Donald Trump is one of onlyꦕ two Republican three-time presidential nominee in history.
That achievement 🐓was unthinkable in January 2020.
Back then, his ﷽per🍷sonal polls had hit rock bottom after the Jan. 6 Capitol demonstrations.
Republicans had💖 just lost two Senate seats to hard lef♉tists in Georgia.
With those defeats, an increasingly unpopular Trump was blamed by many Republicans f🌱or losing the Senate, along with the House.
He was faulted for allowing the Biden-Harris administration🦂 to implement the most hard-left agenda in the modern era.
Over the subsequent two years, a demonized Trump faced four separate criminal proceedings and a civil suit — some of them with the appar𝐆en𝐆t support of the Biden White House.
Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago residence in a historic first was raided by🅠 an FBI swat team.
They swarmed his home allegedly because Trump had improperly remove🐎d clas♒sified files.
Oddly, President Biden had🦩 far eﷺarlier done the same, but would be later exempted by a special prosecutor due to his cognitive decline.
After Trump seemed to hit rock bottom, he nonetheless announced his intention to run for presiden🐻t again.
His Democratic o💧pponents promise𝄹d to remove his name from as many as 16-state ballots.
Meanwhile, the E. Jean 👍Carroll civil suit a⛦nd the Letitia James conviction would soon strip Trump of some $300-400 million in fines, even as he faced three other prosecutors determined to convict, jail, and neuter him.
As the Republican primaries began, eight veteran 🦄office-holders and skilled politicians jumped in.
Most reassured voters that they could continue Trump’s MAGA agendas but without th💮e liabilities of the president who had forged them.
The two most successful, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, were season✤ed pros who𒐪 had been solid governors.
Both had either worked for Trump or sought his help for reeleꦫction.
At Trump’s nadir, DeSantis wa⛦s out-polling Trump in late 2ꦺ023 and early 2024.
So how in less than two years did Trump rebound to win the Republi𒊎can nomination?
How did Trump thrive, ev👍en as his successful rival incumbent Joe Bi𒆙den evaporated after their June debate and was soon removed by a veritable cabal of Democratic back roomers?
And now how did Trump find himselꦕf often dead even in polls with Biden’s replacement ꧅Vice President Kamala Harris?
First, “old Joe Biden fr🐓om Scranton” did not govern from the center as he had promised. Instead, he bitterly divided ♏the nation.
What followed was a disastrous administration: a destroyed southern border with 10 million illegal aliens pouri🥃ng across, rising crime, hyper-inflation, high interest rates, the humiliating collapse in and flight from Kabul, and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
The American people increasingly compared the Biden three-year disaster with Trump’s record as he left office: no wars, a secure border and legal only immigrat☂ion, low inflation, low interest rates, and꧒ low unemployment.
Next, the ☂left’s c💙alculated lawfare on Trump utterly backfired. Anti-Trump judges proved to be publicity hounds and unapologetically biased.
The obsessions to get Trump were in stark contrast ﷽to the exemptions given the Biden f﷽amily’s financial shenanigans and Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activities.
As a result, public empathy grew for the now “underdog” ꧙Trump, who was fingerprinted with a mug shot— only to be seen as an everyman victim of warped American justice.
Trump’s Republican primary rivals 🅘were soon 🥃placed in an impossible quandary.
Sympathize with Trump—the victim of partisan lawfare—and t🌳hey 💞would only increase public support for their opponent.
In the end, neither the talen💧ted DeSantis nor Haley could square that circle.
Both concluded that their political 𓄧viability hinged on rejoining a rebooted Trump ▨movement.
So how will the 𒁏most amazing comeback in modern political history end for Donald Trump in 2024?
He faces a biased media determined to shield Kamala Harris an💙d her running mate Tim Walz from defending their hard-left records, personal liabilities, and weird past pronouncements.
The abrupt removal of candidate Biden, and the coronation of Harris, who has never entered a single primary, along with the return of big-money leftwing donors 🎃all took the ascendent Trump camp🐼aign by surprise.
Trump has now somewhat readjusted. He remains in many polls near eꦏven in the popular vote and slightly ahead in Electoral Colle🔥ge forecasts.
So far Trump has survived an assassinat🌃ion attempt.
He has stymied partisan prosecutors, demolished Biden in a⭕ debate, and is raising more money than in his past 🌼two bids.
But𝔍 Trump still faces enormous hurdles in what is becoming an u🍌tterly bizarre 2024 race.
The strangest of all remains the un𝓡apologetic media fusion with the Harris-Walz ticket.
Their shared strategy is for Harris and Walz to run out thꦅe clock — by avoiding the media, non-teleprompted interviews, and unscripted press conferences.
Only that way c𒊎an both pose 🎀as moderates and disown their own progressive records.
Whether the histor💃ic comeback of Donald J. Trump ends in success with a second presidential term, or a near-miss defeat,ꦯ hinges on how well in a mere 80 days of this abbreviated campaign Trump can expose the true agendas of Harris and Walz.
That feat will require Trump to curb his ramblings and name-calling and focus solely on p🍌ene🍸trating the near iron-clad Democratic-media propaganda dome.
Trump has shown he hꦑas the energy, will power, and cunning to overcome th♑e near impossible. Now he faces his greatest challenge of all—that of focusing on Trump himself.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of the recently updated paperback edition of , from which this essay was adapted.