The next election will be determined likely by just 100,000 voters cut across a handful of swing states. Presently, it appears that the 2024 Presidential Election will, in fact, be a rematch of the 2020 Election between President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party and former President Donald J. Trump for the Republicans.
Right now, according to polls, the forty-fifth president has two key factors that could return him to the White House and allow him to vanquish his archrival, the forty-sixth president.
Bottom line: most voters view him as the most likely candidate both to avoid a third world war as well as to restore America’s economic might. Pocketbooks and safety. These used to be called the “soccer mom” issues back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Now, they are everyone’s concerns. That’s because the Biden Administration has so thoroughly failed.
And the Democrats, rather than seek policies and candidates who will address the concerns of most voters, think their only major problem is a marketing one. They attempt to gaslight voters into thinking that “Bidenomics” is working and that the United States has never been safer under Biden’s (non) leadership.
Voters aren’t buying it. Now they’re looking at former President Trump, who barely lost the last election, despite all the controversy he engenders, as the most viable alternative.
This is surprising because, until March of this year, when Trump experienced his first indictment (of a total of 91), it looked as though voters were moving beyond Trump. Republican voters are locked firmly into the “MAGA” reelection campaign and now, it would seem, that voters in the coming General Election want Trump again.
The most interesting aspect of the recent poll from CBS News and YouGov, was that 47 percent of likely voters in 2024 believe that Trump would “increase peace and stability” in the world whereas only 31 percent think that Biden would. What’s more, 43 percent believe that Biden would decrease peace and stability globally compared to just 37 percent for Trump.
These are staggering numbers. They also run counter to the narrative that the “mainstream” media has been spinning for years that Trump is an unstable leader who will trigger a third world war whereas Biden is a steady hand.
Voters do not think this at all. Even as Trump endures wave after wave of indictment and he continues his gonzo behavior on the campaign trail and social media, many voters today think that Trump is a greater force for stability and peace in the world than they are of Biden.
In fact, the reason that Biden defeated Trump in the first place was because of the extraordinary, extenuating circumstances that the COVID-19 pandemic that emanated from Wuhan, China, created in the election that year.
Plus, Biden had been out of government for four years when he first challenged Trump.
Today, however, Biden has an active record—and it isn’t very good. Without an extenuating circumstance, like COVID-19, coupled with Biden’s awful record as commander-in-chief, Trump suddenly looks more attractive.
Even if not Trump, though, it is likely that any other generic Republican candidate would defeat Biden because the polls are going so badly for the forty-sixth president. Republican voters and the party’s leadership should remember that, especially as real fears about Trump’s eligibility to be president again abound the deeper into his indictments we get.
The point here is that Biden is so weak and his policies are so unpopular that even Donald Trump could defeat him in a free-and-fair election. That’s the incredible thing to see here. Even as they work tirelessly to tear a very imperfect candidate, like Donald Trump, down, they end up inadvertently elevating him and his election challenge.
I believe that, at this rate, the Republicans stand a real chance of winning in 2024—especially among that handful of swing state voters.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor and an energy analyst at the The-Pipeline, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (Republic Book Publishers). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon. This piece is an opinion column presenting the author’s own ideas.