OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A new analysis of the 2024 presidential race claims that former President Donald Trump has managed to pull off the “biggest political comeback” in the country’s history after all that has happened and been done to him.
Writing in Newsweek, former Fox News personality Monica Crowley, who served a stint as the Treasury Department’s spokeswoman during his administration, noted that, in her view, the 45th president’s political resurrection has even surpassed that of Richard Nixon, who was defeated by John F. Kennedy in 1960 but came back to win landslide presidential victories in 1968 and 1972. After he was forced to resign, he managed yet another comeback, “becoming the most influential former president America has ever had,” she wrote.
“President Donald Trump is mounting the most astonishing return to center stage we have ever seen. He is not just still standing. He is winning. It’s a stunning turn of events,” Crowley said.
“From the moment he first announced his candidacy in June 2015, Trump led a powerful new America First movement based on the idea that the United States—and Americans—should be valued, supported, represented and yes, prioritized by their leaders. This should not have been a particularly controversial concept, but it was existentially threatening to the globalist ruling class,” she added.
A year ago, when he was still teasing a third White House run, Trump was polling well behind President Joe Biden. But after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in August and Biden’s Justice Department began charging him with crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot and for retaining classified documents — the latter of which Biden also did — his political stock began to rise again, and support poured in.
Trump handily defeated all comers in 2016 and did so again this election cycle, with his one-time UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, being his sole remaining competitor. She has gone 0-2 in the first two primaries and political analysts have said she doesn’t even look set to win her home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor.
As for Trump, Crowley noted that he has been attacked from all sides since his first campaign and term.
“[T]hey set out to undermine and destroy him in the most corrupt and dangerous ways: launching the Russia Hoax to attack him as a Putin stooge—a lie gravely damaging to his presidency, the country, and our national security; hitting him with two phony impeachments; leveraging the pandemic to change election laws to weaken his 2020 chances; refusing the extra security he had requested for January 6; had his home raided by the FBI; and now burying him in an avalanche of bogus lawfare,” she wrote.
“Trump’s enemies have thrown the kitchen sink at him, hoping that something would neutralize him as a political player. Nothing has worked. In fact, the opposite has happened: like a mythical superhero, the more he’s hit, the stronger he becomes, evidenced by his historic win in the Iowa GOP caucuses this week,” she continued.
While polls have the Trump-Biden rematch close, Trump is leading by about a point in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, but he is much higher in the vital swing states.
Crowley then laid out several reasons for Trump’s political resurrection: Biden’s horrible job performance, the perception among millions that the economy isn’t working for them, new hot wars around the world, the “lawfare” unleashed against him, and the fact that Trump is actually leading a pro-America movement.
“As the massive Trump victory in Iowa came into view Monday night, the mood among the ruling class was positively funereal. They cannot believe we’re right back in 2016. The 10 months until election day is an eternity, and a lot can and will happen. But the fact that Trump is not only still in this race but leading is a testament to his extraordinary political gifts and the mighty movement he leads,” she concluded.
