Despite his flaws, Trump could really win the 2024 US presidential election

His criminal record and questions like what's behind the dancing do not matter to large numbers of American voters.

- Lin Suling

The same question has dogged the most recent three US elections, including the current race: How is Donald Trump still in the running?

In 2016, the Republican presidential nominee had talked about grabbing p****** and had claimed he would not lose any voters even if he shot somebody in downtown New York City.

In 2020, then President Trump had suggested injecting bleach as a treatment for the "China virus", and after losing, had all but led an insurrection on Capitol Hill that subsequent January.

And now, guilty of 34 counts of felony in his hush money trial, Trump's legal troubles are not over—he faces charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.

Yet here he stands, one of the final two in an extremely tight race for the White House. Two failed assassination attempts have simply helped burnish his image as a fighter up against foes from China and an inchoate cabal of internal "enemies".

His popular support is so strong that despite all the miracles performed by sitting US President Joe Biden—in getting America through a generation-defining pandemic and transforming the US economy while dealing with two hot wars—Mr. Biden just could not measure up and hence stepped aside for Vice-President Kamala Harris in July.

TRUMP HAS THE EDGE RIGHT NOW

Ms. Harris initially provided a much-needed jolt to the Democrats' campaign. But as the race tightens, signs point to the growing likelihood of a Trump win.

Political polling site FiveThirtyEight projected a 53 in 100 chance of a Trump win on Oct 25, as did the Economist on Oct 24. RealClearPolitics' betting average gives Trump a 60.6 percent chance of winning. The surge in Republicans' share of early voting could be a harbinger of a record turnout by Trump supporters.