Trump appeared to concede Wednesday that he’s not allowed to run for reelection in 2028 — after teasing the idea of running for a third term on and off for months.
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1951, explicitly bars anyone from being elected to more than two terms as president.
Mr. Trump has periodically toyed with the idea of seeking another term. In some cases, he’s seemed to bring up the idea in a tongue-in-cheek manner, offering up “Trump 2028” hats to friends and foes alike. But he told NBC News earlier this year he’s “not joking” and he believes “there are methods” by which he could run for president again. And Trump ally Steve Bannon said in an interview released last week that “there’s a plan” for Mr. Trump to win a third term.
I’m not certain that he would lose, especially with the ratfuckery that will definitely happen. They’re already talking about putting ICE agents at ballot boxes, and ICE has already been caught kidnapping and attacking US citizens, so idk how this would be legitimately understood to be anything but voter intimidation.
Even in 2020, Biden barely beat him despite the spiraling economy and cataclysmic pandemic under trump. I know Biden wasn’t exactly the most exciting candidate, but being able to vote by mail was a major advantage to raise voter turnout and avoid intimidation attempts.
5 points isn’t a particularly close Presidential election. Trump won by 1.5 points in 2024, and -1.1 in 2016 (funny how that works).
What we’ve generally seen since the 2000 election is that when Republicans win, they do so by thin of margins (Bush 2004 was by 2.4 points). Twice during that period they won on negative margins.