Trump getting into position for re-election

US President Donald Trump has announced at a rally in Orlando that he will run for re-election, kicking off his presidential campaign almost a year and a half ahead of election day in November 2020. Observers assess his chances and give their opinion on whom the Democrats should send into the running.

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Index (HU) /

Promises full of lies

Donald Trump is once again promising voters the moon, Index criticises:

“If he's elected again this time around he'll find a cure for cancer and eradicate Aids. Trump is once again running for president. Four years after his first campaign kicked off he's launching his bid for 2020. ... The first time round he already made promises he has yet to make good on. For example he said that he'd lower the price of medication, that Mexico would pay for the border wall, and that the middle class would pay ten percent less taxes.”

Kurier (AT) /

To write Trump off is to think too European

Kurier explains why Trump's voters are so loyal to him:

“One could list off all the mistakes Trump has made in his first years in office, a game the liberal media in the US and Europe never tire of. But Trump's core voters couldn't care less: the Russian scandal is as far removed from their world as the Syrian War or North Korea's bomb. For all that the president sends them a clear, black-and-white message that casts himself as a hero and fighter for the US. ... With the his never-ending wall project and constant tough new measures against immigrants he's fuelling his voters' biggest fear. The Republican Party is more united behind Trump than it has been under any Republican president since Ronald Reagan, simply because it has no alternative to his populist course.”

The Independent (GB) /

Biden is Democrats' only chance

The former vice president has the potential to attract more of Trump's voters than any other Democratic candidate, The Independent comments:

“Biden has the party credibility, the organizing support, the donor base, and the charm to hurt Trump where the president can least afford it: in the moderate blue-collar families of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Use an interactive electoral college map and you'll see that if Biden wins those mid-western states and retains those that Clinton won in 2016, he's over the finish line. But coronate Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris as the nominee? Well, then Democrats have a much more complicated ball game.”

Irish Independent (IE) /

Rebel image no longer works

In this election campaign Donald Trump is now part of the elite that he fought against the last time around, The Irish Independent points out:

“He can no longer portray himself as the plucky political renegade taking on the might of the Clinton Machine. It shouldn't be forgotten that his best electoral asset the last time was actually his rival, and her astonishing efforts to scupper her own campaign. Only American politics could produce a billionaire property developer and TV presenter and present him as a gutsy outsider. That tactic worked the last time, but it's a magic bullet that's no longer available to him. Now he is the man with the target on his back and that is a pressure he hasn't felt before.”

Dagens Nyheter (SE) /

Permanent state of populism

The US president is more or less permanently in campaign mode, Dagens Nyheter observes:

“The president's politics doesn't focus on new laws and regulations but on wild attacks and attention-grabbing announcements - preferably on Twitter. ... That said, such behaviour isn't even particularly odd. Trump's promises - and those of all populists - aren't aimed at solving problems but at attacking groups that their voters don't like. That goal is furthered by permanent campaigning and not by presenting a programme on an issue-by-issue basis.”