I don’t see how he isn’t getting voted out this year. Everything is piling up and he’s really good at self sabotage. That use to not seem to matter but I think now that he’s been office for a term, people are beginning to expect a certain standard again.
I think his image is more favorable than you might expect, given the alternative. Image is everything this time. Campaigns don't mean much in 2020 like they did in 2000 or 2016. Consider the prospect theory; we might say that a 3rd party candidate has (guessing) a 5% chance to win the election in 2020. Even though our returns would be greater in victory, we don't really feel like our vote is affecting the competition. The odds are too low. We will still vote for one of the two main parties because we are sure that our votes are actually doing something, even when returns in victory are less.
I bring this up because right now, Trump has a lot of ammunition; he will get more independents, as will Democrats, as defined by the prospect theory. If we take inventory of the last 4 years, he can point to Russiagate, he can point to Michael Flynn, he can point to the riots and he can go all the way back to that Congresswoman telling a crowd to run Trump supporters out of town if they see them in a restaurant. He can point to the utter hypocrisy and flip-flopping that comes from the likes of his harshest critics like Mayor Whitmer in Michigan, or even his opponent, Joe Biden. He can point to calls for 2nd amendment restrictions beyond what his own admin has enacted. He can point to the Democratic Speaker and say that she is a completely out of touch partisan, and he's not wrong. He can say that he's going to protect digital privacy from our government and have a huge mandate that entails him railing against Democrats (which he has failed to do...).
As you said, he presents a low standard of statesmanship. He is a weak president in that he has terrible instincts and even I could articulate ideas more clearly. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that he maintains his image to be congruent with that that is presented on his supporters' sources of news and information. We turn to pro-attitudinal sources now more than ever in the Fragmented Media era with an abundance of choice. If he deviates from his imagery on Fox News, LWC, etc., he will likely fail to get their support. This is where news media becomes powerful. What I do find impressive is his ability to prime his image and frame negative coverage in a way that becomes a selling-point. In this sense, his prospects are better than you might be acknowledging.
