Donald Trump’s third presidential nomination has never been in doubt. He’s made an art of political survival

By Jared Mondschein, University of Sydney

Donald Trump’s political obituary has been written many times. His dominant performance in the Super Tuesday Republican primaries marks one more instance of him outlasting those who counted him out.

While Trump has yet to officially clinch the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential contest, his near-sweep of the Super Tuesday primaries indicates there’s no further electoral pathway for Nikki Haley, his last remaining GOP challenger.

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Since Trump first ran for the presidency in 2015, there have been many moments that could have ended his political career, including:

• the 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he appeared to brag about sexually assaulting women

• his antagonism towards war hero John McCain in 2015 and the families of slain American soldiers and disabled veterans

• his comments after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 when he said there were “very fine people” among a group of white supremacists

• his first impeachment in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress

• his handling of the COVID pandemic, which killed 400,000 Americans while he was in office

• and his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, which led, most notably, to charges that he incited the January 6 Capitol insurrection – and his second impeachment.

The latter stands out, in particular, because many observers thought Trump’s political career was over after January 6, 2021. This was particularly true for Republican elites who may have publicly praised Trump while he was in office, but privately longed for his departure from public life.

Even one of the shrewdest congressional leaders of the last century, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, could not foresee the ironclad grasp that Trump would maintain over the Republican Party for nearly a decade.

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