Can Joe Biden win in 2024? Incumbent presidents have built-in advantages when they run for re-election. They have the bully pulpit with daily press briefings that can better control the narrative and the policy agenda. A serving president can hop on Air Force One and be anywhere in the United States or around the world and plant the American flag showing he is in control of the free world.
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The leader can spend many months fund-raising under the banner of the presidency. Joe Biden will have these benefits too when he runs again to stay in the White House – which seems likely.
Biden Must Surmount Difficulties
Despite his usual gaffes, stumbles, and tall tales, Biden seems impervious to Republican criticism. He has shown an ability to fight through crises, ignore others, and come out ahead during the Midterm elections.
It hasn’t been easy. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster. High gas prices and inflation, maladies that Biden has predicted would have subsided by now, are still elevated since he took office. The border crisis has been largely ignored by the White House and the legacy media has not held him accountable.
The Current President Has Some Legislative Wins
However, Biden has accomplishments to highlight. The Inflation Reduction Act aims to reduce prescription drugs and encourage a faster green energy transition. President Biden signed the PACT Act – “the largest single bill to address our service members’ exposure to burn pits and other toxins in American history,” according to his campaign’s web site. He also helped pass legislation to promote domestic efforts to produce semiconductors in the United States.
What Do the People Say?
Biden’s approval ratings are low at 40 percent in Gallup’s latest presidential survey in December. The satisfaction with Biden’s job performance has inched up from his all-time low of 38 percent he rated last summer at Gallup. His average approval since the first days of his presidency is 45 percent, so he is still lagging the mean. That’s for Gallup though.
Other polls, such as Rasmussen’s, taken at the end of December, have Biden with a 47 percent approval rating. Morning Consult showed him with 42 percent approving of his job performance. FiveThirtyEight’s average currently rated him at a 43 percent approval when averaging multiple polls.
It’s Still the Economy
Biden’s biggest drawback will be the economy in 2023. Many have predicted a recession and GDP growth has struggled while there have been gains in monthly employment rates in 2022.
If unemployment creeps upward and GDP growth is in the negative, many will perceive the economy as weak leading prognosticators to doubt Biden’s re-election bid.
Biden’s Race to Lose
American University professor Allan Lichtman, who has predicted every presidential election correctly since 1984, with the exception of 2000, said the 2024 race is “Biden’s to lose.” Lichtman believes that Trump is politically and legally wounded and will have a more difficult time with Biden in a re-match. The political scientist also thinks that if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis runs, he will have trouble attracting hardcore Trump supporters to his banner.
Trump and Biden Neck and Neck?
But Trump still has strength going into 2023. Newsweek commissioned a poll in which a Biden-Trump matchup was tied 41 percent to 41 percent with 11 percent undecided. Biden still has some skepticism from voters in his own party for his 2024 re-election. CNN conducted a poll in December that showed 59 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaners wanted someone else to run.
Bruising Republican Primary Favors Joe Biden
Biden must keep his approvals in the high-forties if he is to win re-election and that is certainly possible at this point. Another thing Biden has going for him is the potential for a large Republican field that would wound Trump or DeSantis going into the general election. This is what happened to John McCain when he ran for the White House. The late Arizona senator ran short of money in 2007 during the Republican primary.
Democrats are still likely to coalesce around Biden in 2024, especially if the Republican nominee is Trump. Biden will campaign fiercely in swing states where the GOP had trouble in statewide elections for the U.S. Senate such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. Without these states in the victory column, it will be difficult for the Republicans to win the White House.
Author Expertise and Experience: Serving as 19FortyFive’s Defense and National Security Editor, Dr. Brent M. Eastwood is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Foreign Policy/ International Relations.
