Could Trump face a nomination fight?

[BloombergOpinion]( [Early Returns]( [Jonathan Bernstein]( The Democratic nomination contest is now in full swing. But what about the other side? Is there a Republican “invisible primary” underway? There’s [no shortage of names]( that [the Great Mentioner]( might consider as potential candidates. But it’s obviously a delicate situation for most of them. So let’s go through this. Right now, President Donald Trump’s [overall approval rating]( is in the low 40s. That’s not good at all – he has the second-lowest approval numbers of any president through 697 days during the polling era (that is, from Harry Truman on). He remains dead last in disapproval. His party just got clobbered in the midterms. It’s true that neither midterm results nor approval ratings two years out from the election have much predictive power. After all, the only president with a lower approval rating at this point was Ronald Reagan, who would go on to win 49 states in a historic landslide in 1984. It’s also true that no president has been denied renomination since the reformed process began in 1972, and only two – Gerald Ford in 1976 and Jimmy Carter in 1980 – were seriously threatened. Yet Trump is unpopular enough – and is facing enough legal trouble – that I’d be surprised if leading Republicans weren’t thinking about the possibility that he winds up unwilling or unable to run in 2020. Those potential candidates face an obvious problem: Going out on a limb to take on a sitting president risks alienating party actors and voters alike, and thereby jeopardizing their political futures. On the other hand, no strong contender wants others to have a head start if Trump does drop out. It’s also possible that Trump remains in office but becomes so unpopular that most party actors think he has little chance of reelection. That, too, might encourage a challenger to take him on, with at least some quiet support from parts of the party. All this suggests that the dozen or so Republicans who would be most likely to run in 2020 under the right circumstances are almost certainly doing what they can to prepare for it (if quietly). It also suggests that at least some party actors – politicians, campaign and governing professionals, donors and activists, formal officials and staff, party-aligned interest groups and the partisan press – are well aware that there may be a nomination fight, and possibly an ugly one. What’s interesting is that, as the political scientist David Karol and his colleagues have noted, the invisible primary – the early jockeying among party actors over the nomination – has become a lot more visible in recent cycles. See, for example, the reporting this month on what’s happening on the Democratic side. But everyone on the Republican side has a strong interest in keeping it quiet. Trump and his supporters certainly don’t want anyone to think his nomination is in doubt, while everyone else wants to avoid incurring the president’s anger over what could well be nothing. It would take something more dramatic than what we’ve seen so far to trigger any overt campaigning by serious candidates. I’ve said all along that 40 percent approval is where things start getting intriguing, since a president below that mark starts to look like such a likely loser that party actors may be eager for a way out. If there is an invisible primary going on, it could dissipate if things improve a bit for the president. But if not? The silent maneuvering will probably go on for months. 1. Scott Moore at the Monkey Cage on what happens for business [after the Huawei arrest](. 2. Seth Masket on the [Weekly Standard](. 3. Dan Drezner on the [political business cycle](. 4. Greg Sargent on a [weaker Trump](. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O'Brien on [Trump’s increasingly fraught legal situation](. 6. And Olivia Nuzzi on [Trump and Christmas parties](. Bloomberg L.P. ● 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Web]( ● [Facebook]( ● [Twitter]( [Feedback]( ● [Unsubscribe](