The Cleve
Easier said than done. Comebacks aren’t easy.
“For the Donald,” writes our Canadian sensation Jack Hughes, Cleveland is a “name that inspires faith. For the Democrats, it’s should inspire fear.” And that, he argues, goes equally for Grover Cleveland and it does for the city in Cuyahoga County.
by Jack Hughes
Cleveland. We’re going to hear that name a lot over the next four years if Donald Trump is serious about running again in 2024.
Cleveland, as in Grover Cleveland, the only president in U.S. history to serve two non-consecutive terms. The man who was both the 22nd and the 24th President of the United States, and the reason why Trump is the 45th president despite the fact only 43 others have served in the office before him.
Cleveland was elected in 1884, defeated in 1888, and re-elected in 1892. While he and Trump are both considered presidents from New York, that’s pretty much where the similarities cease. He was a Democrat. He won the popular vote in all three of his elections. He had unimpeachable integrity.
Still, he’s like a flagstick on the golf course. He gives Trump something to aim at as the president lines up his third shot – or perhaps a mulligan? (It’d be perfect if I could say that Trump has Cleveland Golf clubs in his bag but, unhelpfully, it seems he plays TaylorMade irons and Titleist drivers.)
According to Allan Nevin’s Pulitzer wining biography of Cleveland, after his loss in 1888 his wife, Frances, told White House staff to “take good care of all the furniture and ornaments of the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now when we come back…four years from today.”
I can’t imagine First Lady Melania Trump ever saying – or even wanting to say – anything like that to White House ushers, but it’s exactly the kind of bravura/bravado quote I could easily envision the president tweeting out or retweeting come January. (If not that quote, he’ll use something similar.)
Grover Cleveland is like a flagstick on the golf course. He gives Trump something to aim at as the president lines up his third shot.
But it’s easier said than done. Comebacks aren’t easy. Four Republican presidents lost their bids for a second term in the twentieth century – Taft, Hoover, Ford, and George H.W. Bush – none of them ran again in the next election, having accepted defeat. (Democrat Jimmy Carter didn’t either.)
Here’s where the second Cleveland comes in.
Cleveland, as in the City of Cleveland, the county seat of Cuyahoga County. The second largest metropolitan area in Ohio. The 216. Believeland. It’s representative of the urban centers in which Trump needs to do much better in if he’s going to defy the odds and take back the presidency in 2024.
In 2020, Trump saw election-night leads in battleground states erode when mail-in ballots were counted in urban and suburban counties. Joe Biden then flipped Georgia and Arizona by leveraging Atlanta and Phoenix. If Republicans are weak in Sun Belt cities, they must be stronger in Rust Belt cities.
Yes, that means targeting urban Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh. Trump surprised many by being stronger in some of these in 2020 than in 2016. If he does even better in 2024 he could win back Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and, possibly, the White House.
The cautionary tale is Miami. As anyone who watched CNN’s John King on election night knows, Trump did far better in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 2020 than he did in 2016 – especially among Cuban and Hispanic voters. If he can do it in a true- blue city such as Miami, he can do it anywhere.
But why Cleveland? Trump won Ohio and its 18 electoral college votes by a slightly larger margin than in 2016. Yet, at the time of writing, Trump’s share of the vote appears to be up 1.7% in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County while his vote share is down both 0.9% in Columbus and 1.2% in Cincinnati.
It’s a political truism that no Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio – but most win Ohio without winning Cleveland. Trump won’t win Cuyahoga County in 2024 – only one Republican presidential candidate has in the last 50 years, Nixon in 1972 – but he can further close the gap.
Cleveland bucked the trend by delivering not only more votes to Trump but a higher percentage share of the vote. He did the same to varying degrees in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee. If he replicates those gains and reverses losses in Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids, and Madison he’ll be a contender.
In this, let’s be mindful of the axiom about generals always preparing to fight the last war. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan won’t be enough if Democrats win North Carolina or Texas. Still…Cleveland. For the Donald, it’s a name that inspires faith. For the Democrats, it’s should inspire fear.
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” and “Firth and Firthiness,” among others.
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