The 2024 Presidential Contest Has Begun

By Matthew Continetti

Thursday, November 10, 2022

 

Two years from now, on November 5, 2024, Americans will vote for president. That’s about all we know.

 

We don’t know, for example, who the major-party nominees will be. The incumbent president, Joe Biden, is not term-limited. He says he intends to run for reelection. Reality may prove otherwise. Biden is America’s oldest president. He will turn 82 years old in 2024. His health and cognitive abilities may prevent him from launching another campaign. And if that were to happen, Biden would become the first president since Lyndon Johnson not to seek a second full term. His replacement on the Democratic ticket would be a mystery.

 

We don’t know who the Republicans will nominate either. At the time of writing, former president Donald Trump is widely expected to run. But he has not announced a decision. Whether Trump makes a bid to become the second U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms — 19th-century Democrat Grover Cleveland was the first — is perhaps the biggest question of the 2024 campaign.

 

Nor do we know what condition the world and the nation will be in two years from now. Inflation, crime, illegal immigration, critical race theory and gender ideology in education, and abortion may define the next election just as they have defined the past one. But other issues might also rise to prominence. There could be a recession or a financial crisis or both. The war in Ukraine might expand to include NATO. China might invade Taiwan. North Korea is always a worry. And war is a constant threat in the Middle East.

 

Then again, the worst outcomes might be avoided. The economic situation might improve. Right now, President Biden is weak, and the Democrats are in meltdown mode. But turnarounds have happened before. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama bounced back from dreadful midterms to win second terms. They relied on economic recovery and personal favorability. Other presidents, including Trump, weren’t as fortunate. Will the Democratic nominee in 2024 benefit from a similar combination of skills and luck?

 

Americans may be living through the first back-to-back completed single-term presidencies since Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan in the 1850s.

 

Incumbents are hard to dislodge. Only four full-term presidents have lost reelection in the last century. But Biden’s unpopularity, his physical and mental condition, and his party’s weak bench put the Democrats at a disadvantage.

 

If Biden opts against reelection, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic front-runner. But it might be a status that she does not keep for long. Harris is even less popular than Biden. His net-favorable rating, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, is negative-eight points. Hers is negative-15 points. It sometimes seems as if Biden selected Harris as vice president to send America a message: No matter how much you dislike me, things could be worse.

 

Harris would almost certainly draw a primary challenge. The list of potential rivals includes California governor Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Colorado governor Jared Polis, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

 

Harris would benefit from incumbency and the inroads she has made among black voters. Her problem would be campaigning. She’s terrible at it. An open Democratic primary would be rancorous, raucous, and unpredictable.

 

In other words, it would be a lot like the open Republican primary. True, Trump would begin the race as a quasi-incumbent. He would be the only candidate running for the GOP nomination who had won it before and who had served as president. But he would also face opposition within the party, including from some of his former employees.

 

No fewer than a dozen GOP officials are contemplating presidential campaigns. In the running are Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Senators Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Tim Scott, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Maryland governor Larry Hogan, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem.

 

Some of these candidacies may not materialize if Trump enters the race. Others will happen regardless. And if for some reason Trump does not run, the Republican field will expand to include possible entrants such as Ohio senator-elect J. D. Vance.

 

Trump will face distractions if he launches a third campaign. His health may be a concern. He will be 78 years old — Biden’s current age — on Election Day 2024. Quality of life matters too: Playing golf is a lot more fun than being president. And the six investigations into Trump’s personal, professional, and political life in two states and the District of Columbia must take up a lot of his time.

 

Let’s assume Trump does run. He will begin with a huge polling and fund-raising advantage. At this writing, Trump leads the RealClearPolitics average of national GOP primary polls by a whopping 31 points. His super PAC, Save America, has raised more than $100 million. And his ability to attract media coverage is unparalleled.

 

The greatest threat to a third Trump nomination comes from DeSantis. He won an impressive reelection victory without Trump’s help. He has raised more than $200 million. He is in a distant second place to Trump in national polls. But a September USA Today/Suffolk poll found DeSantis beating Trump among Florida Republican primary voters. And a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that more Republicans want DeSantis to influence the direction of the GOP than want Trump to.

 

DeSantis has the talent and resources to wage a national campaign. His best shot would be to perform well enough in New Hampshire and South Carolina to force Trump into a Florida showdown. But success is not guaranteed. For one thing, there is a strong possibility that the 2024 GOP primary will be a replay of 2016, when a multicandidate field divided the anti-Trump vote.

 

Furthermore, DeSantis may have peaked too soon. Some voices in MAGA-world portray him as a servant of the dread Republican establishment. Other observers, such as talk-show host Megyn Kelly, say that DeSantis can’t match Trump’s star power. “I think Trump sucks up all the energy in every room, no matter what,” she said in a viral video in October. “And even someone as skilled a politician and smart policy-wise as DeSantis can’t overcome that.” Trump shared the clip on his social-media platform with the comment “I AGREE!”

 

There are three possible scenarios for a primary in which both Trump and DeSantis are candidates. The first is that Trump beats DeSantis and everyone else and wins the nomination handily. The second is that DeSantis beats Trump and wins the nomination — though how Trump might react to defeat is anyone’s guess.

 

The third scenario is more complex. It is possible that Trump and DeSantis would divide the “pro-Trump” vote in 2024 in the same way that Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich divided the “anti-Trump” vote in 2016. If so, there is a chance that neither Trump nor DeSantis would win a majority.

 

Such a deadlock would create the space for a third candidate to claim the nomination. The candidate would have to appeal to some Trump voters as well as the remaining Trump-leery parts of the GOP coalition: social conservatives who attend church regularly and suburban voters with college degrees. This third scenario may sound far-fetched. Yet it offers hope to, say, Glenn Youngkin.

 

The likeliest result is another Trump nomination followed by a Trump–Biden rematch. But likely is not the same as certain. There are bound to be surprises along the way. The saying goes that Republicans always nominate the front-runner — but not without humiliating him first. Since Donald Trump announced for president on June 16, 2015, American politics have been mighty strange. They are about to get stranger.