Former President Barack Obama is reportedly concerned that former President Donald Trump could win the 2024 election.
Well, Obama should be concerned. Trump is the runaway favorite to win his third consecutive GOP nomination, setting up a general election against incumbent President Biden who is deeply unpopular, and who has most of the country convinced he is too old to effectively function as president.
According to The Washington Post, Obama sat with Biden for a private lunch in late June, and “voiced concern about Donald Trump’s political strengths – including an intensely loyal following, a Trump-friendly conservative media ecosystem, and a polarized country – underlining his worry that Trump could be a more formidable candidate than many Democrats realize…Obama made it clear his concerns were not about Biden’s political abilities, but rather a recognition of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party.”
Obama coming around
Obama gets it.
He didn’t the first time around, in 2016, when he and everyone else dismissed Trump as a crackpot hack with no chance of beating out Hillary Clinton for the presidency given that it was her preordained time.
But Obama gets it this time. Trump has the GOP nomination essentially locked up. He’s thirty points ahead of the next closest competitor, Ron DeSantis, whose campaign is in a desperate reset-mode. And while Obama may have expressed that he wasn’t concerned about Biden’s political abilities (to Biden’s face), the reasonable observer has serious questions about whether Biden can mount a convincing presidential campaign. The guy is 80 years old and deteriorating quickly. He’s deeply unpopular, even amongst his own party. Even Democrats are not enthusiastic about a second Biden term.
Point being, Biden doesn’t necessarily match up well in the general election. He’s not even assured to be able to run a traditional campaign during the general election. Remember that for the 2020 campaign, Biden had the COVID-era ability to campaign from the comfort of his Delaware basement. He didn’t have to stump in the heat of the Iowa summer, or shake a thousand hands. He didn’t need to fly coast to coast to coas
t. He could just log on for the occasional Zoom chat and call it a day. But COVID is functionally over. Biden won’t be able to campaign from his basement. And for a guy who reportedly limits his hours in the mornings, evenings, and weekends in an effort to preserve his dwindling energy supplies, will Biden be able to withstand the physical rigors of a presidential campaign? It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?
Obama will push for Biden
Obama will be making another change from his 2016 posture, in that Obama has pledged “to do all he could to help the president get reelected.” Obama was singing a different tune in 2016, when he reserved his support for Biden out of the belief that Hillary Clinton would make for a stronger presidential candidate. Obama backed the wrong horse, of course. Could Biden have beaten Trump in 2016? Who knows. But we know Clinton didn’t.
Obama is still the biggest celebrity, the biggest name in the Democratic Party – despite leaving office almost a decade ago. An Obama endorsement could convince Democrats skeptical with Biden’s age/performance/general worldview to back the octogenarian one more time. An Obama endorsement could help prevent young Democrats from defecting to Cornel West’s Green Party insurgency.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
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