Donald Trump "simply can't and won't win another term" in the 2024 presidential election, according to retired Republican judge Jim Jones on Monday.
The former president is currently the overwhelming favorite to secure the GOP presidential nomination next year, as he seeks to regain the White House after losing to Joe Biden in 2020. Polls of likely Republican voters regularly see Trump securing nearly 50 percent support from respondents, with his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, usually polling close to 20 percent.
While many in the GOP have continued to throw their support behind Trump, others have questioned his viability as a candidate in 2024, given his previous loss to Biden and the poor electoral influence he has seemingly had over the party in general. On Monday, Jones, who served as attorney general for Idaho from 1983 to 1991 and as a justice on the state's Supreme Court from 2005 to 2017, expressed similar concerns in a column for The Hill, accusing his party of "following the playbook of those storied lemmings that rush to the edge of the cliff and throw themselves off in a suicidal frenzy."
"The fact is that Trump simply can't and won't win another term," Jones wrote. "He is wrong on the issues, he has no vision for a second term other than trying to establish an autocracy, and he will likely be convicted in one or more of the criminal cases that are currently in the works. The majority of American voters are still swayed by important issues, and Trump is wrong on most of them. Abortion extremism and gun safety will be major issues in 2024. Neither issue favors Trump and down-ballot Republicans."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office via email for comment.
In his column, Jones accused the other Republican presidential candidates, besides former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, of "sheer cowardice" over their seeming unwillingness to criticize Trump, lest they alienate his base. He also decried other GOP lawmakers for tiptoeing around Trump's criminal conduct, helping him to remain popular with voters.
Singling out other candidates like Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, Jones warned the party of continuing to embrace tighter abortion restrictions, given their evident unpopularity with voters. He also highlighted climate change denial within the party, saying that old GOP tactics "no longer work to assuage the electorate" and that the issue is not a real threat to humanity.
"I believe Republicans will lose the presidency by a wide margin, whoever the party's candidate might be, the Democrats will end up with a House majority of at least 20 members and the Senate majority could go either way by one or two members," Jones wrote.
