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The republican party doesn't have to have to be Trump, but only once in history has an elected president not been his parties presidential candidate after their first term; so Trump not being the republican candidate for 2020 would be pretty remarkable, having not happened since 1850s.

However, Trump has motivated the Democratic base, getting more independents or usually non-voting individuals out to vote to oppose him. He also has seemed to alienate a number of republican congressmen and generally been somewhat divisive within the republican party itself. However, his popularity numbers with republican voters is a little low, but not horrible so, suggesting the republican's voting base may be willing to re-elect him in primaries.

It's too early to say for certain what will happen, but I'm wondering what the general odds are that Trump may not be the republican candidate of 2020? What factors may play into deciding rather he is elected as the republican canidate?

Karlomanio
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dsollen
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    I've voted to close this question because of its interest in having us prognosticate. – Drunk Cynic Dec 03 '18 at 22:16
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    Impossible to answer without a working crystal ball. The Republicans might nominate him, or he might be impeached and facing criminal charges. – jamesqf Dec 04 '18 at 05:06
  • @jamessqf, Trump may be impeached but he will never face criminal charges for what he is being investigated for. I will challenge anyone to find the federal statute for colluding with Russia or for talking to subordinates, or knowing that a foreign website would publish something hours before it was published. While shady, not against any federal law – Frank Cedeno Dec 04 '18 at 13:20
  • This is still a bit too speculative. Maybe this question can be change into asking about prominent GOP statesmen or donors that would contest nominating Trump. That we can get objective answers for. – lazarusL Dec 04 '18 at 17:12
  • The premise of this question is quite odd since Trump actually had a significant block of democrat voters vote for him. Some early polling suggested as many as 20% of democrats early in 2016 said they would vote for Trump. In the end 9.2% of Obama voters voted for Trump rather than Clinton. His approval within the party is also very high usually around 90%. It's also a very speculative question. – Rig Dec 06 '18 at 21:43

2 Answers2

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The only factor that will play into who the candidate is, is whether he wins the 2020 Convention vote by whatever rules 2020 RNC Convention will set up - 2016 rules are here, but oversimplifying to the extreme, he needs to win a majority of delegate votes, some of which are binding to primary/caucus results and some are not.

His political popularity with various factions will determine whether (1) he will be able to get on the ballot in various states and win bound delegate votes and (2) if enough unbound delegates will choose to vote for him and (3) if there's enough opposition/support in Rules committed to change the rules in his favor or against him.

(I'm omitting outlier things which would make him practically or legally ineligible to be a candidate - e.g. if he's somehow stripped of US Citizenship).

Scottish teens (as FiveThirtyEight jokingly refers to betting prediction markets) show odds as follows:

  • oddschecker dot com currently have Trump's odds as 1/3 (60.8%). Closest next bet is Nikki Haley (Go Nikki! :) at 8.3%.

  • predisctwise has Trump at 67% (Pence at 8% and Haley at 6%)

  • PaddyPowers has Trump at 2/7 (78%) (Pence at 17/2 (10.5%) and Haley at 19/1 (5%)

  • FiveThirtyEight doesn't have a 2020 model yet (Booo Hiss at Nate Silver being lazy).

James K
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user4012
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  • I've added odds and implied probabilities for paddy powers. Note that the implied probabilities don't add up to 1 (because paddy powers takes their cut) I don't see how you have worked out your percentages: odds of 1/3 imply a probability of 0.75 (3 out of (1+3)) not 60.8% – James K Dec 03 '18 at 22:13
  • @JamesK - Thanks. I didn't work them out. "1/3" was literally the number listed on their web site in big font, before the %. I just quoted. – user4012 Dec 03 '18 at 22:15
  • I found trumps odds on odd checker as 1/3, but Haley's odds are listed there at 25/1 (oddschecker looks for the "best" odds in the sense of giving the best payout) I can't find the probabilities listed. Odds of 25/1 imply a probability of 1/26 or less than 4%. Odds checker may have a way of deducing the implied probablitity, removing the bookmaker's margin. But I can't find those numbers. – James K Dec 03 '18 at 22:26
  • @JamesK - scroll down all the way to the end for fuller % listing on oddschecker. At least on mobile Firefox. – user4012 Dec 03 '18 at 22:27
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He is the only candidate who has officially declared to be running for the presidency at time of writing. He declared in February of this year. No other candidate in history has ever declared this early. If loses the Republican Party nomination, he is going to run. More than likely, the only thing that could keep him off the ballot would be some illegal impropriety that would force him off. Also, if he is impeached, he will not be able to run.

Only time will tell.

Karlomanio
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  • If a president is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, he can be removed from office, and additionally be barred from "any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" – DJohnM Dec 04 '18 at 00:36
  • Good point. I will edit my comment – Karlomanio Dec 04 '18 at 00:49