Yes, a Democrat could still beat Donald Trump. It’ll take money, energy and smarts | Opinion

It’s not too late for a Democrat to win.

The Democrats’ biggest problem isn’t the calendar. It’s the Democrats.

No Democrat is as big of a TV star as Donald Trump. Or as big of a showman. Or as much of a back-alley brawler. Irishman Joe Biden, the Democrats’ best infighter, threw in the towel Sunday.

The Democratic candidate has lost the popular vote only once since 1988. But now, the party is faced with pulling a campaign out of the ditch two months before early voting starts in some states.

More likely, Biden has dragged another Democrat into the ditch.

In both the most frightening and thrilling week of his political career, Trump survived an assassin’s bullet and rode a well-orchestrated party convention to a probable 8-to-10-point lead in polls.

Yes, a Democrat will gain back 5 points after that convention Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.

That leaves 5 points to make up in the popular vote. But Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat really needs to win by 2 or 3 points to safely win in the Electoral College.

This goes without saying after a year of surprises, but: Anything’s possible.

“People are seriously overestimating the inevitability of a Trump victory at this point,” SMU political science professor Matthew Wilson, an expert on conservatives and religion in politics, wrote by email.

Trump still has never proved he can draw more than 50% of the vote.

On the other hand, he won the 2016 election with 46%.

Harris or another Democratic candidate will have to lean hard into the abortion issue and hope for better news from the economy and the border, Wilson wrote. That candidate will need to hold Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

“This is not a great hand to play,” Wilson wrote, “but it’s the only one they have.”

He gave a Democratic candidate a 1-in-3 chance to win: “How many people wouldn’t take those odds?”

A new candidate would have to start a campaign almost from scratch.

Harris can use Biden’s $91 million in direct campaign donations, or he can transfer it to another candidate, either directly or indirectly. But that would be his decision.

His stand-in will need to (1) raise money, (2) invent a new message and (3) thrill Democrats.

“The brand is tainted, and most Democrats have proven as unpopular as President Biden,” University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus emailed.

“Whichever Democrat is chosen, they need to reset the clock with young voters and voters of color and freshen the issue agenda for suburban women,” he wrote.

In other words, win back bored Democrats.

And all that must be done with just weeks left in a ticking time bomb of a campaign.

At UT-Austin, government professor Eric McDaniel made turnout the No. 1 goal.

“People are pretty much set on who they are going to vote for,” he emailed. “The problem is getting them energized to go to the polls.”

TCU professor James Riddlesperger, analyzing his 10th presidential election as a political scientist, said Democrats might win a few of the “double haters” who wouldn’t have voted for Biden or Trump.

But mainly, a new Democratic candidate will turn the focus away from Biden’s age — and his son Hunter’s foibles — and back to Trump.

“The ‘Biden crime family’ “ issue would be laid to rest,” he wrote. But Trump’s indictments and convictions don’t go away.

Democrats have one other argument to draw voters: the Supreme Court.

“There is no question that the election is an uphill fight for the Democrats right now,” Riddlesperger wrote.

A new face brings new energy. But “energy could break either way.”

Yes, I know. That’s all just expert opinions.

But I talked with these same professors almost a year ago, when Trump had just been indicted in Georgia and was not even assured of being the Republican nominee.

The headline then: “Yes, Trump can win again, even with another indictment. It’s even easier than 2016.”

They were right.

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