Obama’s Trump Card?

Photo used under Creative Commons from Gage Skidmore (http://flic.kr/p/9hHrit)

Apparently one ditches The Donald’s Debate at one’s peril. After refusing to rule out an independent presidential run (after the conclusion of the next Apprentice season), The Man with the Golden Building has officially changed his registration from Republican to Independent, furthering speculation he will jump in as a fall spoiler.

While the odds are still against a Trump candidacy, it’s worth a glance at history to see if he could become the Republican Grinch and help President Obama steal victory from the jaws of defeat.

In 2000, Ralph Nader proved a third-party candidate doesn’t need to win a large percentage of votes to make a difference. Nationwide, Nader pulled in less than 3% of the vote, but if you assume more of his voters would have chosen Al Gore than George W. Bush (not a leap of logic), Nader’s 97,488 votes in Florida were more than enough to hand Bush a 537 vote margin. While hanging chads, legal maneuvers and ballot re-counts clogged the headlines, Nader was the true Gore menace, handing him a loss in the deciding state.

This is the scenario Republicans fear. But is it actually analogous to a Trump 2012 run? Nader was running to Gore’s left, meaning there was virtually no chance a Nader voter would have chosen Bush. Trump is a bit harder to pigeonhole, but with a message based on protecting American jobs by attacking trade policy with China and OPEC, you can see a few Reagan Democrats in the Trump column.

While Republicans are counting on winning some of these votes, Obama needs them too. By giving Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents a way to vote against the president without voting Republican, the ultimate pool of Trump voters is not limited to the right wing. Analysts on both sides assume the Obama campaign will flood the Republican nominee with negative ads. In a binary election, if the president can convince voters to avoid the Republican, he gets the vote. With a third option, the vote gets yanked from the GOP, but not necessarily deposited in Obama’s column, meaning he would need to pull twice as many voters away to have the same effect.

Perhaps a better example is the H. Ross Perot candidacy of 1992. The Perot platform bears a striking similarity to recent Trump rhetoric, with a focus on restoring the economy through fiscal responsibility and tougher trade policy. Is one billionaire independent candidate the same as the next, and if so, is it bad for Republicans?

Perot had the benefit of lower name recognition, allowing himself the benefit of the proverbial blank slate, an empty vessel for voters to insert their hopes. With far less time in the public eye than Trump, Perot was better suited as the candidate on a white horse. Trump carries plenty of baggage into the race. While he still has his fans, a much smaller percentage of voters would seriously consider him, reducing the chance that someone otherwise pleased with the Republican nominee would pick Trump.

People often assume that Perot fatally wounded George H.W. Bush’s re-election bid, clearing the way for a Clinton victory. The supposed moral of the story is that a third-party businessman divided the Republican vote, causing a Democratic victory. While Perot didn’t help Bush, the damage was not done at the ballot box.  In mid-October, Bush had a 34% approval rating, and he wound up with 37.5% of the vote. 

If Perot was stealing votes from people who would have otherwise supported Bush, his approval rating would have exceeded his vote, instead of being similar. Where Perot did harm Bush, was driving his approval rating down with a steady flow of crticism and attacks. Re-elections are generally a referendum on the incumbent. If that incumbent is facing fire from multiple directions, defending the administration becomes more difficult. Instead of a direct Bush-Clinton matchup, where the Bush campaign could have concentrated on attacking Clinton and making him appear unfit for the presidency, they needed to deal with two opponents.

Even with three candidates in the race, Clinton received almost 3 million more votes than Michael Dukakis in 1988, showing that Perot did not only pull voters from Bush for himself. Voter turnout was dramatically higher than in 1988 or 1996, indicating a number of Perot voters would have skipped the election if he was not involved.  Instead of dividing the Republican Party, Perot simply acted as an anti-incumbent advocate. 

This means a Trump candidacy could prove worse for Obama than the Republican nominee. Like Perot, he would likely refrain from complementing the major party challenger, but save most of his venom for the incumbent, arguing (as Perot did) that change was necessary and he was the better instrument. This would effectively turn the contest into a 2 on 1 battle, with Trump’s considerable resources used to run a stream of anti-Obama attack ads.

If the economy should start to improve a bit faster, this is even more dangerous for Obama. The recession of 1991 was relatively short-lived.  By mid-1992, GDP was actually increasing fairly rapidly. Unfortunately for Bush, the message did not get out until after the election. Perception was still negative on Election Day. Having two candidates actively promoting the concept of a stagnant economy contributed to this idea. 

If voters believe Obama improved things, however clumsily or expensively, he is likely to win. It is not hard to imagine the campaign trying to spin a 7.8% unemployment rate (it could happen) or 3% GDP growth (you never know) into a major accomplishment and justification for another round. However,  there are still almost three million fewer employed Americans than on Inauguration Day 2009; even the Administration isn’t counting on positive job growth for Obama’s full term.

With the Republican guaranteed to point out the weakness in the recovery and Obama guaranteed to defend it, having a third entrant to point out the problems is a big help, especially with a manistream media fixing to support the president. Given Trump’s penchant for making bold statements, his entry could also make a Republican candidate appear moderate by comparison, further complicating the Obama campaign’s efforts to brand his main opponent as a dangerous extremist. 

Donald J. Trump is definitely a wild card. However, his entry in the fall campaign would not guarantee an Obama victory. Third party candidacies in 1980 (John Anderson) and 1968 (George Wallace) may or may not have harmed the Republican challengers, but neither saved the Democrats. If President Obama brings an approval rating in the low 40% range to Election Day, even the promotional skills of Mr. Trump won’t be enough to save him.