Looking ahead to 5 things that will define the 2024 election

It is divisible by four. It’s a leap year. It is a Summer Olympics year.

It’s presidential election year.

Happy new year?

Whether the 2024 presidential election fills you with fear or excitement, there’s no doubt that the table is set for an extraordinary year.

The potential for political unrest has rarely seemed clearer. Voters are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country and their chances of becoming president. President Biden’s approval rating at this stage is lower than for any president in the era of modern polling, dating back to the 1940s. His likely opponent faces several criminal trials. Waiting in the wings is an independent candidate with the last name Kennedy. The Democratic Convention is even in Chicago.

Here are just a few of the big issues that will define the 2024 election.

Can Nikki Haley Win State?

Of all the items on this list, this is probably the least consequential. But it’s first on the calendar, with the first primary just a few weeks away, and a Haley win in New Hampshire or South Carolina is neither impossible nor irrelevant.

Ahead of the holidays, surveys showed Ms. Haley approaching or even exceeding 30 percent in New Hampshire, putting her closer to an upset than it seems given the volatile nature of early primaries.

Her path to victory in New Hampshire is still quite narrow. Her recent stumble in answering a question about the cause of the Civil War may halt her momentum. And even if she beats Donald J. Trump in the state, it’s hard to see her being a serious threat to win the nomination given the relatively narrow, factional nature of her appeal.

But if she were to get back on her feet and succeed in causing a disruption in New Hampshire or South Carolina, it would still have symbolic significance. It would remind us that the non-Trump wing of the Republican Party, while smaller and weakened, still existed. It would mark a visible break in Republican support for Trump, and come just weeks before his scheduled trial in March.

There is a possible chain of events in which the combination of a trial and a Haley victory becomes more important than we might imagine today.

The trial of Donald J. Trump

Perhaps the criminal trial of Mr. Trump won’t go down as “the greatest political spectacle of our lifetimes” or something similarly grandiose, but it’s hard to think of anything like it that has ever graced the political calendar.

The trial promises to be the political focus for the first half of the year, with the federal election subversion trial scheduled to begin on March 4 – the day before Super Tuesday in the Republican Party primaries – and possibly beyond will last through the heart of the Republican Party. primary season, although delays are possible.

It is difficult to believe that a trial by itself will do serious political damage to Mr. Trump. After all, he survived the charges unscathed. And he would likely gather enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination before the jury reached its verdict. If the trial begins as scheduled, Republican delegates will be given the ascendancy within a month of the trial’s start.

But there is one way in which a trial could matter: It could lead to a realization among Republican primaries and elites that Trump is likely to be convicted. And whether they see it coming or not, a conviction is not the same as a trial or an indictment. It could be much more consistent.

Recent polls — including New York Times/Siena College polls in October — show Biden opening up a lead if Trump is convicted, let alone jailed. These polls should be taken with a grain of salt; they pose hypothetical positions for voters, who usually don’t pay attention to Trump’s legal troubles. But they remind us that there are risks associated with his candidacy. In a close race, it can be decisive even if only a small portion of voters refuse to vote for a felon.

At the same time, a conviction would provide a new path for those who want to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot, either by disqualifying him from court or denying him the nomination at the Republican convention.

Mr. Trump also faces a lawsuit in Florida over his handling of classified materials and in Georgia in an election case, though appeals and delays could extend beyond the election. There’s also the upcoming Stormy Daniels case involving the possible falsification of corporate records in New York, which is generally not being brought to the same level as the other cases.

And let’s not forget the likely Supreme Court case on whether he is disqualified from becoming president under the 14th Amendment.

All of this is extraordinary to think about. To simply call this ‘something to watch’ is a gross understatement. But that’s our politics these days.

The new swing vote

If you’ve been following the election long enough, the term “swing voter” might conjure up images of soccer moms, security moms, Reagan Democrats, the white working class and countless other archetypes of the predominantly white suburban voters who analysts said were the American elections decided. during the last half century.

But as 2024 begins, the voters about to decide the election look very, very different from the swing voters of old. They are disproportionately young, black and Hispanic.

Whether these voters return to Mr. Biden is one of the biggest questions of the cycle, not only because it could decide the election, but also because it risks shaping the trajectory of American politics for decades.

As we have written countless times, there will be many opportunities in the coming year for Mr. Biden to lure back these traditionally Democratic but disaffected voters. Ultimately, he might approach or match his support from last time. If he does, the whole debate about it may seem misplaced.

But whatever the outcome, the reality of so many young, black and Latinx voters could powerfully shape the incentives the candidates face and perhaps even the overall trajectory of the race. For the first time, there is a clear case that both Democrats and Republicans have an incentive to focus more on black, Hispanic and young voters than on white, working-class voters. This may not result in drastic changes in strategy, policy or messaging. But it would be surprising if this resulted in no change at all.

Eight years ago, Mr. Trump was kick Univision leaves the press conferences. Now he teaches Univision exclusive interviews. This is just one small, early anecdote, well before the campaign starts. The examples can be even more striking on election day.

The third party?

There’s another place disaffected young black and Hispanic voters can turn: a third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Mr. Kennedy is not looking forward to the 2024 race as much as Mr. Trump’s trials. We don’t even know if Mr. Kennedy will successfully access the ballot. But it’s another obvious X-factor that we can see coming, even if we don’t know how it could affect the race.

The early polls – which show Mr Kennedy in the teens – seem plausible at this early stage. About 20 percent of voters nationwide have unfavorable opinions of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, and Mr. Kennedy has a brand that previous minor candidates like Gary Johnson, a Libertarian in 2016, could never have dreamed of.

Historically, most independent candidates fail. Mr Johnson saw his support reach almost 10 per cent in July 2016 profit 3.3 percent in November. Mr. Kennedy could be fading for similar reasons, especially now that the stakes of a Biden-Trump matchup seem so high. On the other hand, Mr. Johnson was no Kennedy.

Will another year help or hurt Biden?

In many ways, Biden’s prospects in 2024 should be bright. It looks like the economy is finally on the verge of a soft landing. His opponent will appear in court. And the voters he needs — young, black and Hispanic — are the kind of voters Democrats generally think are easiest to win back.

All this could ultimately push Mr. Biden to re-election. Many sitting presidents have won under very similar circumstances, with the help of a polarizing campaign and a growing economy.

But there’s a catch: Some of these favorable winds have been at Mr. Biden’s back for most of the past year, and he appears weaker than ever.

Despite an improving economy, Mr. Biden’s approval rating is up only 39 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. That is a net eight points lower than a year ago. It’s also worse than any previous president on the last New Year’s Day before re-election. Satisfaction with the country passes so low as it was in 1980, 1992, 2008 and 2020 – years in which the president’s party was defeated.

One possibility, of course, is that it’s only a matter of time. The economic news has only become unequivocally positive in recent weeks or months. Consumer confidence is still below average, but it seems to be improving. That could help Mr. Biden’s ratings. Looking at the numbers, you could say this is already the case: His approval rating is up about 1.5 points over the past three weeks.

Unlike most presidents seeking re-election, Biden is also dogged by lingering questions about whether he should be the party’s nominee. Democrats have spent more time thinking about his age than defending his record. His party will likely put aside its doubts and rally behind him once he wins the nomination this summer. Maybe then he will finally rejuvenate his support.

But the other possibility is that time is not on his side. It may even be part of the problem.

The president is getting older every day. To the extent that his age, stumbling and stuttering explain why voters lack confidence in his leadership and the direction of the country, there isn’t much reason to expect things to get better. It could get worse.