This election is not Trump v. Biden, it’s Trump v. abortion, Trump v. Democracy, etc.

This is how we win!

It was literally difficult sleeping after watching Thursday night’s presidential debate. So many questions were racing around my head after watching President Biden objectively struggle to answer some key questions and of course being subjected to convicted felon Donald Trump peddling non-stop lies on topic after topic as the moderators said nothing. Overall, the CNN moderators allowed Trump to turn the debate into a Trump informercial—which is why the Trump campaign praised them after the event.

However, I still 100% believe with every fiber of being that Trump will lose. I don’t say that to simply make you feel better. And to be clear, I don’t mean Trump will magically lose or that we can sit back and wait for the results. No, it will be more work than we ever did to win.  

Let me explain why. First, when I say Trump will lose, I mean that regardless if Biden is the nominee or not.  We can debate all day if Biden dropping out and allowing an open Democratic convention in Chicago this August to pick a new nominee is more detrimental or beneficial to winning in November. That is of course Biden’s choice to make.

However, I still believe we win with Biden or any other known Democratic candidate as nominee. The reason is the very point I’ve made countless times since January on my SiriusXM show and on cable news: This election cannot be framed as Trump versus Biden. 

The road to victory is framing the choice this November as Trump versus abortion, Trump versus democracy, Trump versus climate change, Trump versus saving lives from gun violence, etc.

We, Democrats, find ourselves in a great position that when it comes to the key issues in this election that animate voters, we are on the side of a very solid majority.  Sure, polls show us that the economy is the top issue but that is a truism in politics.

The question is what issues move voters off their recliner to go out and vote. The top one as we’ve seen over the past two years since Trump overturned Roe v. Wade is abortion access.

And when I say Trump “overturned” Roe, I’m simply quoting him because he has bragged that he did it and this is the way Democrats need to message this.  Here are just a few examples that Democrats need to run in ads in the battleground states:

1.    In May 2023, while appearing in CNN Town Hall Trump boasted:  “I was able to terminate Roe v. Wade after 50 years of trying,” adding he was “honored” to do so.

2.    Newsmax interview in 2023, Trump bragged: “I’m the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade, and everybody said that was an impossible thing to do.” He added, “I put on three Supreme Court justices. Very few people have had that privilege or honor.”

3.     Trump social media post last year: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”

Those ads make it clear that Trump is the reason why women in 2024 America have fewer rights than in 1973 when Roe was decided. Trump is also why women in GOP controlled 14 states have zero reproductive freedom—meaning on day one of conception their uterus in essence becomes property of the state. And we know if a GOP controlled Congress passes a national abortion ban, Trump 100% signs it.  

Democrats need to pound that message home especially given that nearly 70 percent of Americans in a recent Gallup poll support abortion. In contrast, the percentage of Americans wanting make abortion illegal in all circumstances has fallen from 21% in 2019 to 13% in 2023.

Then there’s Trump versus democracy. As ABC News rightly noted in an article last month, “concerns about threats to democracy might even be greater than many traditional issue polls capture,” in fact even more important than the economy. And a Washington Post poll released earlier this week found threats to democracy ranked very highly with swing state voters.

That favors the Democrats. We all recall how Biden leaned into protecting our democracy from the threat of MAGA ahead of the 2022 midterm. This issue-along with abortion—resulted in Democrats vastly overperforming. In fact, the issue of abortion and democracy are intertwined because both are about self-determination and freedoms.

Trump versus the climate. We are all living through a climate crisis as record heat just gripped large swaths of our country, hurricanes are becoming more intense, 100-year rains are happening every year and more. In response, Trump called climate change a “hoax” every single year in office as he gutted environmental protections and regulations. In contrast, in Democrats enacted the Inflation Reduction Act which is helping the United States “build renewable energy plants, create battery factories, retrofit homes to make them more efficient, introduce more nature-friendly agricultural practices and a lot more.” This issue especially animates voters under 30 per a new CBS poll released Sunday and will be a key to increasing turnout among this group for Democratic candidates.  

And the list goes on with Trump versus issues that line up well with ones that Democrats are leading the charge on.

Look, if the 2024 race comes down to simply Trump versus Biden (or any Democratic candidate for that matter), Trump could win. But if this election is laser focused on the issues, we, Democrats as a party stand for and how Trump is a clear and present danger to all of them from democracy to abortion to freedoms and more, it will animate people to vote Democratic.  Simply put, that means Trump will be defeated…again.

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