Even if, by the margin of a stack of contested mail-in ballots, Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidential election, one former Trump adviser is telling Americans not to toss out those “Make America Great Again” lawn signs.
Bryan Lanza, communications director for President Donald Trump’s transition team after Trump’s 2016 triumph, said the president is in a good position to “run again four years from now.”
In 2024, Trump “will be younger than Joe Biden than his current bid for the presidency, so age isn’t the issue,” Lanza told the BBC Radio 4 program “Today” this week, according to The Independent.
Lanza identified COVID-19 as a chief issue on Biden’s watch, if he is proclaimed the winner.
“Biden will have the opportunity to guide this country out of COVID, and we’ll see what his successes and failures are. And there’s nobody in the Republican Party that can challenge President Trump in the primaries,” Lanza said.
Should Trump “lose a very tight election” he can “make a strong case to run again,” Lanza said.
After all, Trump received just shy of 63 million votes to win the 2016 election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Even with all the votes from Tuesday not counted, Trump is at over 69 million votes this time around, The New York Times reported.
By way of contrast, 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney received about 59 million votes, according to NBC News. Former President Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 landslide victory, garnered slightly less than 54.5 million votes.
Given Trump’s ability to get votes and the unprecedented loyalty his supporters have shown, “the Republicans would step aside to let it happen,” Lanza said, referring to the possibility that Trump loses this year and runs again in 2024.
Speaking about Trump’s attempt to throw shade on Biden’s vote totals, Lanza said, “I don’t think it’s different from what the Democrats did when they told Americans that Russians were involved in Donald Trump’s election four years ago.”
Others are speculating about what Trump might do if the legal challenges he is mounting do not go his way.
“I would absolutely expect the president to stay involved in politics and would absolutely put him on the shortlist of people who are likely to run in 2024,” Mick Mulvaney, former acting White House chief of staff and now Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, said Thursday, according to The Irish Times.
Trump and aides have had discussions about mounting a comeback run in 2024 should he lose reelection to Biden, an adviser tells me. No word whether he would do it. But the subject has come up, I'm told.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 5, 2020
Last month, former White House aide Steve Bannon said that Trump will not walk away just because he loses a round.
“You’re not going to see the end of Donald Trump,” he told The Australian.
“I’ll make this prediction right now: If for any reason the election is stolen from or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he’s going to run for re-election in 2024,” Bannon said.