Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton in 2024? When candidate Joe Biden chose California senator Kamala Harris as his 2024 running mate, he described himself as a “transition president” and it was widely believed that Harris would be the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee. With Biden’s approval rating sitting at around 40% and Harris’ approval rating dropping as low as 28%, however, it’s looking more likely that the Democratic Party may look to an entirely new ticket in 2024.
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 candidate who went head-to-head with Donald Trump, could be the candidate they’re looking for.
Hillary Could Make a Comeback
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has described the 2016 election as one of the biggest mistakes in American history and said that Hillary is the “most qualified” presidential candidate in history. A plethora of opinion pieces have argued that Clinton could be the Democrats’ “best hope,” and Clinton herself has been dishing out advice to her party in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections.
She has also been more visible since Biden took office, recently giving a speech to the New York Democratic Convention in which she formally endorsed New York Governor Kathy Hochul for re-election. Clinton not only demonstrated the power of her endorsement but also used her platform to accuse former President Donald Trump of lying about her campaign spying on his.
Citing a court filing from Special Counsel John Durham that suggested former Clinton campaign lawyers paid a third-party tech company to spy on communications coming out of Trump Tower in 2016, the former president issued a campaign ad accusing Clinton of spying on his campaign.
Clinton responded in her New York speech by accusing Trump and his supporters of peddling “conspiracy theories.”
“So now his accountants have fired him and investigations draw closer to him and right on cue, the noise machine gets turned up,” she said. “Fox leads the charge with accusations against me, counting on their audience to fall for it again. And as an aside, they’re getting awfully close to actual malice.”
In 2016 when Clinton lost, her advanced age led many to believe that she wouldn’t run again. Now at the age of 74, however, Clinton will be younger than President Joe Biden was when he was elected in 2020 if she were to successfully run in 2024.
Clinton also has a score to settle against former President Donald Trump, which may just be enough for her to throw her hat in the ring and give it another shot.
Dick Morris, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, has also indicated that there is a “good chance” of Clinton running in 2024 to compete against former President Donald Trump.
Could Clinton Win?
Assuming that former President Donald Trump runs in 2024 – and his political campaigning indicates that he likely will – Clinton will have an uphill battle to win the presidency. As a candidate, Clinton attracted substantial criticism from within her own party.
Joe Biden himself admitted that he “never thought she was a great candidate” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer laid the 2016 loss entirely at her feet.
“When you lose to someone who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame other things…you blame yourself,” he said in 2017.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio also told Fox News last week that, should Clinton enter the 2024 race, Trump would win in a landslide.
“Hillary Clinton looks like she’s going to try to run and if it’s a rematch between her and President Trump, I think President Trump wins in a landslide,” he said.
Polls seem to suggest that former President Donald Trump is becoming more popular the longer the Democrats remain in power, with several surveys showing Trump beating Biden in a hypothetical immediate general election.
Assuming that America’s economic troubles aren’t resolved by 2024, the Democrats’ performance in government may well doom a possible Clinton campaign before it even begins.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and report on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
