Some Republicans say Trump should run again, and some Democrats say the same about Obama
by Noah DeYoung (class of 2025)
“I’m not joking. There are methods in which you could do it.” — Donald Trump in an interview with NBC News
At the time I’m writing this post, we’re around 100 days into Trump’s second term, and already he’s been toying with the idea of pursuing an unconstitutional third term. Over the last few months, Trump has remarked that people have “asked [him] to have a third term,” and in a recent interview with Time, commented that “there are some loopholes that have been discussed” when asked about his desire to run again. The Trump team has only added further fuel to this fire, recently putting up “Trump 2028” hats for sale on their website, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavit claiming they’re “flying off shelves.”
Whether Trump is serious about this third term has been debated by countless pundits. While one side argues Trump is “trolling” to get a rise out of Democrats, another urges Americans to take these threats seriously. However, what we don’t really have a sense of is how his own base views the prospect of a third Trump term, as well as the extent to which they see the Constitution as an impediment to that possibility. Indeed, if Trump were to ignore the Constitution and try for a third term, those efforts would matter a lot less if he doesn’t have the votes.
In a recent national survey from the Tufts Public Opinion Lab, I asked Americans whether they would support Trump running for a third term, despite the fact that the 22nd Amendment bars him from doing so. Participants chose from a list of responses, which included “Supportive, even if it’s unconstitutional,” “Supportive, but only if the 22nd Amendment is repealed,” “Not sure,” “Unsupportive, because it is unconstitutional,” and “Unsupportive, even if the 22nd Amendment is repealed.” With this question, we can get a sense of not only how much support a third Trump term has among Americans, but also how the Constitution factors into that level of support as well.
As seen above, the prospect of a Trump third term seems to be mostly unpopular among Americans, with a plurality of respondents indicating that they would not be supportive of Trump running again, even if the Constitution was amended to allow him to do so. Still, Trump clearly does possess some level of national support for this third term, with a decent number of respondents saying they would back Trump in his hypothetical pursuit, regardless of what the Constitution has to say about the matter. Also noteworthy here is the fact that over 20% of Americans stated they were “Not Sure” about whether they would support a third Trump term, which is a level of professed uncertainty that is not extremely reassuring given the nature of the question.
Unsurprisingly, these numbers look noticeably different when we limit responses to just those of Republicans. The most shocking figure here, though, is that just under 20% of Republicans said that they would be supportive of Trump running for a third term, even though it’s unconstitutional. Also significant is that another 23% of Republicans said they would support a Trump third term as long as the two term limit was abolished, meaning approximately 43% of Republicans supposedly back Trump’s third term aspirations. This stands in stark contrast to the small share of Republicans who said they would not support a Trump third term, even if the 22nd Amendment was repealed.
This level of support only gets more intense, however, when we separate between self-identified strong and weak Republicans. As seen in the graph below, over 30% of strong Republicans (a plurality!) said that they would support Trump running for a third term even if it was unconstitutional, and around 25% said they would support a Trump third term if the 22nd Amendment was repealed. In contrast, 28% of weak Republicans said that they wouldn’t support a third Trump term because it’s unconstitutional. Thus, the more somebody identifies with the GOP, the more likely they are to back the possibility of Trump pursuing a third term.
However, before Democrats get too high-and-mighty about their greater reverence for the Constitution, they should know I asked this same question about whether or not they would support the prospect of Obama running for a third term as well. Unlike Trump, Obama has expressed zero interest in the idea of usurping the 22nd Amendment to pursue a third term. But by also asking Democrats this question with Obama instead of Trump, we can see the degree to which they would also be willing to disregard the Constitution if it meant a popular member from their own party could serve a third term. And as the graph below shows, it doesn’t seem like Democrats are actually any more dedicated to the Constitution than their Republican counterparts.
Overall, 21% of Democrat respondents said they would support an Obama third term even if it was unconstitutional, a number similar to that found for Republicans supporting a Trump third term. In fairness, though, Democrats do show higher levels of constitutional reservations, as 25% of Democrats (compared to 20% of Republicans) stated they would not support Obama pursuing a third term because it was unconstitutional. Even with this difference, however, it appears that Democrats are seemingly just as happy to dismiss the Constitution if it means securing a third term for their party’s favorite son.
Yet, when looking at these findings, the most important factor to keep in mind here is that, while Trump may be trolling Democrats with his constant talk about a third term, Democrats may be trolling him right back with their responses here. This possibility is an example of a concept public opinion researchers refer to as “expressive responding,” in which respondents, when answering one question, are actually giving a response to an entirely separate one, oftentimes with the goal of “cheerleading” for their preferred side. In other words, when Republicans indicate they would support a third Trump term even if it was unconstitutional, it is likely some are not doing so out of a genuine desire for Trump to breach the 22nd Amendment, but instead are answering the question in such a way as to demonstrate their support for Trump more broadly. This phenomenon is common in partisanly charged survey designs like this one, a point demonstrated by a 2018 study conducted by fellow lab member Brian Schaffner in which, when shown pictures of Obama’s 2008 and Trump’s 2016 inaugurations, 15% of Trump voters (compared to 2% of Clinton voters and 3% of non-voters) stated that the picture of Trump’s visibly smaller crowd had more people than that of Obama’s. Notably, this figure is very similar to that of the number of Republicans found here who stated they would support a Trump third term regardless of what the Constitution says, a fact that emphasizes that a good portion of these results is likely reflective of expressive responding.
Such a possibility applies especially to Democrats, who were primed with the Trump version of this question before they were asked about a third Obama term. This aspect of the survey design likely means that many who stated they would support a third Obama term did so out of a desire to “stick it” to Trump rather than out of support for Obama. Additionally, given the fact that Obama is not threatening to run for a third term, Democrats also potentially believed their answers did not carry much weight, and thereby felt less pressured to answer according to their true beliefs. This discrepancy in the presumed likelihood of each candidate gunning for a third term might also explain the gap in “Not Sure” responses between the two parties. Because of the seemingly greater possibility that Trump could pursue a third term, this question may simply feel “more real” for Republicans than it does for Democrats, a reality that might make it harder for GOP respondents to commit to a choice in either direction.
But even when we take into account this fact that likely not all of these respondents truly believe their own party should bypass the Constitution, these results are still cause for concern. In a time of heightened fears of American democratic backsliding, the fact that so many partisans were willing to disregard the Constitution in their efforts to express support for their party could be read as proof of declining democratic attitudes among the American public. For many Americans in this age of hyper-polarization, maintaining the ideals expressed by the Constitution matters a lot less if one’s own party benefits.
So, while it’s currently unclear whether Trump is serious about pursuing a third term, we do know he would have at least some support among Republicans if he tries. But hey, we can at least rest assured knowing Obama’s similarly supported return to the campaign trail would provide us with some must-watch debates come 2028.
