It’s looking rosy for the likely GOP nominee Donald Trump in a prospective matchup between him and President Biden. For example, the Real Clear Politics average of polling between December 4 and January 2 shows the former president beating Biden by 2 percentage points. Trump comes in at 46.5% compared to Biden’s 44.3%.

Joe Biden is even losing ground among vital Democrat voting blocs, like Black and Hispanic voters.

But the Trump base shouldn’t be breaking out the champagne just yet, warns Fox News commentator Joe Concha.

Tenor.com.

In fact, Concha cites four areas which could be “problematic,” as the kids say, for DJT in 2024.

What Could Topple Trump in 2024

You know the old saying about polls: they’re merely a snapshot in time. And in ten months a lot could happen that would serve to re-elect Joe Biden, as unlikely as that seems right now with 56% of Americans disapproving of his performance. That’s not to mention the fact that majorities in both parties say he’s too old to be president.

But Concha argues there are four areas which could be kryptonite for the GOP in 2024:

• An Improving Economy. While less than half of US voters think the economy will improve in 2024, it’s actually on the rebound. For example, there were more jobs added in 2023, making it the best year for employment since 2015. The unemployment rate also stands at at low of 3.7%. Plus, the economy grew by 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023, while the predicted recession never showed up. Moreover, the Federal Reserve is also expected to lower interest rates this year. So while inflation is still much, much higher than it was under Trump, if trends continue the all-important economic picture may turn voters to reconsider Biden.

• The Abortion Dilemma. Remember how a red wave was going to sweep through both houses of Congress in 2022? That didn’t quite materialize, largely due to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The biggest issue, however, was not so much Dobbs, but the fact that Democrats are master manipulators about abortion. Rather than explaining that the decision turned abortion regulations back to the states — where they should’ve been in the first place — the abortion lobby spun tales of women who would die, die! of ectopic pregnancies in states were the procedure would be restricted. Low information women voters were convinced that their very lives could be in danger. So while, as Concha writes, the “fear factor” has waned somewhat, expect Democrats to re-employ this strategy.

• A Trump Conviction or Two. Democrats are throwing whatever roadblocks they can on the legal front to interfere with Trump’s campaign. Officials in Maine and Colorado, for example, have sued to keep him off the ballot, while 32 other states have cases pending. Moreover, Justice Department special council Jack Smith is working overtime to get convictions on either the Mar-a-Lago document case or the January 6 riots. (Smith is also timing his actions to serve the purposes of the Biden administration — more on that below.) Yes, these moves consist of the blatant weaponization of the justice system (banana republic, anyone?), but if Trump becomes a convicted felon, it’s curtains for his campaign. That’s because if convictions sway only a few thousand voters in swing states, it’s over.

• If Gaza Quiets Down. Biden has bled a lot of uninformed Gen Z voters who are appalled at any support for Israel. Among the smaller group of American Muslims and Arabs, only 16% say they would vote for Biden. But if a truce should occur, or some semblance of peace should break out, the Israel-Hamas war would no longer be front page news. Muslims would rethink their traditional support for Democrats, since they hate Trump more. Meanwhile Gen Z would return to obsessing over social media influencers. However, writes Concha, with the current expansion of brutality in the Mideast, this may be the most unlikely of the above scenarios.

It’s All in the Timing, Too

Ah, the Trump trials. The three most crucial aspects of the Trump trials are timing, timing, timing, writes former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review:

No matter what issue arises in the former president’s federal criminal prosecution, focus on the timing. It will tell you all you need to know.

Thus, special council Jack Smith is angling to push the cases to trial shortly before the election:

At that point, the target public audience becomes not Trump’s adulators in the GOP base, but the broader electorate among which Trump is already unpopular. The mission is to get Trump convicted of some felonies, mortally wounding his chances of beating even an opponent as weak as President Biden….

A mid-July trial would start smack in the middle of the GOP Convention. Since it’s estimated that the trial will take two to three months, that would make Smith’s ongoing election-interference prosecution of Trump the centerpiece of the Democratic Convention in August.

As a result, Team Trump is working to delay the trials, hoping to push them back until after the election, when — assuming he’s re-elected — a new justice department will dismiss the indictments. “The cases will be closed, Smith will be fired, and the new president will be out from under criminal jeopardy,” writes McCarthy.

But the Trump legal team has its own problems, too.

Team Trump Has Crappy Lawyers

Have you ever seen Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer, on TV? Did you notice that the woman is gorgeous?

“Well, yeah,” one might say. “Trump gravitates towards good-looking babes.”

But that’s not the main reason Habba is his counsel. As National Review writer Jeffrey Blehar declares: Donald Trump Has Got the Worst Bleeping Attorneys:

No, the real reason Alina Habba is now Donald Trump’s attorney is that … Donald Trump is the Client from Hell. His willfulness, history of near-criminal dishonesty toward his attorneys, and inability to stop shooting off at the mouth in public about the cases against him is at this point so predictable that no major law firm or high-profile defense attorney is willing to sign up for the privilege of being serially sandbagged and undermined in public by his own self-defeating client. (And then: left with an unpaid bill.)

So while most high-end lawyers would love the opportunity to represent a former president in a court of law — think of the publicity! — they don’t want to touch him. Which led Team Trump to settle for a second-rate lawyer like Habba, “a small-time practitioner with a tiny Bedminster, N.J., firm,” as Blehar notes.

This legal eagle actually asserted on Fox News that the DC “insurrection” case would fare well in the Supreme Court because Trump appointed Kavanaugh. I kid you not.

I think it should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place. He’ll step up.

Habba: I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place. He'll step up. pic.twitter.com/gQo1h55t6N

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 5, 2024

I’m no attorney, but I rolled my eyeballs back into my skull with that comment. So Habba thinks that Trump will win because certain justices owe him?

Then again, Habba is the same lawyer who sued Facebook on behalf of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Siggy Flicker (yes, that’s the name) because the site disabled her account. Why? Allegedly it was because Flicker wished Melania Trump a happy birthday.

So much for Trump hiring “the very best people.” With counsel like this, Jack Smith just might get the timing he wants.

Trump Supporters Should Stop Projecting

Trump’s loyal base — and even just traditional Republicans — may wonder how anyone could vote for Joe Biden. But they forget that most voters don’t obsess on political issues. Politics don’t rule their lives. So when election season starts in earnest after Labor Day, the average voter will look at their finances. They may take a superficial look at what’s going on with crime, or immigration, or foreign policy. And then if everything is good in their world, they’ll vote for the incumbent, especially if the media convinces them that a vote for Trump is a vote for a criminal.

So Trump loyalists should not project their ardor for the former president onto the average voter. There’s a lot of kryptonite in Trump’s path that could trip up his return to the White House.

Featured image: The US National Archives/FlickrCommons. No known copyright restrictions. Cropped and altered.