Current polls, pundits, and politicos insist that the 2024 race is a sure rematch between former President Donald Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden.
It may well turn out that way.
But in past election cycles, summer polls 15 months before the general election usually did not mean much.
In December 2003, the CBS poll headline blared, “Dean Pulls Away in Dem Race.” Howard Dean would eventually be clobbered by nominee John Kerry.
In the Gallup Poll of late June 2007, Hillary Clinton still continued to enjoy her wide lead in the Democratic primary over eventual nominee and elected president Barack Obama.
On the Republican side, Gallup noted of its summer 2007 polls that, “There has been little serious threat to the frontrunner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani”—who bombed out early in the race.
About this time in 2015, Jeb Bush was leading Donald Trump in the Republican primary. Or as CNN characterized their summer poll, “He [Bush] holds a significant lead over the second-place candidate Trump.”
By January 2016, the favorite, can-do Wisconsin governor Scott Walker was leading all candidates by a substantial margin as they headed for the Iowa caucuses.
There are lots of reasons to believe that 2024 may prove to be the most volatile race in recent memory.
Not since 1912—when third-party ex-president Theodore Roosevelt challenged incumbent President William Howard Taft in a three-way race with Woodrow Wilson—have two presidents run against each other.
Both, remember, lost that year to the far less experienced Wilson.
Second, Donald Trump is currently the target of at least four state and federal prosecutors.
Millions of Americans feel that current and likely future indictments are patently political. The Trump prosecutions would never have gone ahead had he not run for the presidency a third time.
Leftwing strategists believe that these partisan indictments will earn Trump Republican empathy.
The legal persecutions supposedly will ensure him the nomination, but then intensify during the 2024 general campaign to bleed him out—ensuring a Democratic victory.
Perhaps.
But the Left’s weaponization of the legal system is playing with fire.
They have no real idea whether their hounding will result in an indicted, inert Trump at election time, or fuel more empathy to empower him over his eventual Democratic rival, regardless of his legal status.
Or will the nonending legal morass eventually wear out Republican primary voters, resulting in their rage at such unfairness helping another Republican candidate?
Third, despite Democratic denials, there is mounting evidence—from emails, laptop communications, IRS whistleblowers, testimony from Biden family business associates, and likely bank records—that Joe Biden was directly involved in his son’s illegal activities.
Yet daily new details elicit only incoherent fury from Biden—especially since he clearly has serially lied that he had no knowledge of his son Hunter’s business misadventures.
Fourth, not since Woodrow Wilson’s incapacity rendered him bedridden and all but incommunicado for the last 17 months of his presidency, has a president appeared so enfeebled.
The 80-year-old Biden has fallen repeatedly. He often slurs his words to the point of inaudibility.
His halting gait radiates frailty.
Often aides must remind Biden where he is.
Biden appears frustrated and angry at his increasing cognitive decline—forgetting the names of foreign leaders and close associates.
To be blunt, Joe Biden is one more serious fall from physical incapacity—and a Vice President Kamala Harris stewardship of his presidency.
Increasing leftwing leaks and rumors spread alarm about Biden’s legal problems. Liberal writers chart his mental confusion. Progressive columnists decry his treatment of his illegitimate granddaughter.
Apparently Democratic insiders hope Biden does not run for reelection—but by all accounts must finish his term to prevent a Kamala Harris presidency in either 2023-4 or thereafter.
So, the leaks of Biden’s impropriety and incapacity are aimed at ensuring Biden does not run in 2024.
Yet they apparently must not prove actionable enough to abort his current presidency.
Fifth, the first Republican primary debate is still almost a month away. And debates often have proven the graveyard of sure-thing front-runners.
Donald Trump has understandably indicated it would be foolish to debate while enjoying a sizable lead in the polls.
Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that Trump, a proven and skilled debater, would pass up the stage of a multimillion-person televised audience only to be ritually trashed in absentia on it.
It is even more difficult to envision a frail Joe Biden holding his own against either Democratic rivals or a Republican contender in the general election.
Add it all up, and the presidential race is unpredictable with an array of known “unknowns.”
The only certain fact is that anyone who currently declares the outcomes of the primary races or general election a foregone conclusion is utterly delusional.
Churchill once used Stalin as an ally to defeat Hitler.
Trump may need to run with RJK Jr. despite the differences in order to wrestle back control of what is now obviously a criminal enterprise rather than a Constitutional Republican form of government.
“Leftwing strategists believe that these partisan indictments will earn Trump Republican empathy. The legal persecutions supposedly will ensure him the nomination, but then intensify during the 2024 general campaign to bleed him out—ensuring a Democratic victory.”
Let’s frustrate them by having empathy for Trump, and anger at the damage done to the Republic, while still nominating someone more accomplished, younger, and a true believer who can actually win.
Or maybe there is another option Professor Hanson has not considered….there will be no election.
The federal government has proven repeatedly over the decades that it can and will do what it wants to do. So what if there was some calamitous economic event (collapse of the Commercial Real Estate market) which then precipitated a US and world-wide economic implosion.
Or what if Russia decides to use tactical nukes in Ukraine, or worse, elects to light up London?
Or what if China uses the mental incapacitation of Biden to invade or at least blockade Taiwan?
Any of these events-or perhaps a Black Swan occurrence I have not considered-would provide the pretext to “postpone” elections pending stability of (fill in the blank).
The authoritarian Covid lockdowns provide plenty evidence of what state and federal governments are capable of, so it’s not such a far cry to imagine a suspension of federal elections.
And before anyone says it wouldn’t be Constitutional, neither were the Covid lockdowns, the SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare, the federal government confiscation of and outlaw of privately held gold in 1939, or the suspension of Habeas Corpus by Abraham Lincoln.
Funny you mention this because I’m reading an alternate history series which hits on something similar. There’s a nuclear war in 1975; Ford is killed in the Nuke strike on DC and Nelson Rockefeller automatically becomes president.
Well, 1976 rolls along and it’s election time. They have an election but it’s not at all what we would be used to. Instead of everyone coming out and voting for a whole bunch of people, it’s limited to just the president and the only folks who vote are the legislators of the 35 or so states that managed to keep a legislature running. Could see something sketchy like that happening…
Whatever occurs this election represents a time which will be a time like no other. Or, to paraphrase Dickens using a few changes. “The year of 2024 will embrace both the best of times and the worst of times. It will be about an age of wisdom, and an age of foolishness, it will be about an epoch of belief against an epoch of incredulity, it will be about seasons of Light and seasons of Darkness, it will become seasons of hope, after winters of despair… we have everything before us, we have nothing before us, we are going directly to Heaven, or we are all going directly the other way”.
This election is about opposing Goliath forces that have come to a final battle. There cannot be compromises. The State wins and the People lose or the People win and the State looses. Something has got to give. All bets are off because the losers must face tragic fates and will do anything to avoid the consequences. The stakes are about serious crimes and serious punishments. The left already knows that and there is but scarce time for the right to accept that same understanding.