Relying on polls to predict the outcome of the 2024 presidential race this far out is fraught with peril. The GOP candidate is not yet decided, President Joe Biden’s family scandals may ultimately make him an untenable candidate, and, most of all, third-party challenges and internecine political warfare could derail the whole show. So what factors will impact the current president’s electoral hopes? And are these landmines avoidable?
Primary Challenges for 2024
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) believes it has everything sewn up with getting Biden on the 2024 ballot, but Democrat voters may be singing from a different hymn sheet. So far, only three candidates have declared their intentions; this could, however, change rapidly if Biden’s polling gets any worse than it already is. Marianne Williamson is running for her second consecutive bid and is polling at an average of 5.6%, according to the RealClearPolitics aggregate. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on the other hand, poses a serious challenge.
Fresh out of the gate with a polling average of 21%, Kennedy has experienced a near-constant media barrage that has shrunk his numbers to roughly 15%. And yet the presidential hopeful could receive a boost thanks to Biden’s primary ballot strategy. Hoping to capitalize on his success in the 2020 South Carolina primary that saved his ailing campaign, the president plans to make the Palmetto State the first to vote. This has irked the traditional starters: Iowa and New Hampshire.
Axios reported that Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire plan to “defy Biden and move ahead with their contests – even as the party warns it will strip them of their national convention delegates if they jump the gun.” The DNC has issued a Sept. 1 deadline to fall in line. As Liberty Nation’s Senior Political Analyst Tim Donner concluded:
“Thanks to his own unilateral decision, not only would the already unpopular Biden lose twice at the very start of the primary season, but the fact of his defeat and the consequent rash of ‘who is RFK. Jr.?’ stories likely to arise even in corporate media devoted to Biden would send exactly the wrong message to voters who have expressed growing alarm about the ever more enfeebled man occupying the Oval Office.”
Biden could, in fact, find himself in second or even third place out of the primary gate, leading to a domino effect in later states. As the incumbent president, he will almost certainly win in the end, but the net negative impact could be sizable and damaging.
Speaking of RFK Jr.
RFK Jr. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
For RFK, it seems the kid gloves have come off. Initially presenting himself as a candidate with a different vision, weeks of negative news stories appear to have hardened his outlook. While questioned by Fox News on the Biden family corruption scandal, the candidate originally insisted that he was not interested in pointing the finger. He said, “What I’ve tried to do in this campaign is to focus on issues and focus on the values and not focus on ad hominem attacks on people.” Regarding the specific allegations, he added, “I think on every side it’s something that people should be concerned about, but it’s not something that I’m making a spear tip to my campaign.” But times have changed.
Speaking again with Fox after the recent release of an FBI document that claimed both Hunter and Joe received payments for services rendered to Ukrainian company Burisma, the candidate finally appeared willing to play hardball:
“I think the issues [that] are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation of what happened. I mean, these revelations about the, where you had Burisma, which is, you know, a notoriously corrupt company that paid out, apparently, $10 million to Hunter and his dad. If that’s true, then it is really troubling. So, I think that that needs to be investigated.”
The Hunter Biden Factor
A widely cited poll by the Media Research Center determined that 16% of Biden voters would not have voted the way they did in 2020 had they been aware of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Many have argued that such information could have been a deciding factor in the last election. And yet that particular scandal may be entirely eclipsed by the latest allegations being played out in Congress.
Hunter Biden (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Since before the 2020 election, Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed that he had no knowledge of his son’s business affairs and that such matters were “never” discussed between them. This has been repeated endlessly by White House staff. However, with a former business associate of Hunter, Devon Archer, expected to testify on July 31, such denials are beginning to look fragile.
Add to this the FBI’s damning Burisma 1023 form and the overarching scandal just increases in size. It should be noted that the allegations against the family have not been proven, but then neither were the claims made by the Russia collusion hoax that so rocked Donald Trump’s presidency.
Third-Party Electoral Math
Philosopher and scholar Cornel West – running for the Green Party nomination – will almost certainly be a headache for Joe Biden’s 2024 hopes. In 2020, Biden managed to pull together all the disparate factions that make up the Democratic Party, ostensibly because the groups had a choice of Donald Trump or a Democrat – any Democrat. But perhaps this patient permissiveness is at an end.
Bernie Sanders (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Progressives have been denied their chosen candidate repeatedly. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) appeared to have the momentum in 2016 but was summarily dismissed by the DNC in favor of Hillary Clinton. The voters dutifully got behind her. Again in 2020, the Bernie Bros were blocked in order to help drag Biden across the finish line. Like Charlie Brown sizing up Lucy as she holds the football, the far-left progressives must be wondering if they will ever get a genuine shot. Dr. West could deliver a powerful message to the Democrat apparatus.
The former Harvard professor has an almost zero percent chance of winning the election. But as a two-time surrogate of Sanders, he already has his key audience in place as well as a bevy of staff ready to make America “feel the Bern” – albeit in a rebranded package. Trump won in 2016 because voters were sick of establishment-led politics that ignored their concerns. For Democrats, West is an opportunity to put their party on notice.
It remains unlikely that the Green Party will make significant waves in the general election, but even a small ripple could sink the USS Biden. Democrat think tank Third Way posited that even a small deduction from the overall vote could play havoc in the Electoral College math: “In 2020, Biden won six of the seven states where the margin was three points or less. Even a paltry third-party performance would put 79 Biden electoral votes at risk (GA, AZ, WI, PA, NV, and MI).”
The Kamala Harris Time Bomb
A major boost for Biden in 2020 was his choice of running mate. Not only was Kamala Harris a “woman of color,” she also offered an energy that was sorely missing from the man himself. However, after two and a half years in the number two spot, she has become a liability.
Kamala Harris (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Even more unpopular than the president, Harris is rated – according to data in a USA Today/Suffolk poll – as the most unpopular vice president in modern history, even beating out Dick Cheney. She has flitted from event to event making word-salad speeches, failed at the roles assigned to her (think border czar), and is most recently under fire for just plain making stuff up.
And sadly for Team Biden, they’re stuck with her.
There was almost certainly a number of voters who went for Biden in 2020 because they assumed that Harris would – at some point – take over and shatter the glass ceiling. Biden did, after all, call himself a “transition candidate.” Perhaps now those voters are terrified at the same prospect.
Biden’s Inherent Flaw
Despite all these obstacles – many of which could be overcome – the main roadblock in Joe Biden’s plans is Joe Biden himself. In 2020, he was an unknown quantity in terms of presidential ability. He made promises of “unity” and of responsible governance that have failed to materialize.
The Fourth Estate and the DC establishment are still willing to back their man in the White House, giving Biden advantages that no other candidate in recent memory can claim. And yet it is his track record in office and his own personality that will be the most significant hurdles.
