POINT: 2020 Election Won't Even Be Close. COUNTERPOINT: The Idea That Trump Will Win Easily Is Ridiculous

Hugh Hewitt wrote:

The 2020 election isn’t going to be close.

The first-quarter gross domestic product growth rate of 3.2 percent sets up the first reality that will be noted in November 2020 because it telegraphs where the economy will be then: not in recession. Recessions are charted when GDP growth is negative for two consecutive quarters or more. That can and has occurred in sudden fashion — financial panics don’t send “save the date” cards. But the economy over which President Trump is presiding is strong and getting stronger. Innovation is accelerating, not declining. A recession before Election Day looks less and less likely by the day.

Small wonder then that Trump dominates the GOP with an approval rating above 80 percent. His administration’s deregulatory push is accelerating. More and more rule-of-law judges, disinclined to accept bureaucrats’ excuses for overregulation, are being confirmed to the bench. Readiness levels in the U.S. military have been renewed. Our relationship with our strongest ally, Israel, is at its closest in decades.

Meanwhile, the Dems are facing a Hobbesian choice of Sens. Bernie Sanders or Kamala D. Harris, or former vice president Joe Biden. Sanders and Harris are too far to the left, Sanders by a lot. Biden is far past his best years. The nice folk lower down are looking for other rewards. The nomination going to someone such as South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is possible, I suppose, but what happens when the dog chasing the car catches it? What was an entertaining and amusing aside suddenly becomes a commitment and, with that, well, comes a barrage of attacks. Where Trump deflects incoming with ease, the Democrats scatter, some limping away, some blown out of the picture.

This will come as news to #Resistance liberals, who are certain Trump will lose, because they dislike him so much. They still haven’t figured out that 40 percent of the country love him and at least another 10 percent are very much committed to considering the alternative in comparison to Trump, not reflexively voting against him. That decile is doing very well in this economy. Unemployment remains incredibly low. The markets are soaring. That’s not a given for the fall of 2020, but better to be soaring than falling 18 months out.

On immigration, border security has always been a legitimate concern (and Immigration and Customs Enforcement a legitimate agency). People don’t talk much about it as they decline to state anything that will earn them the label racist, but the reality of open borders is understood to be an unqualified disaster by most of the country, and most of the country understands the Democrats to be arguing for a de facto open-border system, if not a de jure one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/27/election-isnt-going-be-close/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-2020-election-isnt-going-to-be-close/ar-BBWmglD

Chris Chris Cillizza wrote:

"The 2020 election isn't going to be close."

That's the provocative first line of a Washington Post piece by conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt in which he makes the case -- as you might have already surmised -- that President Donald Trump will be easily reelected.

Here's the key piece of the Hewitt case, referencing the positive gross domestic product number released last week:

"Last week's message from a booming economy should have rocked the Democratic field. Alas, the party seems collectively intent on poring over the Mueller report yet again in the hope that, somehow, someway, there's something there. But the probe is over. No collusion. No obstruction. Democrats have to campaign on something else besides a great economy, rising values of savings, low unemployment across every demographic, clarity about allies and enemies abroad, and a rebuilding military."

There's truth in what Hewitt argues here, which can be boiled down to: It's the economy, stupid. Traditionally, presidents overseeing strong economies get reelected and those presiding over flagging economies struggle to win. There's no question that the economy is currently humming and, as Hewitt also argues in the piece, it's unlikely that we will find ourselves in a recession come 2020.

But Hewitt's piece also takes a number of liberties to draw his conclusions, ignoring some recent electoral history as well as the uniqueness of the position Trump currently occupies in our politics. I've listed some of the biggies below.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/donald-trump-2020-reelection/index.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-idea-that-donald-trump-will-win-easily-in-2020-is-ridiculous/ar-AAAK8gR