The powerful evidence for a possible criminal case that the bipartisan January 6, 2021, congressional committee presented against former President Donald Trump on Monday underscores the biggest uncertainty looming over the approaching 2024 presidential campaign. Many factors that will shape the 2024 contest, of course, remain impossible to know almost two years before the voting. But it is possible with greater confidence to identify the questions whose eventual answers will exert the most impact on the result. …
Whether the GOP nominates Trump again in its 2024 presidential primaries – a dynamic that in turn will be powerfully influenced by whether he faces a criminal indictment and how GOP voters react if he does – looms, in my view, as the most important “known unknown” for 2024.
That’s not the only important “known unknown” likely to influence 2024, though. Presidential races have become such vast and encompassing competitions that a list of such “known unknowns” could stretch indefinitely. What I’ve done below is try to identify five that, at this point, appear that they could be the most significant. I’ve ranked them in rough order of my estimation of their likely impact on the eventual outcome. And they begin with the fateful decision about Trump hurtling toward the GOP. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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