Professor John Owens, Professor of United States Government and Politics in the Centre for the Study of Democracy, has written for the September issue of the Political Insight journal about the prospects of Donald Trump being re-elected in November.
Professor Owens studies the current polling data and examines Donald Trump’s prospects for re-election. Owens argues that the president’s electoral vulnerability has been evident from 2017 when he was inaugurated. Since then, it has been reinforced by his party’s poor performance in the 2018 midterm elections and his responses to national issues, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the Black Lives Matter movement.
Owens concludes “Donald Trump might well become the first incumbent US President in the 21st century not to be re-elected. Just over 100 days from the election, his approval levels were languishing at just 40 per cent at the same time that most polls have him trailing his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
“Notwithstanding Trump’s institutional and media prominence, his poor handling of the COVID-19 crisis coupled with a flawed re-election strategy aimed solely at reinforcing his electoral base, seems likely to doom his re-election prospects - assuming he continues to seek re-election.”
Read the full article on the SAGE Journal's website.
