Writing Trump's 'Political Obituary Is A Fool's Errand,' Says His Former Campaign Manager

Donald Trump officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign in mid-November of last year. Now, one of his former aides is offering her take on his re-election bid in a New York Times Op-Ed published on Friday.

Trump Can’t Be Written Off: Shrugging off Trump’s 2024 candidacy or writing his "political obituary is a fool’s errand," said Kellyanne Conway, who was the former president’s campaign manager in 2016 and a senior counselor to him from 2017 to 2020. Although she acknowledged that he'll be facing some major challenges in getting back to the Oval Office.

Among the things that could be going for Trump are his accomplishments on the economy, energy, national security, trade deals and peace deals, the drug crisis and the southern border, Conway wrote. He could also highlight the unfairness and hypocrisy of social media censorship and big tech collusion, she added.

Trump, according to his former aide, can also be “persuasive with Republican primary voters and some independent voters” in attacking the Biden administration’s shortcomings.

The popular sentiment now is wanting “Trump policies without the Trump personality,” Conway noted. But it may not be possible to have one without the other, she said, adding that it was a combination of his personality and policies that were key to several of his achievements.

See also: No Regrets? Here's Why Donald Trump Would Do This All Over Again

The Pushbacks: Conway said a combination of fatigue with “self-inflicted sabotage,” fear that he cannot overcome his multiple legal woes, and the call to move on, could weigh against him. Along with the view that he is to be blamed for the Republican's underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms.

She also sees multiple challengers for Trump in the primaries.

Any repeat of Trump’s “disastrous mistakes” in personnel, strategy and tactics during the 2020 campaign could lead to the same results, Conway suggested.

“With roughly $1.6 billion to spend and Joe Biden as the opponent, the 2020 election should have been a blowout,” she said.

“Instead, they proved the adage that the fastest way to make a small fortune is to have a very large one and waste most of it.”

The Op-Ed cited an ABC News story, which suggested that Trump’s team raised $1.6 billion over two years in the run-up to the 2020 campaign, but spent $1.4 billion of that in 10 months.

Giving a breakdown of some of the spending - the report said about $490 million was spent on advertising and $56 million went toward campaign merchandise and donor gifts, including purchasing Trump Jr.’s two books.

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