President Donald Trump has shied away from talk of running for a third term after repeatedly bragging he would do so and even selling Trump 2028 merch.
In a segment on CNN Monday, data guru Harry Enten revealed the real reason why Trump has stopped such talk—Americans, even Republicans, don’t want a third Trump term.
“There’s a reason why Donald Trump is backtracking or saying, ‘No, I won’t actually do this,’” Enten said, “because this idea is about as popular as New Coke was back in the mid-1980s.”
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Recent polling data shows that a staggering 76 percent of Americans oppose Trump seeking a third term, including a majority of Republicans. Just 21 percent of Americans expressed support for a third Trump term, including just 16 percent of independents.
“When you get three-quarters of the American people agreeing on anything and it’s a ‘no,’ you know it’s ‘nein, nein, nein,’” Enten continued. “This is one of the most unpopular ideas I have seen in polling in a long period of time.”
Breaking down the numbers further, Enten revealed that despite 88 percent of Republicans holding a favorable view of the president, 53 percent of them say he should not run for a third term, compared with just 44 percent who believe he should.
“When a majority of Republicans are disagreeing with the idea of Trump doing something, you know that this is an unpopular idea,” Enten said.
Comparing the numbers to data from January 2021, Enten noted 66 percent of Republicans at the time thought Trump should run for a second term, compared with just 44 percent now.
“When you are getting this fight back from the Republican base to a degree that we, simply put, have never seen before, you get the idea of why Donald Trump came out yesterday with his most forceful comments to date, saying, ‘You know what, it’s two terms for me,’” he said.
During an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC Sunday, Trump was asked whether he plans to run for a third term.
“It’s not something I’m looking to do,” Trump said. “I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward.”
But back in March, Trump said he was “not joking” about running for a third term, and that there were “methods” his team was exploring to do so.
“I’m not joking. I’m not joking,” Trump said. “But ... it is far too early to think about it.”
“A lot of people want me to do it,“ he added. “But we have—my thinking is, we have a long way to go. I’m focused on the current.”
