NewsmakersJanuary 23, 2020

Good Economy Means a Trump Win, Says PE Potentate Rubenstein

Incumbent presidents only lose due to recessions, Carlyle founder argues.

Reported by Larry Light

Wall Street, the inside dope says, wants Donald Trump to win reelection because of the huge stock market run-up and the nation’s strong economic advance during his tenure. One leading light of the financial community goes a step further, saying Trump is the likely victor on Election Day.

Private equity titan David Rubenstein, who served in the White House of Democrat Jimmy Carter, doesn’t let on whom he wants to win the 2020 presidential election. He simply thinks Trump’s economic record and his unassailable base will carry him to a second term.

“The economy is pretty good, so therefore I think he has got a pretty good chance of getting reelected,” Rubenstein said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “We’re not in a big war anywhere, that’s another factor that we can take into account, and generally the economy is as strong as we’ve seen it in a long time.”

Rubenstein, the founder and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group, gave his thoughts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the US president delivered a speech touting his own economic track record.

“I do think he can get reelected.” Rubenstein said, noting that most presidents do. When they don’t, “it’s usually when they’re in a recession—Gerald Ford, George Herbert Walker Bush, Jimmy Carter. The last president who got reelected in a recession was William McKinley.”

Trump, of course, has unusually high negative ratings and has been impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. He is undergoing trial in the GOP-run Senate, where the widespread assumption is that he will be acquitted. Given the economy’s strength, the Democrats hope that his behavior turns off enough voters to matter come November.

Rubenstein emphasized that Trump’s devoted base of voters hasn’t wavered, which should overcome his legions of detractors. “So, yes, I recognize all the controversies, and I recognize the people that can’t stand him,” he said. “But in the end, it’s going to be down to about six or seven states, and in those states, he’s doing reasonably well.”