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   From: void@void.void   
      
   Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman  5 hrs ago   
   Win or Lose, Trump Will Remain a Powerful and Disruptive Force   
      
   WASHINGTON — If President Trump loses his bid for re-election, as looked   
   increasingly likely on Wednesday, it would be the first defeat of an   
   incumbent president in 28 years. But one thing seemed certain: Win or   
   lose, he will not go quietly away.   
      
   Trailing former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump spent the   
   day trying to discredit the election based on invented fraud claims,   
   hoping either to hang onto power or explain away a loss. He could find a   
   narrow path to re-election among states still counting, but he has made   
   clear that he would not shrink from the scene should he lose.   
      
   At the very least, he has 76 days left in office to use his power as he   
   sees fit and to seek revenge on some of his perceived adversaries. Angry   
   at a defeat, he may fire or sideline a variety of senior officials who   
   failed to carry out his wishes as he saw it, including Christopher A.   
   Wray, the F.B.I. director, and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s   
   top infectious diseases specialist in the middle of a pandemic.   
      
   And if he is forced to vacate the White House on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is   
   likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will   
   remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life. He received at   
   least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and   
   commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the   
   support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal,   
   setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has   
   killed more than 233,000 Americans.   
      
   That gives him a power base to play a role that other defeated one-term   
   presidents like Jimmy Carter and George Bush have not played. Mr. Trump   
   has long toyed with starting his own television network to compete with   
   Fox News, and in private lately he has broached the idea of running   
   again in 2024, although he would be 78 by then. Even if his own days as   
   a candidate are over, his 88-million-strong Twitter following gives him   
   a bullhorn to be an influential voice on the right, potentially making   
   him a kingmaker among rising Republicans.   
      
   “If anything is clear from the election results, it is that the   
   president has a huge following, and he doesn’t intend to exit the stage   
   anytime soon,” said former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, one of the few   
   Republican officeholders to break with Mr. Trump over the past four   
   years.   
      
   That following may yet enable Mr. Trump to eke out a second term and   
   four years to try to rebuild the economy and reshape the Republican   
   Party in his image. But even from out of office, he could try to   
   pressure Republican senators who preserved their majority to resist Mr.   
   Biden at every turn, forcing them to choose between conciliation or   
   crossing his political base.   
      
   Until a new generation of Republicans steps forward, Mr. Trump could   
   position himself as the de facto leader of the party, wielding an   
   extraordinary database of information about his supporters that future   
   candidates would love to rent or otherwise access. Allies imagined other   
   Republicans making a pilgrimage to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida   
   seeking his blessing.   
      
   “It isn’t like his Twitter account or his ability to control a news   
   cycle will stop,” said Brad Parscale, the president’s first campaign   
   manager in this election cycle. “President Trump also has the largest   
   amount of data ever collected by a politician. This will impact races   
   and policies for years to come.”   
      
   Exit polls showed that regardless of prominent Republican defectors like   
   Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and the Never Trumpers of the Lincoln   
   Project, Mr. Trump enjoyed strong support within his own party, winning   
   93 percent of Republican voters. He also did somewhat better with Black   
   voters (12 percent) and Hispanic voters (32 percent) than he did four   
   years ago despite his often racist rhetoric. And after his high-energy   
   blitz across battleground states, late-deciding voters broke his way.   
      
   Some of Mr. Trump’s arguments carried considerable weight with members   
   of his party. Despite the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic   
   toll, 41 percent of voters said they were doing better than when he took   
   office, compared with only 20 percent who described themselves as worse   
   off. Adopting his priorities, 35 percent of voters named the economy as   
   the most important issue, twice as many who cited the pandemic. Fully 49   
   percent said the economy was good or excellent, and 48 percent approved   
   of his government’s handling of the virus.   
      
   “If he is defeated, the president will retain the undying loyalty of the   
   party’s voters and the new voters he brought into the party,” said Sam   
   Nunberg, who was a strategist on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. “President   
   Trump will remain a hero within the Republican electorate. The winner of   
   the 2024 Republican presidential primary will either be President Trump   
   or the candidate who most closely resembles him.”   
      
   Not all Republicans share that view. While Mr. Trump will no doubt   
   continue to speak out and assert himself on the public stage, they said   
   the party would be happy to try to move beyond him if he loses and he   
   would be remembered as an aberration.   
      
   “There will never be another Trump,” said former Representative Carlos   
   Curbelo of Florida. “Copycats will fail. He will gradually fade, but the   
   scars from this tumultuous period in American history will never   
   disappear.”   
      
   Indeed, Mr. Trump failed to reproduce his fluky 2016 success when he   
   secured an Electoral College victory even while losing the popular vote   
   to Hillary Clinton. For all of the tools of incumbency, he failed to   
   pick up a single state that he did not win last time, and as of   
   Wednesday, he had lost two or three, with a couple of others still on   
   the edge.   
      
   Other presidents evicted after a single term or less — like Gerald R.   
   Ford in 1976, Mr. Carter in 1980 and Mr. Bush in 1992 — tended to fade   
   back into the political shadows. Mr. Ford briefly contemplated a   
   comeback, Mr. Carter occasionally criticized his successors and Mr. Bush   
   campaigned for his sons, but none of them remained major political   
   forces within their party for long. Politically, at least, each of them   
   was seen to various degrees as a spent force.   
      
   The last defeated president to try to play a power-broker role after   
   leaving office was Herbert Hoover, who positioned himself to run again   
   after his loss in 1932 to Franklin D. Roosevelt and became an outspoken   
   leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. While he   
      
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