Yeah, Sarah, I would be shocked if a popular Democrat runs against Biden. I would not be shocked, however, if he declines to run for reelection.
If Trump were to unexpectedly wait to announce or were even to float the idea he won’t run that could make complex Biden’s decision-making procedure if he is thinking about not running once again. I think I’m just hesitant that Biden would throw in the towel without an obvious successor obvious regardless of his age.
(After all, he beat Trump in 2020.) I’m not sure how much the data backs that up. According to a You, Gov/Yahoo News survey from the beginning of the month, signed up voters picked Biden over Trump 45 percent to 42 percent. They also picked Harris over Trump 45 percent to 44 percent.
Which’s before even entering into the truth that 2024 is 2 years away and early general-election surveys are pretty useless. It mainly depends on the pollster as to whether Biden leads or Trump leads, however on balance, Biden may lead slightly usually. I do think, though, some Democrats think anybody other than Biden might be weaker versus Trump.
Many of the discontent appears to be coming within Biden’s own celebration, too. To be clear, 75 percent of Democrats said 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 once again. Not to discuss that up until really just recently Biden also had the most affordable approval score of any president because completion of World War II. It’s gradually inched back up, however he’s still undersea general.
Is it reasonable to state that we’re all in contract that there is not space for anyone else in the Democratic main aside from Biden unless, of course, he does not run? OK, time to talk about the Republican side of things.
Ron De, Santis, former Vice President Mike Pence, previous UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, previous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan all appear to be lining up to run. But, of those, De, Santis is the only one who (presently) appears capable of defeating Trump ought to the previous president undoubtedly run.
We saw in 2016 that the Republican primaries’ usage of winner-take-all or winner-take-most delegate systems assisted Trump quite conveniently win the nomination with only a plurality of the main vote. If you get a number of candidates splitting up the vote not going for Trump, it’s simply going to make it easier for him to win.
You’re not challenging a sitting president, and there definitely appears to be a minimum of some hesitancy over Trump and the idea that he has excessive baggage and may not be able to win in a general election again. A New York Times/Siena College poll from last month found, for example, that almost half of Americans who prepared to vote in the 2024 Republican primary would select a candidate aside from Trump in a main race.
I’m thankful you brought up that survey, since I thought that was a fascinating method to frame the results, as one could likewise argue from that survey that Trump is still the undisputed leader. He was first, with 49 percent support, and De, Santis remained in 2nd, at 25 percent.
There is certainly more room for a challenger to Trump than to Biden, but Trump would still be favored. According to a current Politico/Morning Consult survey, 56 percent of Republican and independent authorized citizens stated they would support Trump, while 18 percent stated they would support De, Santis, 8 percent said they would support Pence and a bunch of other prospects all got 2 percent or less.
According to that You, Gov/Yahoo News poll I discussed earlier, Trump beats De, Santis 44 percent to 35 percent among registered citizens in a direct matchup. Definitely, but 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 among Democrats was at the beginning of the 2016 race.” Of course, Clinton eventually won that race, however it wasn’t a guarantee Sanders provided her a real run for her cash.
The Times could have also compared Trump to Gore’s position in 1999. That stated, De, Santis is clearly a genuine danger to Trump; a 9-point lead in the surveys is not secure.
I understand 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 outcomes most notably Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s main loss combined with the fates of the nine other Republicans who voted to impeach the former president I in fact believe it’ll be really tough for another Republican to cut through his power.