And it is confirmed. After Super Tuesday, it seems clear that the 2024 presidential election will be a second round: for the first time since 1912, a former president will challenge another incumbent. The candidates are exceptionally well-known; However, about 12% of voters have not yet decided between them. Those undecided voters can decide what is shaping up to be a very close race. In the six elections before 2000, the average margin of electoral victory was nine points. In the six after 2000, it has been three points. Even that data underestimates how close the current presidential elections are. Only six states will be hotly contested in November. Last time, 160 million Americans went to the polls, but Joe Biden won in Wisconsin, the state that tipped the balance, by 20,000 votes, or 0.013% of the total votes cast. When elections are so close, small differences can have very transformative effects.
And there are a dozen factors that could tip the election towards President Biden or Donald Trump. There are these issues: the economy, the border, abortion. There are the factors of participation and persuasion operations, donors and volunteers. However, in these elections there are also three other major areas of uncertainty.
The first is the role of third parties. Many Americans find the two major parties a bit uncomfortable. In theory, breaking their duopoly would be wonderful. In practice, simply looking at the current third party candidates is a cure for such a line of thinking. This year's crop includes Jill Stein, an environmentalist whose singular contribution to the United States may have been facilitating Trump's victory in 2016 and thereby its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. To Cornel West, a left-wing professor who thinks there is no big difference between Biden and Trump. And then there's Robert Kennedy Jr.
The two major parties jealously defend their duopoly. Since 2000, when Ralph Nader won enough votes in Florida to swing the state in favor of George W. Bush, the parties have tightened the rules on who can get on the ballot in a presidential election. Stein and West are unlikely to qualify in every state (although they could still hurt Biden). Kennedy is different. In polls that include third parties, he obtains 12% of the votes. That suggests he will get enough signatures to get on the ballot in most states. And, if those polls are translated into percentage of votes in November, it would have by far the highest result for a third party since Ross Perot in 1992.
It's hard to say who Kennedy will attract more votes from. The last name suggests that he could seduce Democrats more, but Republicans like him more. His skepticism regarding the environment and vaccines mixes issues from the left and the right. His cheerers are the tech tycoons of Silicon Valley who see disruption as an intrinsic good. All of this suggests that a scenario in which Kennedy helps Trump achieve victory is disturbingly possible.
A second great uncertainty characteristic of these elections has to do with Trump's trials. Last week, the Supreme Court (in which all nine Thursdays ruled against the state of Colorado) sent the clear signal that it preferred to stay out of this election. Therefore, Trump will be on the ballot everywhere. Over the last two years there has been speculation that he would be imprisoned before the elections or that, if re-elected, he would even have to govern from a cell. None of that will happen. Most of the trials he faces will not be concluded (taking into account appeals) before November 5. The only case most likely to be decided in time is the most trivial: the trial for buying the silence of Stormy Daniels, a porn star, in 2016 and disguising the payment of legal fees.
This is not to say that trials are irrelevant. In our Economist/YouGov polls, a third of Republican voters respond that being “a criminal” is not a desirable trait in a candidate. Negative partisanship (the conviction that whatever one's side does, the other side is worse) means that a large majority of those who voted for Trump last time will do so again now. However, as the trial over his role in the January 6, 2021 riots begins, there will be constant reminders about how he ended his first term just as undecided voters will be weighing whether to give him another one. Yes, most Republican voters will find a way to rationalize the accusations against Trump. However, the trials continue to be a burden for him.
The third area of uncertainty is the age of the candidates. Biden and Trump will be, respectively, the oldest and second-oldest candidates in history, raising the odds of what is euphemistically called a “health issue.” On the Republican side, Trump has no political heir. He has placed his campaign manager as the party's chief of operations and a daughter-in-law as co-chair. This is a very brittle form of power. His dominance over the party is so absolute that chaos would ensue if he were incapacitated.
On the other hand, there is a debate among Democrats about whether Biden is capable of winning a campaign due to his age. His poll numbers remain strangely low given the strength of the economy. The White House's response is that the polls are wrong and that the president's fortunes will change when more voters start paying attention to him. Could be. Still, 85% of Americans and 70% of Democrats think he is too old to serve another term. That is unlikely to change.
If he continues to trail in swing-state polls before the party's nominee is crowned at the August convention, the main argument for Biden — that he is the best defense against a second Trump term — will be difficult to sustain. . Replacing it then would be risky and could be chaotic. Biden would have to step aside voluntarily, which seems unlikely. Kamala Harris, the vice president and likely successor, may be an even weaker candidate.
One way around that problem would be for Democrats to hold a talent show at the convention. The risk is that candidates will be dragged to the left to please an activist audience. An alternative would be for the party barons to opt for someone like Gretchen Whitmer, the young governor of Michigan, or Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, a charismatic orator. They would then have two months to campaign amid a storm of media attention, while Trump is tried on January 6.
It may seem inevitable that the 2024 election will be between Biden and Trump. Now, given the peculiarities that characterize the current electoral contest, there is greater uncertainty than one might think.
© 2024 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved
Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
