How Donald Trump came back from the political abyss

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, November 2 — When Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, it seemed to be the death knell of his political career.

His first term in office ended in chaos and condemnation - even from members of his own party.

If he wins the election on Tuesday, it will be only the second time anyone has ever returned to the White House after previously losing a presidential re-election bid.

“He gets knocked down and gets up twice as focused,” said Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser for the former president since Trump launched his 2016 campaign. “I don't think anybody should be surprised about this comeback.”

Such an extraordinary reversal of fortune for the former president would also vault him back into the White House as a man who seems politically bulletproof, with a detailed plan of action and ranks of loyalists behind him.

A short-lived exile

Four years ago, Trump appeared a beaten man. His Democratic opponent, Biden, had defeated him by a comfortable electoral margin in the 2020 presidential contest.

Courts had batted away his attempts to contest those results. His last-ditch rally in which he urged his supporters to march on the US Capitol as lawmakers were certifying the results culminated in the crowd launching a violent attack that sent those inside scrambling for safety. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were injured.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao were among a spate of Trump administration officials who quit in protest. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos wrote in her letter of resignation to the president.

Even South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies, broke with the president.

“All I can say is count me out,” he said on the floor of the Senate. “Enough is enough.”

The movement away from Trump extended into the corporate world, as dozens of large companies – including American Express, Microsoft, Nike and Walgreens – announced they were suspending support for Republicans who had challenged the results of the 2020 election.

On the day of Biden’s inauguration, Trump broke with 152 years of tradition by declining to attend the ceremony, instead flying back to his private club in Mar-a-Lago earlier that morning, accompanied by a handful of his closest aides and family.

His mood was sullen, according to Meridith McGraw, author of Trump in Exile, an account of the former president’s time after leaving the White House.

“He was angry, frustrated, unsure of how to spend his days and without a plan for his political future,” she said.

The media coverage and political chatter that month reflected this uncertainty over his future. After a clear electoral defeat followed by the chaotic scenes at the Capitol, some were even more definitive, suggesting there was no way back for Trump.

“And just like that, the bold, combustible and sometimes brilliant political career of Donald J. Trump comes to an end,” one opinion piece in The Hill read.

The subheading of a January 2021 opinion piece in The New York Times declared: “The terrible experiment is over.” The headline was even more direct: “President Donald J. Trump: The End.”

But before Trump left for Florida on inauguration day, he hinted at what was to come.

“We love you,” he said in remarks to supporters on a Maryland Air Force base tarmac. “We will be back in some form.”

A week later, it became clear that Trump wouldn’t have to wait long to assert his continued political influence. The party came back to him.

California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, paid the former president a visit at Mar-a-Lago, posing for a photo next to a beaming Trump.

In the immediate aftermath of the 6 January attack, McCarthy had said that Trump “bears responsibility” for the mob violence and recommended that Congress formally censure him for his conduct. Now he was pledging to work with the former president to win a congressional majority in the next year’s mid-term elections.

Even as the Democrat-controlled US Senate was preparing to hold Trump’s impeachment trial, McCarthy’s Palm Beach pilgrimage illustrated that one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress still viewed the former president as a king-maker.

“McCarthy’s visit really opened the door for Trump,” said McGraw.

“It was a permission slip to Republicans who had criticised Trump to forgive him and move on.”

Trump’s Senate trial would end in acquittal, as most Republicans – including some outspoken critics like minority leader Mitch McConnell – voted against a conviction that could have led to the former president being banned from future elective office.

McConnell had said that Trump’s conduct on 6 January was “a disgraceful dereliction of duty”, but he chose not to take the one step that could have conclusively ended the former president’s political career – perhaps out of fear of effectively ending his own.

Republicans also worried that the former president might start a third party that would siphon off support from Republicans – concerns that Trump’s closest aides did little to dispel.

“It’s clearly up to Republicans if this is something that becomes more serious,” Jason Miller, a long-time Trump communications aide, said in an interview with Fox News.

The former president spent the next month mostly within the comfortable confines of his Mar-a-Lago club, venturing out only for a round of golf or a private dinner.

By the end of February, as the furore around 6 January ebbed, he was ready to hold his first public event.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference – the right-wing confab typically held near Washington, DC but relocated to Orlando, Florida, due to Covid restrictions – the former president demonstrated that he still commanded the loyalty of the Republican base.

Addressing thousands of cheering supporters in a sprawling hotel conference centre, Trump basked in the glow of their adoration.

“I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we began together,” he said, “is far from over.”

He also hinted, coyly, that he might beat the Democrats “for a third time” in 2024.

An official straw poll of conference attendees only underlined what by then was obvious. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said Trump should run again. Fifty-five percent said they would vote for him in a contested primary – more then double the second-place candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

"Trump and his team were pretty nervous about that speech,” McGraw said. “Psychologically it was a really important moment for Trump and his allies when he got such a positive reception.”

After a brief hiatus, Trump reactivated his steady stream of fundraising emails to supporters and resumed holding his carnival-like outdoor rallies.

“Do you miss me?” Trump asked at a June gathering in Ohio. The crowd responded with cheers.

“They miss me,” he concluded.

Midterm highs - and lows

If 2021 hinted at Trump’s continuing influence within the Republican Party, the 2022 midterm elections confirmed it.

By then, American military forces had haphazardly withdrawn from Afghanistan, leading to the fall of that nation’s US-backed government. Gas prices and inflation were approaching highs not seen in decades. US economic growth, which had been bouncing back from pandemic disruptions, sputtered.

Biden’s approval ratings tumbled into negative territory. The political environment that had seemed so hostile to Trump at the beginning of 2021 was starting to shift.

“Joe Biden failed to address the primary concerns of the voters,” said Lanza. “That gave Donald Trump an opening.”

Mar-a-Lago became an obligatory stopping point for any conservative candidate seeking to become their party’s nominee. The former president’s endorsement was the most coveted prize – a key to unlocking fundraising dollars and grassroots conservative support.

Four of the six Republican House members who voted for Trump’s second impeachment and were running for re-election were defeated by Trump-backed candidates in party primaries. Meanwhile, Senate candidates like JD Vance in Ohio and Herschel Walker in Georgia pulled ahead in crowded primary fields with the help of Trump’s support.

”His endorsement all but guarantees you a primary win,” said Brian Seitchik, who worked as Arizona state director for Trump’s campaign in 2016 and as the western regional director in 2020.

But if the first half of 2022 was unambiguous good news for the former president, November’s elections painted a much different picture.

Of four prominent Trump-endorsed Senate candidates, only one – author turned politician Vance – defeated his Democratic opponent. While Republicans narrowly regained control of the House of Representatives, elevating Kevin McCarthy to the speakership, the party largely underperformed and Democrats retained control of the Senate.

In Florida, Governor DeSantis, the distant second-place finisher in that 2021 presidential straw poll, won a surprising double-digit re-election victory, fuelling speculation that he might be the real frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, Trump fumed – blaming the Republican shortcomings on the party’s support of unpopular abortion restrictions and insufficient fealty to his own brand of conservative populism. Only a few weeks after the midterms, when pundits were still wondering if the former president’s political moment had passed, Trump formally launched his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s path to the nomination

The start of his presidential bid seemed shockingly ill-timed. Just a few weeks after the Republican midterm misfire, it put the former president in the headlines when many were still wondering if he had lost his political instincts.

His formal announcement, held within the cozy confines of Mar-a-Lago, made his campaign feel insular and ill-suited to the current political realities.

He would subsequently make news for all the wrong reasons - dining at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist, and posting on social media that rules in the US Constitution should be “terminated”, allowing him to be re-instated as president.

“Thanksgiving through New Year’s was a pretty dark time on the Trump campaign,” McGraw said. Republicans were having their doubts.

“He's announced that he's running for president, but are we sure that he's going to be able to pull this off?” she said, describing the mood at the time. “Does he have the discipline to actually do this?”

Behind the scenes, however, Trump was assembling a campaign staff that – unlike 2016 and even 2020 – was headed by seasoned political operatives. Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles may not be household names, but the former was a bare-knuckled veteran of Republican politics with decades of experience and the latter had helped turn Florida into a conservative stronghold.

The two worked with Trump to formulate a presidential primary strategy.

While DeSantis was bogged down with official duties in Florida, Trump moved early to define the contours of the campaign, Lanza said. And while others deferred to the Florida governor, Trump hit him head-on, demeaning and diminishing him.

“Everybody thought Ron DeSantis was at this powerful apex of politics that could not be torn down,” Lanza said. “Donald Trump tore the guy down.”

The Trump side also received a boost from the unlikeliest of sources – prosecutors in New York, Georgia and the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

Starting with the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago for sensitive national security documents in August 2022 and culminating in a series of indictments in 2023, the former president’s criminal jeopardy became a central issue in the rapidly unfolding Republican presidential nomination fight. Trump’s mugshot, glaring in a photograph taken at an Atlanta jail in August, was soon plastered on campaign t-shirts and yard signs.

For many on the left, justice was finally being served. But among the kind of conservative voters who choose their party’s nominee in early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it became a moment to rally around their party’s embattled leader.

Conservative pollster Sarah Longwell interviewed a panel of Iowa Republicans for PBS in June 2023, a week after the Justice Department indicted Trump on charges related to mishandling sensitive government documents.

“I think he’s being set up,” said one.

"This is election interference like we have never seen before,” said another.

The indictments, according to Lanza, created a divide within the Republican Party between those who saw the indictment as an abuse of power and those who didn’t.

“Initially, Ron DeSantis took the ‘didn't’ approach,” he said. “And he became roadkill.”

DeSantis had at first called the March 2023 New York indictment, which he noted was about Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film star, a “manufactured circus” that wasn’t a “real issue”.

By autumn 2023, Trump had opened a massive lead in most Republican primary polls – a margin he would never relinquish. He skipped the Republican primary debates, depriving them of political oxygen. He focused instead on cementing support among rank-and-file voters through his trademark rallies and grass-roots organising.

Despite raising nearly $200 million in campaign funds, DeSantis was out of the race within days of finishing a distant second in the January 2024 Iowa Caucuses. After Trump easily beat former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, the Republican primary fight was effectively over. For the third straight presidential election, the party’s nomination was his.

Trials, tribulations and triumphs

The former president’s courtroom drama may have been a boon to his political fortunes, but it also came with very real legal jeopardy. In May 2024, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts involving hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Every judicial setback, however, seemed to be followed by a bigger victory. His sentencing was delayed until after the election, the document indictments in Florida were discarded, and the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have sweeping immunity for official acts.

Outside of court chambers, Trump’s campaign was rolling from his primary victory into the general election faceoff. A halting, confused performance by Biden in his late June debate with the former president left Democrats in a full-blown panic.

Trump’s approval ratings and head-to-head polling numbers were ticking ever higher. And after his brush with an assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania in mid-July, he arrived at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee a day later as a conquering hero to his supporters.

“What we saw at the convention was how unified the Republican Party appeared, really for the first time in a long time,” said McGraw. “They were feeling incredibly confident.”

Tesla chief Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, publicly endorsed the former president and began funding a massive organising operation in key battleground states. Republican pride – pride in Trump – was running high.

At that moment, it seemed like Trump’s return to the pinnacles of American power from the depths of 6 January 2021 was all but complete. A campaign that had first vanquished DeSantis and his other Republican rivals was now set to deliver a knock-out punch to Biden and the Democrats.

But three days after Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Biden abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris.

In a matter of a few weeks, Harris consolidated her party’s support, injected new enthusiasm into Democrats and even pulled ahead of the former president in some head-to head polls.

Trump’s efforts were not helped by a scattershot debate performance against Harris in September and an apparent difficulty reorienting his campaign to take on his new opponent, whose strengths – and weaknesses – are decidedly different from Biden’s.

“Trump really wasn't tested until Harris got into the race,” said Seitchik. “Everything up to that point almost felt like an extended preseason for the campaign.”

With election day looming, the season is almost over and the champion is still in doubt.

The race is where it seemed to be headed at the beginning of the year – a photo finish where either candidate could end up on top. And for a campaign that had focused on Biden’s age and frailty, it is now Trump whose stamina and coherence are under the microscope.

“Trump can have an incredibly professional, streamlined operation around him, but at the end of the day, he's still going to do what he wants and do things the way he wants,” said McGraw.

That includes a continued public insistence that he did not lose the 2020 election, extended rhetorical diversions during rally speeches and last-minute cancellations of media appearances that some have attributed to “exhaustion”.

Trump has been in the whirlwind of presidential politics for nine years now – and in the public spotlight for more than four decades. He has seemed indefatigable. But with another four years in the White House looming on the horizon, are the cracks beginning to show?

'Fundamental reorientation’ ahead?

While Trump’s victory is far from guaranteed, simply being this close to the prize once again is itself a remarkable achievement. And if his political comeback culminates in another presidential term, he will return to the White House having overcome obstacles – legal, political, many of his own creation – that few presidents have confronted.

With control of the reins of power, and without the burden of having to face the judgement of voters again, Trump will be able to make those legal dangers disappear. And unlike his first term, he will be entering the White House with a team of advisers and potential administration staff who are fully loyal to him.

His intent to dramatically reorganise the federal bureaucracy could replace career civil service employees with political acolytes. And even if he doesn’t win full control of Congress, he could use existing presidential powers to impose new restrictions on immigration, enact his plans for mass deportation of undocumented residents and impose tariffs that are designed to protect US jobs but could significantly increase the cost of imported goods.

Democrats warn that this would be a presidency without “guardrails” to limit what they say are Trump’s more dangerous proposals. Republicans, in a party that has been remade in Trump’s image, hope that he will be able to more effectively enact his agenda without the internal resistance he faced in his first term.

“Donald Trump has converted the party from fiscal issues and social issues being the dominant force to a Trump populism,” Seitchik said. “This is all a fundamental reorientation of the Republican Party.”

And if he wins next week, Trump could fundamentally reshape American government for generations to come.