The American populace has decided their fate: 2024 will feature a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the general election. A fairly obvious conclusion to casual observers of the primary process, this predicament has now sunk in for those who (understandably) dedicate their free time to… anything else, aside from watching the pummeling of Donald Trump’s primary opponents; or, for that matter, the cabal of crank candidates running against President Biden. Despite mainstream media’s best efforts to insinuate that we could stumble into November with different names on the ballot, such fantasies are unlikely to pan out in the eight months remaining until Election Day.
The Forecast
Our general election forecast for the presidential election debuted in April of last year, with President Biden having about a 6-in-10 chance of winning re-election. That number has steadily declined (along with his approval rating), with the President having a 54% chance of re-election and Donald Trump having a 45% chance of becoming the first President to win two non-consecutive terms in the White House since Grover Cleveland in 1892.
Anyone who has followed our work over the past four years remembers our last presidential forecast, which correctly predicted that Joe Biden would win the presidency, albeit with a narrower margin than anticipated due to the national and especially statewide polls underestimating Republicans. The reason for this error, for the most part, was accounting for varying standards for COVID precautions between liberal and conservative voters: as liberals began to be much more likely than conservatives to comply with lockdowns and avoid leaving their homes to avoid infection, they were also more likely to answer polls. The resulting final forecast and results gave us 47/50 states correctly predicted in the Electoral College in 2020, missing Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Maine’s 2nd congressional district, all of which were in our Tilt Democratic column.
If four years is a lifetime in politics, it’s an eternity for a forecaster who launched their first presidential forecast at age 20 and is launching their second at 24. With many lessons (and soon, an undergraduate Political Science degree from Virginia Tech) under my belt, I’m looking forward to continuing the CNalysis record of improving upon each election cycle’s forecast success by getting at least 48 states right this year in our presidential forecast. Trying to make a concrete projection eight months from the election is foolhardy, of course, so let’s get into what we know right now.
The Polls
Currently, Donald Trump leads the President in the polls, with some giving him a bigger lead than others. However, as noted in The Economist, not all polls are created equal. If you disagree, you may be one of the people who thought Republicans would have a much better midterm performance than they did. It also goes without saying that polls and the polling average this far out from the general election are oftentimes insignificant when considering the actual outcome. Still, they are a reflection of what we currently know about if the election were held today, hence our forecast showing a coin-flip race.
In historical terms, it is certainly something to say that a President whose approval rating has soared below 45% for two years now (and has been sitting below 42% since May) has roughly a 50-50 chance of winning re-election. President Biden’s approval rating is even slightly lower than Donald Trump’s at this juncture in the re-election cycle; given the current President’s narrow margin of victory in the 2020 election, it’s worth examining whether presidential approval polls will have any critical utility in presidential election forecasting going forward.
I offer two hypotheses on the polls as they stand while I still have the chance. Even while taking into account the public’s shifting opinions moving the Overton window for policy to the right, I believe I should mention two things about the polls that are coming out now as opposed to the polls we will see in the coming months. Both are rooted in one simple fact: Voters are terrible with hypotheticals. By this, I mean that if you include in your poll “If [X] were to occur before the election, how would you vote?” you will find that if “X” does, in fact, occur before the election, the polls will be markedly different than when the poll asked about the event in the form of a hypothetical. Voters cannot fathom the hypothetical impact of their candidate preference (or future events that are almost certain to soon happen) whether in the phraseology of poll questions or in the voting booth. As I noted in our final 2023 Virginia election piece, Terry McAuliffe would be the Governor of Virginia if voters were actually capable of this.
As such, we’ll address the more immediate hypothetical that has festered into fact: the 2020 rematch is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Personally, I believe that a large enough chunk of the country has been unaware of this. So much so that it has affected general election polls between the two nominees for the last several months. Anecdotally, myself and other individuals in this line of work have fielded questions along the lines of “Is Trump/Biden really running again?” or “So, who’s going to be the nominee?” from layfolk for the last several months despite the result being largely inevitable for the past year.
Now that these types of voters have decided that the matchup is now “officially” set (regardless of Nikki Haley’s vain campaign chicanery), we may see some polls begin to shift toward President Biden, who I currently believe in the end will earn the most votes amongst swing voters that are unhappy with their limited options. While, yes, Trump’s favorability ratings have continued to increase, the public’s opinion on policy has grown conservative, and Biden’s approval rating has been abysmal, I cast modest doubt that a rematch election will have a different outcome from the last one, during which Biden led the polls.
Finally, the other hypothetical in polling we must account for in the coming months is if Donald Trump is convicted of a felony. Should this occur later in the year, I believe that we’ll see a shift toward President Biden in the polls and forecasts, and it’s difficult to imagine how Trump could actually ever become a favorite in the race again after that.
Now that we’ve delved into the polls, let’s examine the weaknesses and advantages each candidate has.
Biden’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Strength 1. Incumbency
Only ten of the 45 men who have occupied the Oval Office have lost re-election: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump. It is a rarity that Americans oust the incumbent President from office, and this offers President Biden a massive advantage. Most Presidents who win re-election not only secure a second term but also expand their margin in the electoral college, the only exception being President Obama.
Strength 2. The Economy*?
The American people have largely been unhappy with Biden’s economic performance throughout his term, despite recent indicators that the economy has rebounded since COVID. I’ve put an asterisk next to this strength as this would normally be an advantage for any other incumbent President. However, the American public isn’t convinced that Biden has handled the economy well.
The most common complaint against Biden’s economic performance seems to be the direct impact and aftershocks of inflation. Yes, inflation is nowhere as bad as it was in the first half of Biden’s term, but wages for many Americans have remained stagnant while the cost of living continues to rise in many parts of the country.
Biden’s campaign strategy thus far has also been unimpressive. That marvelous phrase about the three types of lies comes to mind here; “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” The President’s campaign has put out some ludicrous things about the “incredible” increase in employment over his term, but Americans are smart enough to know that he inherited an economy with high unemployment due to the pandemic, and the recession of its effects is ultimately what was responsible for job growth. If Biden’s campaign were really savvy, they’d note that the economy is in a better position than where it was right before the pandemic. But instead, they seem to want to try and hoodwink the average voter into complacency.
Strength 3. Campaign Finance
President Biden’s campaign and their cohorts at the DNC and in Congress have continued to handily outraise their Republican counterparts, just as they did in 2020. And with Republican money machines such as Ronna McDaniel and Kevin McCarthy out of a job, the growing pains that come with replacing them so far are proving to be detrimental to a key component for defeating the Democrats.
Weakness 1. His Age
This is easily Biden’s biggest liability. Despite Biden being only four years older than Trump, his age has consistently polled as a concern amongst voters more so than Trump’s age does, and it’s clear that the media is covering his gaffes far more than Trump’s, and covering them as “senior moments” despite Biden being a prolific gaffe-machine throughout his storied career. His lapses of memory are a recurring theme in the media, most recently in the special counsel report. Left-wing media has, in turn, taken to the Uno Reverse strategy of painting Trump as having memory issues, and this will likely be the Biden campaign’s strategy to combat voter concerns about age. Pot, K
Weakness 2. Problems with the Base
While I believe it is quite likely the President’s standing with Black and Latino voters will worsen this year due to the ideologically conservative parts of these racial demographics continuing to shift toward the Republican Party, that should not be the President’s central concern. Quite frankly, the only thing I believe that will temporarily stall this trend is if Biden has a commanding performance in the general election.
The bigger issue is Biden’s standing with the Millennial and Gen Z demographics which overwhelmingly turned out to support him in the 2020 election. Polls continually show that this is Biden’s biggest disconnect within the Democratic base, and now that they make up an even larger share of the vote in 2024 (with the tail end of the Zoomers turning 18 between 2020 and 2024), it’s imperative for him to appease them. It’s this demographic that’s tanked Biden’s approval rating to below 40% on average since October, as these two generations are enraged by the President’s uncritical support of Israel in the continued razing of Gaza.
A much smaller but still crucial part of the 2020 election is Muslim and Arab voters, who like the younger generations are also irate with the President. Both demographics have traditionally been responsible for recent narrow Democratic victories in Michigan; it’s not just “noise” that Trump is performing better in Michigan’s polls than Wisconsin’s and Pennsylvania’s despite both of those states being two points redder than Michigan in 2020.
I’ve stated this before, but I believe there are certain similarities between President Biden’s stance on Gaza and LBJ’s handling of Vietnam. Whether or not these positions will be to the detriment of Biden’s electability, only time will tell.
Weakness 3. His campaign’s Electoral College strategy
It’s odd that Biden’s campaign has (albeit reportedly) viewed Florida as a better opportunity than Texas for an Electoral College pick up, even after the Sunshine State’s landslide Republican win in 2022 after its 2-point swing to the right in 2020. The Florida Democratic Party is known as one of the least effective state parties in the country, and the demographic trends away from Democrats as older, more Republican-leaning voters continue to flock to the state. Texas, meanwhile, swung 3 points to the left in 2020 while the Biden campaign didn’t lift a finger there. The demographics have been working against Republicans there for as long as they’ve been working against Democrats in Florida, and in 2022 Democrats improved in most of their statewide performances relative to the electoral environments between 2018 and 2022: anywhere from 2 points to over 10, depending on the race and field of candidates.
Florida and Texas, of course, are not pivotal states in this year’s election: Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina are the usual suspects and will be showing shades of purple this year. Regardless, given the Biden campaign’s insistence upon living in the past in Texas and Florida (at least presently) will yield in several figures in the Democratic Party scratching their heads, wondering just who it is up there that’s calling the shots.
Trump’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Strength 1. Immigration Policy
Donald Trump was out of step with the American public on immigration in 2016 – at the time, a border wall with Mexico seemed a bridge too far. However, we have the matter of that pesky Overton window. Immigration is arguably a bigger issue amongst the public now than in 2016 or 2020, this could work to Donald Trump’s advantage. A lot of Americans have warmed up to the idea of a border wall now, a sharp contrast from the outrage of “kids in cages” during the 2018 midterm.
His successful play to prevent a bipartisan border deal earlier this year was quite impressive (and honestly amusing) – Trump has a firm grasp on the Republican Party. It’s his for as long as he wants it to be. It’s also a smart move from a campaign standpoint, as he’ll be able to continue to run on the issue this year, which is exactly what he wanted.
Weakness 1. His inability to compromise in favor of the middle, and Project 2025
I decided to lump two main points together here because I feel like they run along the same lines: Trump doesn’t appear to be interested in running for the ideological middle of the electorate, which is one of many things that could cost him a very winnable election. Yes, he did come very close to winning re-election – just about 103,000 votes from winning Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, and one can argue that Trump didn’t run for the middle in 2020. A large part of that was turning out millions of new voters to the electorate.
I believe that we will see a modest drop in turnout this year. ⅔ of the country voted in the 2020 election, with a three-pronged surge of Democratic-leaning voters apathetic in 2016, new voters Trump added to the electorate, and new voters who wanted to make their voice heard in a year where the government became more important to Americans in their everyday lives due to the pandemic. With voters largely unhappy with their choices this year, just as they were in 2016, and with the public seeing the pandemic as in the rear view, this is going to be an electorate that is likely smaller than the one in 2020.
That is a disadvantage for Trump, as Republicans have become the party of hoping for higher turnout elections given that more educated voters, who favor Democrats, are much more likely to turn out for an election. Yet his campaign doesn’t seem to be interested in moving to the middle, at least not yet. Liberal media has been raising the issue of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation proposal of firing tens of thousands of bureaucratic workers and replacing them with acolytes of President Trump, dismantling the FBI, gutting environmental regulations, begin mass deportations, banning pornography, and more far-right conservative policies that are woefully out of touch with the voters who will decide the winner of the presidency. Given the group’s close ties with the President in the past, it could be a death knell for his campaign if Biden’s campaign worked hard at raising awareness of it.
Weakness 2. Dobbs and Abortion
Last year a Virginia Republican asked me, “Surely the Democrats can’t run on abortion again. Can they?” I replied “Yes they can, and don’t call me Shirley.” The abortion issue is not going away in 2024, and Trump may privately complain about the pro-life movement costing Republicans what should have been a red wave in 2022, but he has loudly and publicly expressed his happiness with the Dobbs decision and takes credit for it. The Biden campaign is ecstatic every time Trump opens his mouth and declares that the Dobbs decision wouldn’t be possible without him.
Weakness 3. Nikki Haley
Trump is no longer President, but we should be treating him as somewhat of an incumbent in my view. Thus, I think G. Elliott Morris’s take that Nikki Haley’s performance in the Republican primary so far should be a warning sign for Republicans’ chances this year with Trump leading the ticket is correct. Haley is garnering enough of the vote so far that, even accounting for Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents voting in these primaries as Steve Kornacki has pointed out, I see the potential “softened-up” pseudo-incumbent leading the Presidential race. Haley knows that she will not be the nominee barring some extraordinary event such as Trump going to prison or dying, yet she has said she will remain in the race at least until Super Tuesday to give primary voters a choice. The fact that her campaign has been this insistent upon staying in the race this long well after the primary ended before votes were even cast could be a sign that Haley may be in the race for longer than that. If that is the case and Haley continues to garner a considerable amount of the vote, then I think the Lichtman key of a credible primary challenge to a [pseudo-]incumbent president should be accounted for against Trump.
Conclusion and State of the States
As has been the case in most presidential elections throughout the 21st century, the race for the White House is going to be close, and will come down to just a few states. One interesting debate I’ve seen is whether the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will be more favorable to Biden than the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, as had been the case in 2020. In my opinion: it’s too early to tell. Michigan was Biden’s best state out of these Toss-Up states in 2020, and currently it looks unlikely to repeat that statistic. Another debate that is also plausible (but also too early to tell) is the chance that Biden wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote, driven by slipping numbers in safe blue states, notably California and New York, as well as driving up margins in red states. Quite frankly I think there’s merit to this notion, but only time will tell.
My apologies if you were looking for something more concrete in what will be one of only two presidential election pieces from myself this year, the next one being my final prediction piece. But I can’t stress enough that there’s a lot of time between now and November. If someone’s selling you on certainty now, just make sure you don’t buy their snake oil as well.
At the end of the day, we’re all probably better off by just extrapolating the Washington Primary results in August to read the environment for November, as well as using the final Selzer poll in Iowa to predict the Rust Belt.