ONE YEAR OUT: What's the State of the Race?
The Election is Less than a Year Away. Where Do Things Stand?
Here we are. A year from now, the first Tuesday in November 2024, Americans will once again pick the President or the next four year term. It is even quite possible that a year from the time you read this, we could already know who that may be. A year ago, Republicans were licking their wounds after losing a Senate seat, numerous state legislatures, and barely eking out a majority in the House when by all accounts normally should have been a great year for them. Times can and do change however.
This last weekend, Democrats got their undies in a huge bundle reading the latest series of New York Times’s swing state polls that found Trump besting Biden in five of six of them, pretty handily too I might add. If the results hold like this for next year (they won’t, but…) Trump will almost surely win the Electoral College and retake the White House. As mentioned, Democrats heads’ collectively exploded.
Clearly, Biden’s popularity is lacking. But how does that compare to how other Presidents were in approval this far out? Well, the three Presidents that his overall approval trends most resemble are Reagan’s, Obama’s and paradoxically, Trump’s. In Obama and Reagan’s cases, their approvals were about 3+ points better than Biden’s numbers currently are. The difference is the direction the country went in each’s fourth years. In the case of Reagan, the economy took off, the L.A. Olympics boosted good nationalistic feelings and the Gipper cruised to a second term. In Obama’s case, the economy started to pull out of the housing bubble malaise (notice a trend here?) and people still felt OK with Barack. In Trump’s case, in January 2020, the first case of COVID was diagnosed, by March things were shutting down and by May the government was mailing checks to keep people afloat. The economy hit a downward spiral as everything shut down and Trump lost.
In that sense, there is a lot for Biden to feel positive about. The general economy is going off like gangbusters right now even though for some reason people don’t believe it. Polling continually shows people feel the economy is a shambles but all indicators point in the other direction. The economic engine is primed up for a great 2024 and ready to go. Also working in Biden’s favor is that there are a LOT of intervening events between now and next November, which will ultimately determine who wins. Many of these work in his favor, such as the 2024 Olympics (who doesn’t get a little patriotic watching the medal ceremonies and hearing the Star Spangled Banner?) or have to do with his likely opponent, in that there are 91 indictments in four separate jurisdictions which Trump will have to sit through and endure in court. Nobody knows yet how that will impact voters’ minds. Lastly, Biden has accomplished a ton that voters love, but don’t seem to know about. Here’s Democratic consultant Dan Pfeiffer:
So why is Biden’s numbers in the toilet? Well, it has a lot to do with his far left flank, and the young progressives not exactly thrilled with the old guy. Idealist to a fault, this young cabal of social justice warriors actually OPPOSE Biden; on his age, on the fact he hasn’t catered to the left enough, and most recently on Israel/HAMAS, where a number of them side with the terrorists.
It seems the more time one has spent before 9/11 on Earth, the more people understand how long Israel and the Middle East have been fighting terrorism like this, and how HAMAS are not freedom fighters but ISIS wannabes. Biden is on the right side of the issue, but the young voters he is going to need to win are not.
It’s not like those voters are going to vote for Trump though. Trump’s position is ostensibly Biden’s, but with more bragadaccio. Its entirely possible these voters just stay home, which could be diastrous for Democrats up and down the ticket altogether. Until Biden can find a way to thread the needle and excite these young progressives to pull the lever for him in 2024, his numbers are still going to look pekid and there are going to be questions about the election.
So as we consider that we are over a year out, keep in mind that a lot can happen in a year. A year out in November 2019, Biden was in fifth place going into Iowa and New Hampshire. A year out in 2015, people were laughing at the idea of a President Trump. A year out in 2011, Republicans empowered by the Tea Party thought they had the White House already locked up. A year out in 2007, McCain’s campaign was flailing in Iowa and NH until he got old veteran buddies involved. There’s still a lot of baseball to be played, a lot of yards left on the field, a lot of track left to race.
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Dan Pfeiffer’s take on these NYT numbers is worth reading. Here is his substack where he discusses this in detail.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Over the next year, we are going to be inundated with people who have some formula that accurately predicts months out who becomes President. They’re all bunk or just coincidental, although some no doubt factor into who eventually wins. My favorite is best described here:
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
T Minus 364 days and counting…
One thing I found very interesting is if you look at the poll for who people would support if Trump were convicted of a felony, the numbers swing back strongly in Biden's favor. The odds of that has to be pretty high.