MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Says Trump Might Be Re-Elected in a Landslide

MSNBC's Chris Matthews speaks onstage during the Screenwriters Tribute during the 2017 Nantucket Film Festival - Day 3 in Nantucket, Massachusetts on June 23, 2017. Noam Galai/Getty Images for Nantucket Film Festival

MSNBC host Chris Matthews issued a warning to his audience that President Trump might be elected in a landslide in 2020.

Matthews this week sent a warning to the Democrat Party, saying they are moving too far to the left, namely with socialist propositions.

Referring to the 1972 election, he said “the party went hard to the Left” with Democrat nominee George McGovern, adding that the Democratic convention at the time “was giddy with excitement even if not that well organized.”

But, “the Democrats lost 49 states that year to Richard Nixon, who not only carried the electoral college, losing only Massachusetts and D.C., but 60 percent of the popular vote.

Nixon often said his win was a vindication of his “silent majority.”

“These are facts to consider,” Matthews said, via LifeZette. “One, almost half the Democratic Party electorate is either moderate or conservative. In other words, to the Right of the progressives.”

“Two, independent voters are also to the Right of the Democratic progressives,” Matthews added.

“Three, so are the straight Republican voters a Democratic nominee might need,” he said.

The MSNBC host also warned that the Democratic primaries will be much different than the final election.

“Bottom line, going into the Democratic primaries is not the same as going to the country,” he told his audience.

Economic Indicator?

A recent report from TrendMacrolytics, a research firm that predicted Trump’s 2016 election win, said that Trump will be reelected in a landslide if the election took place now.

It also said that if the Republican candidate was someone else, like Vice President Mike Pence, that person would win by 214 electoral college votes.

Donald Luskin, the chief investment officer of TrendMacrolytics, told Politico that a booming U.S. economy is the main factor behind the prediction, coupled with the historic advantage for running again as the incumbent president.

Matthew Charles, who was released from from federal prison after serving 20 years for selling crack cocaine, joins President Donald Trump for a First Step Act celebration in the East Room of the White House on April 1, 2019. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” Luskin told the news website. “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”

According to a Gallup poll released on March 5, 56 percent of Americans approve of how the president is handling the economy, which marked a new high for Trump. Not far behind was Trump’s handling of unemployment, where he gained an approval rating of 54 percent.

Yale economist and election forecaster Ray Fair also predicted Trump would win re-election on the basis of a flourishing economy and the incumbency advantage. He also predicted Trump would win in 2016, but missed on the president’s share of the popular vote, according to the news website.

President Donald Trump speaks prior to awarding a posthumous Medal of Honor for US Army Staff Sergeant Travis Atkins during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington March 27, 2019. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

“Even if you have a mediocre but not great economy—and that’s more or less consensus for between now and the election—that has a Trump victory, and by a not-trivial margin,” Fair told Politico. He predicted that Trump would receive 54 percent of the popular vote compared to 46 percent for Democrats.

On his website, Fair wrote, “The current case is the best possible one for the Republicans according to the equation: President running again and no negative duration effect. In this case, it takes a weak economy to have the voting equation predict the Democrats getting close to 50 percent of the two-party vote.”

Janita Kan contributed to this report.