Yeah, Sarah, I would be shocked if a prominent Democrat runs versus Biden. I would not be surprised, however, if he declines to run for reelection.
But if Trump were to all of a sudden wait to announce or were even to float the concept he will not run that might complicate Biden’s decision-making process if he is considering not running once again. I guess I’m just skeptical that Biden would surrender without an apparent beneficiary obvious regardless of his age.
(After all, he beat Trump in 2020.) However I’m uncertain how much the data backs that up. According to a You, Gov/Yahoo News poll from the start of the month, signed up voters picked Biden over Trump 45 percent to 42 percent. However they also chose Harris over Trump 45 percent to 44 percent.
And that’s prior to even entering into the reality that 2024 is 2 years away and early general-election polls are quite useless. It mostly depends upon the pollster as to whether Biden leads or Trump leads, however on balance, Biden may lead slightly generally. I do think, though, some Democrats think anyone other than Biden might be weaker versus Trump.
Most of the discontent appears to be coming within Biden’s own party, too. To be clear, 75 percent of Democrats stated they approve of the job Biden is doing as president.
Where Biden goes from here back up or stagnant could be important to identifying whether he runs again., however he’s still undersea general.
Is it reasonable to say that we’re all in agreement that there is not room for anybody else in the Democratic main aside from Biden unless, of course, he doesn’t run? OK, time to talk about the Republican side of things.
Of those, De, Santis is the only one who (presently) seems capable of defeating Trump ought to the former president undoubtedly run.
After all, we saw in 2016 that the Republican primaries’ use of winner-take-all or winner-take-most delegate systems assisted Trump quite handily win the election with just a plurality of the primary vote. If you get a number of prospects splitting up the vote not going for Trump, it’s simply going to make it simpler for him to win.
You’re not challenging a sitting president, and there certainly appears to be a minimum of some hesitancy over Trump and the idea that he has excessive baggage and might not be able to win in a general election once again. A New York City Times/Siena College survey from last month found, for instance, that nearly half of Americans who planned to vote in the 2024 Republican primary would choose a candidate other than Trump in a main race.
I’m thankful you brought up that poll, because I believed that was an interesting method to frame the outcomes, as one could also argue from that poll that Trump is still the undeniable leader. He was initially, with 49 percent support, and De, Santis was in second, at 25 percent.
There is definitely more room for a challenger to Trump than to Biden, but Trump would still be preferred. According to a recent Politico/Morning Consult survey, 56 percent of Republican politician and independent authorized voters said they would support Trump, while 18 percent stated they would support De, Santis, 8 percent stated they would support Pence and a lot of other prospects all got 2 percent or less.
According to that You, Gov/Yahoo News survey I discussed previously, Trump beats De, Santis 44 percent to 35 percent amongst signed up citizens in a direct match. Absolutely, however this point (from the Times reporting on the poll) was an interesting contrast to me: “His share of the Republican primary electorate is less than Hillary Clinton’s amongst Democrats was at the outset of the 2016 race.” Obviously, Clinton ultimately won that race, but it wasn’t an assurance Sanders gave her a real run for her cash.
The Times could have likewise compared Trump to Gore’s position in 1999. He, obviously, went on to win the primary without much difficulty. That said, De, Santis is clearly a genuine hazard to Trump; a 9-point lead in the surveys is not secure. That’s especially true given that Trump has universal name recognition, while De, Santis doesn’t.
I know we had a chat back in the day about whether Trump’s grip on the GOP is still strong. At the time, I said that Trump might be weaker than some would like to confess, but after Tuesday night’s results most notably Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary loss coupled with the fates of the nine other Republicans who voted to impeach the previous president I actually believe it’ll be actually difficult for another Republican to cut through his power.