 years of Nikki Hailey and Tom Cotton presidency.

[Diable Rouge]

Always imagined Trump entered the race just for a reality-TV style experience, rather than out of political conviction, so would probably have lost interest by 2020. Ted Cruz would seem a likely GOP standard-bearer, and could well have led such a contest.

[Jon]

Always imagined Trump entered the race just for a reality-TV style experience, rather than out of political conviction, so would probably have lost interest by 2020.

Yes, I'm watching The Trump Show documentary on the iPlayer. One of the things that really comes through is how little a chance he ever gave himself of becoming President right up to when he actually won.

[Satchmo Distel]

Corollary to this: on another forum, a poster is predicting that Trump may run again in 2024, even following heavy defeat in 2020, given that he would still have such a strong base of support. This seems unlikely for many reasons, the most important being having to constantly explain why he lost to Biden.

[ursus arctos]

The criminal convictions could also be a problem

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeah. I believe that in December, even if he's lost horribly, he'll believe that he'll Grover Cleveland it up. He'll even keep having big rallies where he freezes people to death in Nebraska. Because he loves his rallies. But over the course of a few months when his crowds dwindle and he ends up in all kinds of judicial chaos in NY, it would eventually become apparent that it wouldn't work. A big defeat would mean that all his supporters and enablers in the Republican party would rapidly be "Oh, I was always again Trump - you can see it in my speeches" or "Trump? I don't remember that guy." The same way the Tea Partiers were with GWB.

[Snake Plissken]

Trump will have fulfilled his role for the GOP, he's got two SC judges on and kept the Democrats out for four years. No need for him any more.

However, I genuinely think that Hillary would be losing if she was running in 2020. The problems that led to Trump wouldn't have gone away. (I'm not convinced that Biden will fix them either. It's the Centrist Way.)

[Moonlight Shadow]

He'll run again, after 'winning' in a few days... Even though by then he'll be barely able to speak and stand upright.

[Satchmo Distel]

(I'm not convinced that Biden will fix them either. It's the Centrist Way.)

Biden-Harris will be inheriting such a clusterfuck and will have such ineffective "solutions" that it's hard to see how the Dems could retain power in 2024 unless there's a primary challenge from the left, notably AOC (OTOH AOC's best chance would be 2028 in that scenario, after 4 years of Cotton or whomever).