Donald Trump is risking his entire political future in the November 5 election. The former president and Republican candidate, 78, has said that if he loses to Kamala Harris, he will not run again in the next election, in 2028. He is already the oldest candidate running for president, but this will be his last chance. Trump made this statement during an interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson broadcast on Sunday.
In the interview, conducted at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mansion in Palm Beach (Florida), near the end, the journalist asks the former president: “And if you don’t succeed this time, do you see yourself running again in four years?” Trump answers: “No, I don’t see myself. No, I don’t see myself. I think that will be it, that will be all. I don’t see it at all. I think that with luck we will be successful.”
It is now rare for a defeated candidate to run for office again, especially after having previously served as president. The only precedent for a president serving two non-consecutive terms is Grover Cleveland, who won in 1884 and 1892. Other candidates have tried again after being defeated, including Richard Nixon, who lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960 but beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972.
Trump is the first candidate since Nixon to lead a major party ticket for a third time, though by his own account there will not be a fourth, whether he wins (a constitutional amendment sets a maximum of two terms) or loses.
The former president continues to maintain the lie that his 2020 loss to Joe Biden was due to widespread voter fraud. He has been charged for his attempts to rig the election, although he attributes it to political persecution and presents himself as a martyr. The former president has not committed to recognizing the results of November 5, unless they grant him victory.
Trump launched his first re-election bid for the 2020 election on the day of his inauguration in 2017 and announced his last bid for the White House two years ago, in November 2022, shortly after midterm elections that were disappointing for Republicans. The former president occupied the space, the bases supported him and alternative candidates, such as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, were defeated without qualification.
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The former president now faces a tight race against Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. Although Harris has a slight lead in national polls, the battle is very close in the decisive states, which will tip the balance in the Electoral College, which elects the president.
Trump is also trying to make things more difficult for his rival. The former president is pressuring Nebraska Republicans to change the state’s electoral law, which makes the Republican-majority state one of two that does not award all of its Electoral College votes to the winner of the state as a whole. It gives two votes to the statewide winner and the other three to the winners in each of the three districts into which its territory is divided for the House of Representatives elections. With that division, Trump got four Electoral College votes in 2020 and Biden got one. At the time, that vote was not consequential, but now it could be.
If Harris wins what Democrats call the Blue Wall (the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where she appears to have a slight advantage) and loses in the other four decisive territories (North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona), the vice president would win by 270 votes to 268, but that would be counting the vote of Omaha, the Democratic district of Nebraska. If the Republicans snatch that vote from her through electoral reform, there would be a tie at 269 and in that case the president would be elected by the House of Representatives and the vice president by the Senate. In the House of Representatives, each state delegation would have only one vote, which would favor Trump, who in that scenario would be the likely winner.
In the interview broadcast on Sunday, the journalist also asked the former president about the possibility of Tulsi Gabbard or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two former Democrats turned Trump supporters, being part of his cabinet if he wins the election, but the former president has avoided a direct answer. “It could be, but I have not reached an agreement with anyone. It is not appropriate to do so. It is too early,” he specifically replied when asked about the possibility of Kennedy being Secretary of Health and Human Services, as suggested by Nicole Shanahan, who was accompanying the former Democrat as a candidate for vice president.
