When Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, it seemed to be the death knell of his political career.
His first term in office ended in chaos and condemnation – even from members of his own party.
If he wins the election on Tuesday, it will be only the second time anyone has ever returned to the White House after previously losing a presidential re-election bid.
“He gets knocked down and gets up twice as focused,” said Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser for the former president since Trump launched his 2016 campaign. “I don’t think anybody should be surprised about this comeback.”
Such an extraordinary reversal of fortune for the former president would also vault him back into the White House as a man who seems politically bulletproof, with a detailed plan of action and ranks of loyalists behind him.
Four years ago, Trump appeared a beaten man. His Democratic opponent, Biden, had defeated him by a comfortable electoral margin in the 2020 presidential contest.
Courts had batted away his attempts to contest those results. His last-ditch rally in which he urged his supporters to march on the US Capitol as lawmakers were certifying the results culminated in the crowd launching a violent attack that sent those inside scrambling for safety. Hundreds of law enforcement officers were injured.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao were among a spate of Trump administration officials who quit in protest. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos wrote in her letter of resignation to the president.
Even South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies, broke with the president.
“All I can say is count me out,” he said on the floor of the Senate. “Enough is enough.”
The movement away from Trump extended into the corporate world, as dozens of large companies – including American Express, Microsoft, Nike and Walgreens – announced they were suspending support for Republicans who had challenged the results of the 2020 election.
On the day of Biden’s inauguration, Trump broke with 152 years of tradition by declining to attend the ceremony, instead flying back to his private club in Mar-a-Lago earlier that morning, accompanied by a handful of his closest aides and family.
His mood was sullen, according to Meridith McGraw, author of Trump in Exile, an account of the former president’s time after leaving the White House.
“He was angry, frustrated, unsure of how to spend his days and without a plan for his political future,” she said.
The media coverage and political chatter that month reflected this uncertainty over his future. After a clear electoral defeat followed by the chaotic scenes at the Capitol, some were even more definitive, suggesting there was no way back for Trump.
“And just like that, the bold, combustible and sometimes brilliant political career of Donald J. Trump comes to an end,” one opinion piece in The Hill read.
The subheading of a January 2021 opinion piece in The New York Times declared: “The terrible experiment is over.” The headline was even more direct: “President Donald J. Trump: The End.”
But before Trump left for Florida on inauguration day, he hinted at what was to come.
“We love you,” he said in remarks to supporters on a Maryland Air Force base tarmac. “We will be back in some form.”
A week later, it became clear that Trump wouldn’t have to wait long to assert his continued political influence. The party came back to him.
California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, paid the former president a visit at Mar-a-Lago, posing for a photo next to a beaming Trump.
In the immediate aftermath of the 6 January attack, McCarthy had said that Trump “bears responsibility” for the mob violence and recommended that Congress formally censure him for his conduct. Now he was pledging to work with the former president to win a congressional majority in the next year’s mid-term elections.
Even as the Democrat-controlled US Senate was preparing to hold Trump’s impeachment trial, McCarthy’s Palm Beach pilgrimage illustrated that one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress still viewed the former president as a king-maker.
“McCarthy’s visit really opened the door for Trump,” said McGraw.
“It was a permission slip to Republicans who had criticised Trump to forgive him and move on.”
Trump’s Senate trial would end in acquittal, as most Republicans – including some outspoken critics like minority leader Mitch McConnell – voted against a conviction that could have led to the former president being banned from future elective office.
McConnell had said that Trump’s conduct on 6 January was “a disgraceful dereliction of duty”, but he chose not to take the one step that could have conclusively ended the former president’s political career – perhaps out of fear of effectively ending his own.
Republicans also worried that the former president might start a third party that would siphon off support from Republicans – concerns that Trump’s closest aides did little to dispel.
“It’s clearly up to Republicans if this is something that becomes more serious,” Jason Miller, a long-time Trump communications aide, said in an interview with Fox News.
The former president spent the next month mostly within the comfortable confines of his Mar-a-Lago club, venturing out only for a round of golf or a private dinner.
By the end of February, as the furore around 6 January ebbed, he was ready to hold his first public event.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference – the right-wing confab typically held near Washington, DC but relocated to Orlando, Florida, due to Covid restrictions – the former president demonstrated that he still commanded the loyalty of the Republican base.
Addressing thousands of cheering supporters in a sprawling hotel conference centre, Trump basked in the glow of their adoration.
“I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we began together,” he said, “is far from over.”
He also hinted, coyly, that he might beat the Democrats “for a third time” in 2024.
An official straw poll of conference attendees only underlined what by then was obvious. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said Trump should run again. Fifty-five percent said they would vote for him in a contested primary – more then double the second-place candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
“Trump and his team were pretty nervous about that speech,” McGraw said. “Psychologically it was a really important moment for Trump and his allies when he got such a positive reception.”
After a brief hiatus, Trump reactivated his steady stream of fundraising emails to supporters and resumed holding his carnival-like outdoor rallies.
“Do you miss me?” Trump asked at a June gathering in Ohio. The crowd responded with cheers.
“They miss me,” he concluded.
Midterm highs – and lows
If 2021 hinted at Trump’s continuing influence within the Republican Party, the 2022 midterm elections confirmed it.
By then, American military forces had haphazardly withdrawn from Afghanistan, leading to the fall of that nation’s US-backed government. Gas prices and inflation were approaching highs not seen in decades. US economic growth, which had been bouncing back from pandemic disruptions, sputtered.
Biden’s approval ratings tumbled into negative territory. The political environment that had seemed so hostile to Trump at the beginning of 2021 was starting to shift.
“Joe Biden failed to address the primary concerns of the voters,” said Lanza. “That gave Donald Trump an opening.”
Mar-a-Lago became an obligatory stopping point for any conservative candidate seeking to become their party’s nominee. The former president’s endorsement was the most coveted prize – a key to unlocking fundraising dollars and grassroots conservative support.
Four of the six Republican House members who voted for Trump’s second impeachment and were running for re-election were defeated by Trump-backed candidates in party primaries. Meanwhile, Senate candidates like JD Vance in Ohio and Herschel Walker in Georgia pulled ahead in crowded primary fields with the help of Trump’s support.
”His endorsement all but guarantees you a primary win,” said Brian Seitchik, who worked as Arizona state director for Trump’s campaign in 2016 and as the western regional director in 2020.
But if the first half of 2022 was unambiguous good news for the former president, November’s elections painted a much different picture.
Of four prominent Trump-endorsed Senate candidates, only one – author turned politician Vance – defeated his Democratic opponent. While Republicans narrowly regained control of the House of Representatives, elevating Kevin McCarthy to the speakership, the party largely underperformed and Democrats retained control of the Senate.
In Florida, Governor DeSantis, the distant second-place finisher in that 2021 presidential straw poll, won a surprising double-digit re-election victory, fuelling speculation that he might be the real frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Meanwhile, Trump fumed – blaming the Republican shortcomings on the party’s support of unpopular abortion restrictions and insufficient fealty to his own brand of conservative populism. Only a few weeks after the midterms, when pundits were still wondering if the former president’s political moment had passed, Trump formally launched his 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump’s path to the nomination
The start of his presidential bid seemed shockingly ill-timed. Just a few weeks after the Republican midterm misfire, it put the former president in the headlines when many were still wondering if he had lost his political instincts.
His formal announcement, held within the cozy confines of Mar-a-Lago, made his campaign feel insular and ill-suited to the current political realities.
