The Truth About Biden's Strength In 2024

With some on the left already predicting a Biden loss to Trump in 2024, it's important to remember the President's strengths heading into election season.

Donald Trump (L) and President Joe Biden (R) during the final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22, 2020. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images.

Well, the hand-wringing has begun. 

You’ve no doubt heard the chatter, the refrain from left-leaning friends and family claiming Biden is going to lose to Trump next year, swallowing whole the framing by Trump and Fox of the 2024 election.

Oh, Biden’s too old, he can’t walk, he can’t string two sentences together. The frustrating irony, of course, is that Trump demonstrated far more cognitive issues during his presidency than Biden ever has. 

I mean, the guy looked right at the sun during an eclipse. He walked out of an executive order signing ceremony before even signing the orders. He suggested injecting disinfectant to cure Covid. And in a truly “he doth protest too much” moment, he tried to convince us that it was actually impressive that he could remember five simple words in a row. Not to mention his repeated inability to pronounce simple words during speeches, as perfectly documented by The Daily Show.

And Trump is no spring chicken himself, at 77 years old, just 3.5 years younger than the current president.

It’s hard to fight against an established narrative, so even the slightest hint at a stumble or gaffe by Biden plays into the right’s story about him being “unfit.” Let’s be honest, though: If Trump were to do the same thing it would hardly register, as any mistake he makes is brushed off, baked into his “unconventional politician” persona, even as his projection of false strength is taken as the real thing by his supporters and conservative media.

But the reality of Joe Biden’s strengths—both personal and political—is far different. And while conventional wisdom in some circles may be that Biden is doomed, the facts should lead us to a different conclusion altogether.

This is not to say that somehow Joe Biden has it in the bag, of course. It’s much too early to draw that conclusion on either side. But it is to say that if you’re discouraged by the prevalent narrative that the hand-wringers would have you believe, just know that there is a compelling, evidence-based, competing narrative—one in which Joe Biden is in a very strong position and has more than a viable path to victory in 2024.

And as we begin to envision that outcome, we must all do what we can to work toward making it a reality.

No, Polls Do NOT Look Good For Trump

On August 1, The New York Times released a poll showing Joe Biden and Donald Trump tied at 43% each. This was not great news for Joe Biden, to be sure, and certainly provided fodder for those convinced 2024 is poised to be 2016 all over again.

But let’s consider a few things:

Trump never received more than 47% of the vote in either 2016 or 2020. So 43% is quite close to Trump’s ceiling of 46.8%, while in 2020 Joe Biden got over 51%; starting from this 43% poll result, Biden has much more room to grow.

The NYT poll confirms this, making clear that the remaining 16% of voters in the poll– the “Neither Of The Aboves”—are “unenthusiastic about Biden, but they are considerably less happy with Trump.” In other words, they are part of the “anti-Trump majority” and would break overwhelmingly for Biden.

Then add on top of this Trump’s mounting legal woes.

Since the NYT poll was taken between July 23-27, Trump has been indicted three times:

• July 28: Superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case in federal court in Florida, adding three new charges to Trump as well as a new co-defendant.

• August 1: Four counts in federal court in D.C. for his corrupt effort to overturn the 2020 election.

• August 14: Grand Jury in Fulton County, Georgia on 41 counts on racketeering charges related to his scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

While the Biden/Trump head-to-head polls over this period continue to show a close race, a deeper dive into the polls makes clear that Trump’s growing list of indictments is starting to take a toll.

First, take the AP-NORC poll taken Aug. 10-14, which found Trump’s favorability at just 35% with an unfavorable rating of 62%. A whopping 53% of respondents in this poll said they “definitely” will not vote for him in 2024, with an additional 11% saying they will likely not support him. This anti-Trump voting bloc of 64% matches pretty closely with his 62% unfavorable rating. And if Trump is convicted of any of the crimes he’s accused of? That never-Trump vote rises to 70%.

Then there is the Quinnipiac Poll taken Aug. 10-14, which similarly registered Trump’s favorability at 38% and found that 54% of voters believe Trump “should be prosecuted on criminal charges.” And 64% of respondents feel “the federal criminal charges accusing former President Trump of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election” were either very or somewhat serious.

Even Republicans are tiring of the former president’s legal troubles.

A Reuters Ipsos poll found that 20% of Republicans do NOT see the charges against Trump as politically motivated. And 31% of Republican voters in a new Marist poll feel Trump has too much baggage to lead their party.

Add to that a new Benenson Strategy Group poll showing 24% of likely 2024 Republican voters would be less likely to support Trump as a result of the criminal charges against him. And that’s in a poll where Trump and Biden are tied 46%-46%.

All of which has led Democratic pollster Joel Benenson to conclude:

“I’m not saying this is a slam dunk. I’m saying that [Trump] is in a much weakened position than he was even compared to 2020, which is the election he lost.”

Or as one X user put it:

“Trump can’t get re-elected with this polling. And it’s only going to get worse for him.”

Bidenomics Could Be Joe Biden’s Secret Weapon

Jay Kuo has written eloquently about the disconnect between the objectively good economic data being reported versus the way people seem to feel about the economy. But Team Biden is betting that that gap between reality and perception will close as the election nears.

Because the fact is, Joe Biden has a lot of strong economic news to run on, and if the American people aren’t feeling the data in their pocketbooks yet, it’s a fair bet that they just might as the election heats up months from now.

For one thing, the Gross Domestic Product grew at a rate of 2.4% in Q2, that’s up from 2.0% in Q1, a trend that has defied skeptics’ expectations of a looming recession.

Even notoriously pro-Trump Fox Business reported on the news, exclaiming:

“Talk about a strong economy — there goes that recession talk, right?”

Such “recession revisionism” seems to reflect the growing consensus among economists—many of whom now forecast a “soft landing” rather than a recession this year. 

Additionally, unemployment dropped to 3.5% in July, and while job creation nationally was below expectations, many states around the country are reporting record-low unemployment as post-Covid recovery continues to roll on thanks to Bidenomics.

One strong hint that perhaps the American people are beginning to feel the positive economic news in their own household budgets: consumer confidence jumped to the highest level in two years in July, exceeding expectations.

And contrary to what Republicans would have us believe, this news comes as inflation hovers around just 3%, well below its 9% peak last year and below that of any other G7 nation.

Democrats Keep Overperforming In Election After Election

The positive economic outlook is not the only trend that favors Biden ahead of next year’s presidential election.

As Simon Rosenberg of The Hopium Chronicles Substack put it on X recently in response to the new AP/NORC poll:

The impact of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade cannot be overstated as a game changer for Democratic electoral strength.

Ever since Donald Trump’s stacked Supreme Court overturned Roe, voters have revolted in election after election, with Democrats consistently overperforming, whether it was:

• the November 2022 midterms, in which Democrats held back a predicted red wave, gained a Senate seat, and kept the GOP’s House majority to just 5 seats; 

• the April 2023 Wisconsin State Supreme Court race in which voters gave a liberal justice who ran on abortion rights an 11-point win to flip the makeup of the court from 5-4 conservative to 5-4 liberal; or 

• the August 2023 Issue 1 referendum in which Ohio voters overwhelmingly defeated a Republican ballot initiative to make it harder for voters to change the State Constitution at the ballot box, largely seen as a proxy for the upcoming abortion rights codification ballot measure on the ballot in November.

Or put another way:

An analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that in 38 special elections held so far this year, Democrats have outperformed the partisan lean -- or the relative liberal or conservative history -- of the areas where the races were held by an average of 10%, both romping in parts of the country that typically support the party while cutting down on GOP margins in red cities and counties, too.

And as Rosenberg notes, the evidence of a rejuvenated Democratic grassroots army rising up against the anti-abortion and culture war crusade of radical Republicans doesn’t end there.  

Despite this trend, of course, Republicans have only doubled down, both at the local and national levels, pushing for ever more radical abortion restrictions and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

In one sign of Republican extremist remorse, however, the California Republican Party is weighing the possibility of reversing its longstanding opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage in its platform.

“It’s a seismic shift but it’s a shift born out of practical necessity. Look at what’s happening not just in California but in much more conservative states, realizing antiabortion, anti-same-sex marriage stances are no longer tenable,” said Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School. “I think it shows their acknowledgment that the sand has shifted underneath their feet.”

But this is by far the exception.

And Democrats intend to remind voters of the GOP’s extremism at every opportunity, as this 2024 Democratic strategy memo lays out:

"It is crucial that Democrats remind voters early and often that ... MAGA Republicans are focusing their power on advocating for dangerous and unpopular abortion bans.”

Where Does This Put Biden In Terms Of The 2024 Electoral Map?

Looking ahead to the 2024 presidential race, the overperformance of Democrats at the ballot box in 2022 is especially notable because of where that strength was located.

As Ron Brownstein wrote for CNN right after the 2022 elections:

Looking at the Electoral College, this year’s results offered more reason for optimism to Democrats than Republicans. Five states decided the last presidential race by flipping from Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats have already won six of the eight Senate and governor races decided across them this month and could notch a seventh victory if Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeats Herschel Walker in a Georgia run-off in December.

In fact, Senator Warnock did go on to win that run-off. And now in 2023, Democrats continue to show strength in these key states, with governors in the three blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin enjoying strong majority approval ratings (PA: Josh Shapiro 57%, MI: Whitmer 56%, WI: Evers 57%.) This is on top of collapsing state GOPs in Arizona and Michigan as a result of their following Trump over the Big Lie cliff.

It should be noted, however, that as a result of the 2020 Census, the 2024 Electoral Map is not the same as it was in 2020, with a slight shift toward the GOP.

So the map that gave Biden a 306-232 Electoral College win in 2020:

Would now give Biden a 303-235 victory next year.

But even with that shift, Joe Biden can lose Arizona and Georgia and still win the presidency with 276 Electoral votes.

This does require Biden to hold the blue wall states of the rust belt, of course, which show little signs of shifting back to Trump.

But if you want even more evidence that Biden has the wind at his back in the event of a 2024 Biden/Trump rematch, Rosenberg laid out a more comprehensive case in a recent edition of his Hopium Chronicles newsletter:

• Democrats have averaged 51% of the vote over the last 4 Presidential elections, our best showing over 4 elections since FDR’s Presidency.

• Democrats have won more votes in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections, the best popular vote run of any political party in US history.

• In a “red wave” year, 2022, Democrats gained ground from 2020 in 7 key battlegrounds: AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, PA. We also picked up 4 state legislative chambers, 2 governorships and 1 US Senate seat. As we’ve written 2022 was not a single nationalized election, but really two elections - a bluer election in the battleground where we gained, and a redder election outside where we did not. We’ve seen this strong Dem performance continue into 2023 with impressive wins in CO, FL, OH, PA and WI.

• Democrats are having their best run in the Southwest since the 1940s and 50s. In 2004 Bush won AZ, CO, NM, NV, Rs controlled 5 of their 8 Senate seats, 14 of their 21 House seats. In 2020 Biden was the 1st Democratic to win those 4 states since FDR, and today Rs control none of those 8 Senate seats and we control 14 of 23 House seats there.

And what of the head-to-head polling that seems to show a tied race? Rosenberg tracks that as well.

And it’s not as bleak as it seems.

Here is the recent polling for Biden-Trump (via 538):

• YouGov/Economist 43-42

• Marist 47-46

• Beacon/Fox 44-41

• Quinnipiac 47-46

• Morning Consult 43-41

• Cygnal 46-43

• Noble 44-41

• Siena/NYT 43-43

Or as Rosenberg notes:

Averaged together, that’s a 2 point Biden lead with no campaign, no ads, and a fully engaged GOP on the other side.

So where should all this leave us looking ahead to next year?

At this point, we should feel hopeful and determined. Trump may be rallying his Republican base, but he has alienated a great deal of the rest of the electorate, and he has done nothing to win over more voters than he got in 2020 when he lost the election soundly. Meanwhile, good economic news will begin to favor Biden while Trump will be increasingly hobbled by developments in his four pending criminal cases.

This doesn’t mean we grow complacent. On the contrary, it is all hands on deck time. None of the great outcomes outlined above will come true if Democratic voters—along with the anti-Trump independents and Republicans—don’t turn out in force. Because we already know that if Trump is on the ballot, MAGA will. 

And so as we approach yet another “most important election of our lifetime” in less than 15 months, it’s important to know what our strengths are and play to them, while combating the sense of gloom that Republicans hope will depress turnout.

And as economic conditions continue to improve, by November of 2024, we will not only have many clear reasons to argue that the country should reject Trump once again, but we will be able to cite many strong, positive reasons to cast a vote for Biden.