Election 2020: Trump Will Lose If Obama Speaks Up, Author Suggests

A strong U.S. economy with record low unemployment and a booming stock market won't be enough to save president Donald Trump from defeat in November 2020, contends Rick Newman, a columnist for Yahoo Finance. And then there's the role former president Barack Obama will play in Trump's impending defeat.

In a recent podcast about "Ballots and Dollars," Newman argues it will be the economy -- and not impeachment -- that will decide the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. On its face, the economy under Trump looks strong. Trump's economy, however, peaked in 2018 with a GDP growth of 2.9 percent. This level of growth matched the highest level under former president Barack Obama.

U.S. growth was expected to slow down to 2.3 percent in 2019 and will further decelerate to 1.6 percent in 2020, according to global forecasting and quantitative analysis firm, Oxford Economics Ltd. Newman questions whether a growth of two percent will be enough to get Trump re-elected.

"I personally think he will lose," said Newman about Trump's reelection bid. And Trump will lose even if economy remains as good as it is.

Newman argues the U.S. economy isn’t strong enough to get Trump reelected. He acknowledges there probably won’t be a recession by Election Day but there will still be plenty of discontent.

He points out income inequality has worsened under Trump. The rich have benefited much more from a booming stock market than working- and middle-class Americans. He also says evidence continues to mount Trump’s key economic achievement, the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs law, benefited businesses and the wealthy more than ordinary American workers.

Newman said Trump and other backers of the law claim a boom in business spending will follow the tax cuts. This claim has proven to be false. Moody’s Analytics recently said just 20 percent of the corporate tax savings went to investment. The other 80 percent went to stock buybacks and dividend hikes that mainly benefit the shareholder class.

Newman believes Democrats will win but he has a caveat. The Democratic Party's presidential nominee will win 2020 "as long as somebody crazy doesn't win."

Newman said Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the top three contenders and the top campaign money raiser, "is marginally crazy" and it's for this reason Trump will beat him. Joe Biden remains the biggest threat to Trump "barring unforeseen oddities like heart attack before election."

Newman believes a couple of things are going to happen to ensure the victory of the Democrat nominee. The first will be an "absolutely huge" Democrat voter turnout in November. The second will be the reappearance of Barack Obama.

"I think Barack Obama is going aggressively campaign on behalf of whoever the democratic nominee is," said Newman.

"He has been silent so far, which is appropriate ... I think Obama for sure is going to aggressively campaign for the Democratic nominees." He said Obama's campaigning will help a ton with minority voters.

It's all but certain Obama will fully back his party's candidate and campaign on his or her behalf. That will help boost minority turnout, which was weak in 2016 and contributed to Hillary Clinton’s loss.

Political analysts expect Trumpers to stick with Trump but this small base only consists of about 25 percent of the electorate and hasn't expanded due to Trump's divisive personality and rhetoric. If any of those things turn Democrats’ way, Trump will be a one-term president, argues Newman.