by It is divisible by four. It’s a leap year. It’s a Summer Olympics year.
It is a presidential election year.
Happy new year?
Whether the 2024 presidential election cycle fills you with fear or excitement, there is no doubt that the table is set for an extraordinary year.
The potential for political upheaval has rarely seemed more obvious. Voters are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country and their options for the presidency. President Biden’s approval rating is lower at this stage than that of any president in the modern polling era, which dates back to the 1940s. His likely opponent faces several criminal trials. Waiting in the wings is an independent candidate with the last name Kennedy. The Democratic convention is even in Chicago.
These are just some of the big issues that will shape the 2024 elections.
Can Nikki Haley win a state?
Of all the items on this list, this is probably the least significant. But it’s first on the calendar, just weeks away from the first primary election, and a Haley victory in New Hampshire or South Carolina is neither impossible nor irrelevant.
Before the holidays, polls showed Haley nearing or surpassing 30 percent in New Hampshire, making her closer to an upset than it might seem, given the volatile nature of the early primary.
His path to victory in New Hampshire is still quite narrow. His recent stumble in answering a question about the cause of the Civil War may slow his momentum. And even if she defeats Donald J. Trump in the state, it is difficult to see her posing a serious threat to winning the nomination, given the relatively narrow and factional nature of her appeal.
But if he regained his footing and pulled off an upset in New Hampshire or South Carolina, it would still have symbolic meaning. It would be a reminder that the non-Trump wing of the Republican Party, though diminished and weakened, still exists. It would be a visible crack in Republican support for Trump and would come just weeks before his trial scheduled for March.
There is a possible chain of events in which the combination of a test and a victory for Haley ends up mattering more than we could imagine today.
The trial of Donald J. Trump
Trump’s criminal trial may not be considered “the biggest political spectacle of our lives” or anything equally grand, but it’s hard to think of anything like it that has ever been scheduled on the political calendar.
The trial promises to be the center of political gravity for the first half of the year, with the federal election subversion trial scheduled to begin March 4 (the day before Super Tuesday in the GOP primaries) and then possibly last until heart of Congress. primary season, although delays are possible.
It is hard to believe that a trial, in and of itself, would cause serious political damage to Trump. After all, he endured the accusations unscathed. And he would probably amass enough delegates to win the Republican nomination even before the jury returned a verdict. The preponderance of the Republican delegates will be awarded within one month of the start of the trial if it begins as planned.
But there is one way a trial could matter: It could lead Republican primary voters and elites to realize that Trump is likely to be convicted. And whether it comes or not, a conviction is not the same as a trial or an accusation. It could have many more consequences.
Recent polls, including the New York Times and Siena College battleground polls in October, show Biden will gain an advantage if Trump is convicted, let alone jailed. These polls should be taken with a grain of salt: They pose hypotheses to voters, most of whom are not paying attention to Trump’s legal problems. But they are a reminder that there are risks to his candidacy. In a close race, it could be decisive even if only a small portion of voters refused to vote for a felon.
At the same time, a conviction would offer a new path for those seeking to remove Trump from the ballot, either by disqualifying him in court or denying him the nomination at the Republican convention.
Trump also faces trial in Florida for his handling of classified material and in Georgia in an election case, although appeals and delays may take them beyond the election. There is also the upcoming Stormy Daniels case regarding possible falsification of business records in New York, which is not generally considered to rise to the same level as the other cases.
And let’s not forget the likely Supreme Court case over whether he is disqualified from being president under the 14th Amendment.
All of this is extraordinary to behold. To call this simply “something to watch” is a gross understatement. But that is our policy today.
The new decisive vote
If you’ve followed elections long enough, the term “swing voter” might conjure up images of soccer moms, safety moms, Reagan Democrats, the white working class, and countless other archetypes of mostly white suburban voters. , which, according to analysts, decided the American elections. during the last half century.
But as 2024 begins, the voters poised to decide the election look very, very different from the undecided voters of tradition. They are disproportionately young, black and Hispanic.
Whether these voters will return to Biden is one of the most important questions of the cycle, not only because it could decide the election but also because there is a chance it could shape the trajectory of American politics for decades.
As we’ve written countless times, there will be plenty of opportunities over the next year for Biden to appeal to these traditionally Democratic but disaffected voters. In the end, she might well come close to or match the support from last time. If she does, perhaps the whole debate about it will seem misplaced.
But whatever the outcome, the reality of so many young voters, black and Hispanic, who can be persuaded, could powerfully shape the incentives facing candidates and perhaps even the overall course of the race. For the first time, there is a clear case that both Democrats and Republicans have an incentive to focus more on black, Hispanic and young voters than on white working-class voters. This may not result in drastic changes in strategy, policy or messaging. But it would be surprising if there were no changes.
Eight years ago, Trump was Kicking Univision outside press conferences. Now he is giving to Univision exclusive interviews. This is just a small early anecdote, long before the campaign begins. The examples can be much more striking on election day.
The third?
There’s another place disaffected young, black and Hispanic voters could turn: a third-party candidate, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy doesn’t loom over the 2024 race in the same way that Trump’s trials do. We don’t even know if Mr. Kennedy will make it to the polls. But it’s another obvious X-factor that we can see coming, even if we don’t know how it could affect the race.
Early polls, showing Kennedy as a teenager, seem plausible at this early stage. About 20 percent of voters nationwide have unfavorable views of both Trump and Biden, and Kennedy has a mark that previous minor candidates like Gary Johnson, a Libertarian in 2016, could never have dreamed of.
Historically, most independent candidates fail. Johnson saw his support peak near 10 percent in July 2016, only to gain 3.3 percent in November. Kennedy could fade for similar reasons, especially when the stakes in a Biden-Trump showdown seem so high. On the other hand, Mr. Johnson was no Kennedy.
Does another year help or hurt Biden?
In many ways, the prospects for Biden in 2024 should be bright. It looks like the economy is finally about to make a soft landing. His opponent will be judged. And the voters he needs — young, black and Hispanic — are the kind of voters Democrats would normally find easier to win back to his side.
All of this could ultimately propel Biden to re-election. Many sitting presidents have won under fairly similar circumstances, aided by a polarizing campaign and a growing economy.
But there’s a problem: Some of these tailwinds have been in Biden’s favor for most of the last year, and he appears weaker than ever.
Despite Improving Economy, Biden’s Approval Rating Remains at only 39 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. That’s eight net points less than a year ago. He is also worse than any previous president on the last New Year’s Day before re-election. Satisfaction with the country is about so slow as it was in 1980, 1992, 2008 and 2020, years in which the president’s party was defeated.
One possibility, of course, is that it is just a matter of time. Economic news has only become unequivocally positive in recent weeks or months. Consumer confidence is still below average, but seems to be improving. That could start to help Biden’s ratings. If you squint at the numbers, you could argue that she’s already started doing that: Her approval rating has risen about 1.5 points in the last three weeks.
Unlike most presidents seeking re-election, Biden has also been hampered by lingering questions about whether he should be the party’s nominee. Democrats have spent more time reflecting on his age than defending his record. Presumably his party will put aside his doubts and rally behind him once he secures the nomination over the summer. Maybe that’s when he’ll finally rejuvenate his support.
But the other possibility is that time is not on your side. It could even be part of the problem.
The president ages every day. To the extent that his age, his stumbles, and his stutter explain why voters lack confidence in his leadership and the direction of the country, there is little reason to expect him to improve. He could get worse.
