It ain’t over till it’s over…in sports and politics! (II)
Baseball legend Yogi Berra may have been a political pundit.
I kid, but his famous line “it ain’t over till it’s over” could apply to President Donald Trump’s aspirations to regain the White House.
CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten had a short piece about the topic, calling Mr. Trump’s chances “very real.”
I couldn’t believe it at first. After January 6th, multiple indictments and his poor numbers among independents, how could this be possible?
Mr. Enten first lays out how Mr. Trump is dominating the Republican primary. I have never been shocked by this, especially once Florida Governor Ron DeSantis floundered in his campaign, much like former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. There’s no one within the Republican party who can challenge Mr. Trump at this moment.
On the national stage. Mr. Trump is “either tied or ahead” of President Biden in multiple polls. Mr. Enten details why this is so significant:
“Trump never led in a single national poll that met CNN’s standards of publication for the entirety of the 2020 campaign. Biden was up by high single digits in the late summer of 2019. Biden is up by maybe a point in the average of all 2024 polls today.
Surveys in the late summer of 2015 told the same story: Clinton was up by double digits over Trump in late July and up by mid-to-high single digits by the end of August 2015.”
It’s easy to forget what a comfortable lead President Biden enjoyed over Mr. Trump during the 2020 campaign. The fact that the former never trailed the latter once (albeit according to one news agency) four years ago yet is doing so now should be a wake-up call for the Democrats.
It doesn’t matter how much you think your candidate should be winning, whether based on personality, policy or other factors.
It doesn’t matter how well you did in the previous campaign. Just like in sports, each season is new and the previous champion is irrelevant.
What does matter is how your candidate polls and how the public views him or her. It may not be fair or logical, but the results are the results.
Mr. Trump’s continued rise from the ashes like an aging phoenix with dyed blonde hair proves Mr. Berra’s quip, along with my little addendum:
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Or, it’s over when you think it’s over, and the final bell hasn’t rung.
Agree?