Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump ‘24
Joe declared his re-election bid last week. It was, like many things of late, both inevitable and yet somehow surprising when it happened.
It had been expected that Joe would run for months. He has a low-ish approval rating – 43% or so – and will be 82 at the end of 2024. A majority of Democrats in polls say they didn’t want him to run again. Yet here he is, announcing in a video that felt a bit rushed.
(It was rushed by the way – there’s a technicality that you have to announce within 15 days of spending $5,000 or more, so as soon as they brought the cameras they were under the gun to announce).
His challengers in the Democratic Primary so far are Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr. The DNC has yet to schedule any primary debates, and I expect them not to do so in the name of ‘party unity;’ the media will play along with nary a peep. If a candidate runs but no one covers the race, how can they contend or compete?
This could change if a major establishment figure – e.g. Governor Newsom – decided to run against Joe in the primary. But that’s not going to happen. Instead, these major contenders will prepare campaigns-in-waiting on the chance that Joe Biden decides not to run sometime this year or next. There’s some thinking that Joe is announcing in part because he refuses to be a lame duck that everyone ignores or tramples on, but he could still have second thoughts or a medical issue before Election Day. The Democratic convention in 2024 is August 19th – 22nd in Chicago. It’s conceivable that the DNC could run some abbreviated process leading up to that Convention if Joe were to decide to back out early next year.
On the other side, Trump is gathering a sense of dominance with the deflation of the Ron DeSantis bubble. He has started musing about skipping the Republican primary debates, the first of which is scheduled for this August in Milwaukee, as he has built a 20 pt. lead in polling over DeSantis with Nikki Haley and Mike Pence stuck in the low single digits. Tim Scott should announce soon – he strikes me as the candidate with the highest upside to rival Trump. Chris Christie will enter in May as a critic and foil. There will be others.
But the energy and base remain with Trump. He has dominated headlines recently with the grand jury indictment in New York galvanizing Republicans in his defense. Like him or not, he’s a star and the Republican machinery is having trouble manufacturing a new one. There isn’t unlimited time to do so.
The Biden vs. Trump rematch that no one wants is becoming more and more likely, even inevitable. The two major leading candidates having a combined age of 160 in 2024 is a clear sign of how sclerotic and dysfunctional our political system has become. How in a country of 330 million are these to be our two choices?
Tens of millions of Americans are wondering the same thing. The way to change it is through changing the two-party system and our current election mechanics. I talked to a public figure – whom I think would make a fine President – and he said, “I’d run if our political system allowed me to do so without breaking things.”
Want better choices? Let’s change the system. It’s the only way.
To see how to change the system, join Forward today.
