In an unsurprising surprise announcement, Donald Trump declared that he’s running for a second presidential term.
This comes, of course, on the coattails of an incredibly disappointing midterm performance by the Republicans; the conservative takeover prophesied by pundits proved, in the least, exaggerated.   
At the most, it was a loss – and if it was, no one lost more than Trump. Not only did his tired demagogic style fail to win independent swing voters to the MAGA cause, but his main Republican rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, won an astounding 19-point reelection victory.
Perhaps the worst defeat Trump has recently suffered, though, came after the midterm, in anticipation of his campaign announcement. Many conservative writers, despite former allegiance (or at least friendliness) to Trump’s cause, have begun to turn on him in favor of DeSantis.
The conservative magazine National Review ran a piece called “Pick Now: It’s Trump, or Winning.” According to HuffPost, American evangelical leader Mike Evans said “he’s done with Trump” and that “Trump can’t save America.” Robert Jeffress, a former evangelical adviser to Trump, admitted he’s not quite ready to endorse Trump again. In a Washington Post piece, James Robinson of Life Outreach International, a Christian organization, said he’s worried about Trump’s ego, asking, “If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect … to stop major issues?” More still, five GOP megadonors are looking to fund Trump challengers.
While Trump certainly retains the loyalty of some groups, such as the die-hard, red hat wearing MAGA bros and select Catholic integralists, such as Sohrab Ahmari, he seems to be losing electoral steam by the day.
It’s not difficult to see why. This is the second time that Trump has failed to use noxious, bombastic behavior to his advantage. 2020 CNN presidential election exit polling found that 68% of people voted for President Joe Biden as a vote against Trump; compare this to 53% of people who voted for Trump in an attempt to avoid a Biden presidency.
Some of these numbers aren’t surprising. The last few years of American politics have followed the trend that this poll indicates – that is, voting against a candidate rather than for one.
But just because it’s become normalized doesn’t mean it should be, especially when Republicans have a much more electable candidate in DeSantis. The only trick will be convincing Trump’s base to give up their dream of making the libs cry just one more time, which isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility. DeSantis, who has for months been widely identified as the main threat to Trump in Republican presidential primaries, had 95% of 2020 Florida Trump voters select his name on the ballot box in his recent gubernatorial victory.
DeSantis, however, has his work cut out for him. Trump began his campaign against him even before midterms began, calling the Florida governor “Ron DeSanctimonious.” 
But there’s a clear path forward: DeSantis needs to keep doing what he does best – fighting the culture wars – while avoiding the mudslinging, ad hominem attacks from which Trump seems to benefit so much.
The culture wars, after all, are what brought DeSantis national recognition. He refused to shut Florida down during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, all while keeping COVID-19 deaths below the national average; he has fought critical race theory, a particularly hot button issue among members of the American right; and in his victory speech on election night, he promised to “reject woke ideology” in Florida.   
So far, his strategy is working. According to one conservative exit poll, DeSantis has gained significant traction in several Republican presidential primaries against Trump: He’s gained 11 percentage points in Iowa, seven percentage points in New Hampshire, seven percentage points in Florida and eight percentage points in Georgia.
Outside of his electability, though, DeSantis is simply a better candidate than Trump by every reasonable metric. The reasons for this are relatively simple: He simply hasn’t committed himself to any of the same asinine antics as Trump. He’s been agnostic on election fraud. He refuses to engage in childish name calling. He’s a much stronger leader than Trump – in Politico, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, said that DeSantis “is the leader of the Republican Party.”
None of this means that DeSantis is perfect. Democrats and those on the left will certainly criticize him for any number of his policies, especially concerning COVID-19 and his “book banning.” But DeSantis, according to poll numbers at least, is just sane enough to bring independents and key swing voters to the conservative cause.
This is more than what can be said for Trump. What the 2020 election warned for Republicans was that just about anyone who didn’t absolutely detest Democratic policy was going to vote against the former president and that people were tired of his clownish, dirty style. The midterms only proved this; in election after election, Trump-backed candidates lost their races in what were supposed to be comfortable victories.
If the midterms are considered as a fourth Trump election, it shows that, for all his claims of “winning,” Trump is actually quite the loser. In 2016, he won; in 2018, his party lost control of Congress; in 2020, he lost; and in 2022, his poisonous personality cost his party secure control of the Senate. One win in four isn’t exactly a good batting average – at least, not for the man who claims near-infallibility.
The Republican Party should hope that their members realize this fact and reject a second Trump term when their primaries come around. If voters don’t, Trump may very well cost the country – not just conservatives – another four years of Democratic control.
Benjamin Haines is a 24-year-old history graduate student from Shreveport.