Joe Walsh’s 2020 primary challenge really can finish Donald Trump off

| 6:04 pm EDT August 22, 2019
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Earlier today, former Congressman Joe Walsh announced that he’s seriously considering mounting a primary challenge to Donald Trump in the 2020 race. Walsh will face some tough questions about whether he can actually find a way to defeat Trump in the Republican primary. But when it comes to the question of whether Walsh can use his candidacy to finish Trump off, the answer is much more clear.

If you’re not familiar with Joe Walsh, he was elected to Congress as a Tea Party Republican, then later lost his seat. He still holds far-right views on the issues, but for quite awhile now, he’s been consistently critical of Donald Trump for pretty much all the same reasons the rest of us have been critical of Trump.

Based on his positions on the issues alone, the idea of a Joe Walsh presidency isn’t going to be remotely appealing to most Democrats and liberals. But the idea of a Joe Walsh candidacy in 2020 should excite everyone who’s hoping Donald Trump takes a fall. Here’s a guy who has built-in credibility with far right voters, who’s about to go out there and force those voters to reckon with the fact that Trump is an inept maniacal criminal.

When it comes to the modern history of high profile primary challenges to sitting presidents, let’s just say that it’s ugly. Ronald Reagan primaried Gerald Ford in 1976, and although Ford still won the nomination, he then lost the general election. Ted Kennedy primaried Jimmy Carter in 1980, and we know how that went. Pat Buchanan primaried George H.W. Bush in 1992, and we know how that one went as well.

Joe Walsh joins Bill Weld and Mark Sanford in eyeing Republican primary challenges to Donald Trump in 2020. All it’ll take is for one of the three of them to gain a bit of a foothold in the media, and it’ll be off to the races. The question isn’t whether Walsh or one of the others can actually win the primary race; that’s always a long shot prospect. The question is how much they can rough Trump up in the process.

Donald Trump could end up limping into the 2020 general election with his prospects already all but doomed. Keep in mind that with California trying to effectively ban Trump from the 2020 ballot due to his refusal to release his tax returns, and California now being a Super Tuesday state, we could be looking at someone like Walsh winning the California Republican primary right out of the gate – and leaving Trump completely reeling.