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It’s such a strange situation we’ve found ourselves in: the President of the United States is incredibly unpopular, the majority of people say the economy sucks over concerns about gas and grocery prices and a number of people — liberals included — aren’t supportive of some to most of his policies, such as his immigration policy. The most fascinating thing is that it’s more than likely Biden will win in 2024. Now, there’s three reasons why: the Democratic opposition, the Republican opposition and voters’ feelings.
The Democratic candidates who are challenging Biden now have absolutely no shot at winning. There are only three candidates in the field right now and one more (potentially) on the way. To just get him out of the way, Joe Exotic. Enough said. Next is Marianne Williamson, who wants to challenge Biden from the left. However, she’s not attacking him on the things he could be challenged on, such as his age, since she’s not too far away from him on that front. She is trying to run a Bernie Sanders-like campaign without the charisma. Her campaign is going to go up in smoke.
Most recently, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is definitely the most interesting of the group, claimed he would run. Kennedy is a notorious anti-vaxxer, so you know he seriously has a chance. His website says he’s fighting crooked bureaucracies and that he’s the only one who can “bridge the divide and fix our country.” Dude, you think vaccines cause autism. You can’t even get liberals on your side.
There’s one person who might be able to give Biden a challenge: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He’s refused to deny a run for president multiple times, and it’s more than likely he would lose his senate seat, so he has nothing else to lose. Manchin would run as a more conservative alternative to Biden with a bunch of company money to support him (like people from Wendy’s and Home Depot). Going from Biden to Manchin wouldn’t be anything like the transition from Ted Kennedy to Jimmy Carter in 1980. But hey, popular incumbent governor Jim Justice is running for his senate seat and his political career is most likely over after 2024, so why not go out with a bang?
The Republican side isn’t yielding the best of candidates either right now. The most likely to win the nomination is either former President Donald Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. However, DeSantis has very little appeal outside of the state of Florida and tries and fails to have the cult of personality Trump has. He’s just a more politically savvy version of Trump. Meanwhile, Trump is out of his prime. He’s just not how he used to be, and he’s been heavily bruised by the constant string of Republican losses with his endorsements. If Biden were to run against DeSantis or Trump today, I think we may have a repeat of 1996 or 2008, where it’s incredibly unlikely a conservative wins.
It’s true: Biden is definitely not everyone’s favorite president (unbelievable, I know), but as it’s been for the last few elections, people are likely to vote for the lesser of two evils. Biden holds higher favorability ratings than Trump, who Republican voters are beginning to tire of. DeSantis, however, is struggling with a charisma problem and really is not proving to be such a great alternative to Trump.
The best way for Republicans to win is by renominating Trump, since if he doesn’t win the nomination, he’s likely to run third-party, and I have my doubts that Trump would pull votes from Biden. However, even then, they will struggle to win. A poll out of Texas says that Trump only holds a potential three-percent lead over Biden, a massive step down for the GOP from 2020. It’s incredibly unlikely we see President Biden lose, but even so, the stakes are too high not to vote.