One year ago, if you had suggested to a bunch of political pundits – left, right, or center – that, a year later, Donald Trump would be in complete control of every primary on Super Tuesday and the Republican Party and the Republican nomination and the Republican National Committee and the prohibitive favorite to win the general election in November, I don't think you would've had many takers, but that's exactly what is happening.
It is one of the great political comebacks of all time. In fact, just to stretch the point, if you had asked pundits two years ago, or better yet, three years ago, I think you would've had even fewer takers, but again, that is exactly what is happening.
That's where we find ourselves tonight, as of this reporting. Mr. Trump has run on the issues and it's working. Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to throw him in jail for 750 years and that strategy looks like a colossal backfiring failure.
National Review editor Rich Lowry writes in this morning's New York Post about "Trump nostalgia." Well, it's an interesting point. People may be nostalgic for the strong Trump economy, for the strong Trump controls along our border and for the Trump revival of America's world standing. Folks sure don't have any nostalgia for Joe Biden and his big government socialism, spending, taxing, borrowing, inflation, over-regulating, war on fossil fuels in particular and business in general.
A recent Fox News poll shows 58% think Biden mostly failed on helping the working class. 61% think he failed on improving the U.S. world image. 61% think he failed on handling the economy.
63% think he failed on making the U.S. safer. 69% think he failed to unify the country. 71% think he failed to improve border security. It's not good, Joe.
It just doesn't look like people are that into you anymore. According to the New York Times-Sienna College poll, women are 20 percentage points more likely to say that Mr. Trump's policies have helped them more than Mr. Biden's have.
If that's not a shocker I don't know what is. Women. The New York Times. Go figure, but the facts show that when inflation is factored in, typical working-class folks got a big pay raise under Mr. Trump and a big pay cut under Mr. Biden.
That's a killer, politically. Guaranteed that folks will vote in favor of the guy who gave them a raise, every time and with all this Trump nostalgia, or sound Trumpian policies, all of a sudden, he has created a new GOP coalition that includes working people of all stripes and colors: White, Black, Latino, female, young... you name it, across the board. It has a Reaganesque feel to it. There's a border war and people favor Trump's Remain in Mexico, build the wall and catch-and-deport approach.
There's an economic war, but people favor Trump's limited government, tax cuts, deregulate, "drill, baby, drill" approach. Trade and foreign policy folks prefer Trump's "America First" approach.
Conrad Black writes in the New York Sun today that, as the wheels come off the Biden administration, the incumbent's reelection strategy relies on prosecuting Trump, but that's a strategy that looks like it's either going to be deferred or collapsed altogether and the hot-stove news this afternoon suggests that Mr. Biden plans to get really mean and attack Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
That is, if he can muster the cognitive coherence to do it. Personally, I don't see Trump quaking in his boots over this one. So, folks, here we are. Super Tuesday. Advantage Trump.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the March 5, 2023, edition of "Kudlow."
