Do Republicans have to run the incumbent? Or can they come up with somebody else in 2020? ‘Cause this is clearly for shit.
Question
Opinions, art, debate
Opinions, art, debate
Do Republicans have to run the incumbent? Or can they come up with somebody else in 2020? ‘Cause this is clearly for shit.
Clarissa's Blog 
Apparently they do not have to run the incumbent — the current president still has to go through the party nomination process and whatnot in order to be considered a candidate.
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This is technically possible but this almost never occurred.
Right now, Trump is still their best chance for 2020.
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Nobody has to run the incumbent. However the incumbent has a huge advantage. Trump isn’t super popular now and he only won a plurality of primary votes. However, I’m not sure any Republicans would be popular enough to win a primary against him. This assumes he’s still in office and running when the convention rolls around. If not, who knows?
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As a practical matter, it’s almost impossible for either party to refuse to nominate a sitting president if he wants to run for re-election. Jimmy Carter was extremely unpopular during his initial (and only) term in office, but even a lionized Democratic senator like Ted Kennedy couldn’t take the nomination away from him in 1980.
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson both decided not to run for re-election after they’d been beaten in several primaries by fellow Democrats — but they probably would have succeeded in getting their party’s nomination if they’d forced the issue.
At most, primary challengers to a sitting president can act as spoilers and help throw the election to the opposing party (as did Ronald Reagan with Gerald Ford in 1976, and Kennedy with Carter four years later).
If Trump wants the 2020 nomination, he’ll get it.
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Not likely. I can see Kasich challenging him in the primary, but I can’t see him winning. It’s up to the Democrats to beat him. Make sure to vote in the primary for the most electable candidate.
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Well, they’d better get started. Right now the Democrats couldn’t find their ass with both hands.
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In my lifetime the only incumbent (who ran) and almost didn’t get the nomination was Gerald Ford in 1976 who came fairly close to losing the nomination to Ronald Reagan. Ford went on to lose to Carter.
But that was exceptional since Ford had been appointed as VP when Agnew resigned and stepped up into the oval office when Nixon resigned. He wasn’t terrible but people wanted to move on past watergate and that meant cleaning out the whitehouse.
So… theoretically it’s possible (and may have happened at some time back when things were rougher and readier for all I know) but it’s a very remote possibility.
Trump is generally hated by the republican establishment so who knows though? they may prefer to lose with Rubio or Cruz (!) than win with a candidate they hate.
Also Johnson chose not to run in 1968, I’m not sure if possible difficulties in getting the nomination were a factor in that or not.
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The establishment hated him in 2016 too, but primary voters felt differently. He’s losing some support from Republican voters, but I don’t think enough to where he could get primaried out.
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“Do Republicans have to run the incumbent?”
Why wouldn’t they? He’s the only guy who excites their base.
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I’m sure it would also excite the base to play with nukes. But nobody is handing nukes out to them.
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“But nobody is handing nukes out to them.”
Don’t give him ideas….
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It can be a televised contest. “And . . . you are nuked!”
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