Are Democrats forfeiting the 2024 election?
In the Republican Party, Donald Trump has plenty of critics who say he can’t win next year.
To test that hypothesis, a strong slate of candidates is running as an alternative to him.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott, former governors Nikki Haley and Chris Christie and the rest have their chance to convince voters they can do better.
So far, polls show Republicans sticking with Trump — and show Trump with a fair chance of beating Biden.
In national surveys where he trails, Trump is often behind by just a point or two, but national polls actually underestimated Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020.
Democrats can’t take any comfort from polls that show Biden with a narrow lead.
And not every poll shows Biden leading.
A Harvard-Harris survey last month found Trump ahead by six points.
Yet rather than testing Biden’s viability the way Republicans are testing Trump’s, Democrats are letting Biden take the nomination by default.
He has two primary challengers, but few media outlets treat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson seriously, and they have virtually no support from Democratic officeholders.
Biden won’t debate Kennedy or Williamson, so voters won’t find out how well he can do on a stage he doesn’t control until it’s time for him to face his general-election opponent.
By then, it’ll be too late for second thoughts.
In April, only 47% of Democrats polled by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said they wanted Biden to seek reelection.
If Democrats themselves aren’t enthusiastic about Biden, how optimistic can they be about getting independents to turn out for him?
Their hope is that “negative partisanship” will do their work for them.
Voters don’t have to like Biden as long as they dislike the Republican enough.
Democrats know how to run an anti-Trump campaign, and they’ll adapt that strategy to remake any other Republican into Trump.
If DeSantis gets the GOP nod, Democrats will say he’s a younger, more intolerant, more dangerous Trump.
If Pence gets it, Democrats will say he’s a candidate divided against himself, a man who was Trump’s collaborator before turning on him.
The scripts are easy to write — moderate Republican, conservative Republican, Trump or non-Trump, any GOP nominee will be painted in the same colors.
But Donald Trump isn’t in the White House today, and the best political science says presidential elections are referendums on the incumbent and his party.
Biden’s record and fitness to lead the country for another four years will be up for voters’ judgment no matter how they feel about the Republican Party or Trump.
About a third of registered voters polled by CNN/SSRS say they don’t want either Biden or Trump.
Come Election Day, most Americans feel they have to vote against the candidate they dislike more, which is why third-party efforts usually amount to nothing.
Yet even a tiny number of voters choosing a third-party or independent candidate in the battleground states of 2024 could swing the race.
Biden already has a rival on his left, as former Harvard professor Cornel West seeks the Green Party’s nomination.
The Green Party made the ballot in 30 states last time around and 44 in 2016.
It’s set to be on the ballot in the pivotal battlefields of Michigan and Wisconsin next year — states that went to the winner in 2016, when they were critical to Trump’s victory, and in 2020, when they switched to Biden.
Biden won Wisconsin with a little more than 20,000 votes. Even without West, the state’s at best a toss-up for him.
Democrats know just how bad the numbers are, to say nothing of the enthusiasm gap.
Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have energetic true believers in the GOP: people for whom these candidates represent no compromise or second choice but the exact direction in which they want the party to move.
How many Democrats feel that way about Joe Biden?
Incumbent presidents who draw serious primary challengers tend to go down to defeat, along with their party.
As weak as Biden is, Democrats calculate he would only be weaker if he had to struggle through a primary, and anyone who beat him would be stuck with Biden’s legacy anyway.
Besides, if Biden loses, that only improves chances for congressional Democrats in the 2026 midterms — because six-year midterms are usually brutal for the incumbent’s party.
Democrats chose Biden as a reassuringly old face in the revolutionary times of 2020, a year of impeachment, COVID-19 and George Floyd riots.
They forfeited the future to run on the past, and it worked — only now the future’s catching up with them.
Democrats don’t want to lose next year, but they have to play the hand they dealt themselves.
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Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
“In April, only 47% of Democrats polled by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said they wanted Biden to seek reelection.”
I find it very hard to believe that 47% of the U.S. citizens are this Stupid.
I find it very easy to believe that the Democrat Party wants us to believe this LIE.
Last time it was 60% approved of this corrupt, demented puppet Joe Biden.
This Treasonous, dishonest, destructive, Socialist Democrat Party’s objective is to deliberately lie, cheat and steal. To disregard the U.S. Constitution and our laws, in order to take total control of the American people by their restricting U.S. citizens their constitutional rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech. Stopping oil production, increase Spending, Taxes and the inflation cost of everything and bring American commerce and economy to its knees and to promote Socialism, enforced by their political DOJ and their FBI and IRS.
Then access power and retain it by any means available –
No matter the costs to the people, the government or the nation.
This treasonous, destructive, immoral, socialist Democrat Party, their RINOs and their corrupt, demented puppet president Joe Biden has become our country’s most destructive and deadliest ENEMY!
That’s 40% of registered Democrats, many of whom are government employees beholden to the party that expands their numbers and looks out for their interests.
NEVER In my entire life have i ever been polled in one of these phone polls.. SO THEY MUST USE ONLY the same demented souls, who think that Kamala is good, and the govt is trustworthy.
CNN
CNN
Manchin refuses to rule out third party presidential campaign, says ‘if I get in a race, I’m going to win’
Story by Gregory Krieg • 4h ago
” Joe MANCHIN- West VIRGINIA, DEMOCRAT, SENATOR, MIGHT RUN AS A ” NO LABLES” presidential candidate.”
remember what Joe Biden once said, ” If you don’t vote for me, to paraphrase Joe BIDEN, democrat, your not BLACK ENOUGH.”
Slo Joe is a LOSER. Always had been, always will be.
He can’t be that much of a loser, being in govt for 50 years!
Former democrat/ Socialist/ Communist-President, Barack H. Obama once said,” America is, and always will be, A Land of Immigrants. In other words, ” Immigrants are just undocumented democrat VOTERS.”
Author unknown.
democrat, Socialist, / Communist, president, PUPPET, Joe Biden most likely will just fade away, and will be pensioned out -replaced by a Joe Manchin or a Robert F. Kennedy Jr.