State of the 2024 US Presidential Election
Remember, Remember, the fifth of November.
With three months left before Americans unceremoniously select their next leader at the scheduled four year interval, it’s tempting to say that most of the election drama characteristic of US politics is still yet to come. While that’s probably true (as suggested by the term “October Surprise” being engrained in US political vocabulary), it’s also the case that the past six weeks have been anything but uneventful.
First there was the tire fire of a debate hosted by CNN in late June, where both candidates were given the opportunity to pitch their “vision” for the country over the next four years. That’s not actually what happened of course, and within 5 minutes it had devolved into a nationally televised humiliation act. Neither candidate was particularly inspiring, but Joe Biden failed to meet the incredibly low bar of coherent articulation, which would ultimately cost him his job as nominee for the Democratic Party.
There were a few weeks between the debate and Biden’s withdrawal from the election, and during this time there was also an assassination attempt on Biden’s opponent, Donald Trump. The attack took place at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania and was seemingly apolitical or at the very least not motivated by partisan affiliation, which is part of the reason why I think its impact on the election will be negligible. Trump was nearly killed however, having been grazed by a 5.56 round fired from an AR-15 style rifle that would have hit him directly in the head had it been a few millimeters off its trajectory.
I don’t even want to imagine how ugly things would have gotten if candidate Trump was taken out by a shooter on live TV, and thankfully we don’t have to. Instead, the only candidate exiting the race was President Joe Biden, who made the announcement himself back on July 21, eight days after the Trump assassination attempt. Many in the Democratic Party had been clamoring for this since about half way through the CNN debate, including some that had enthusiastically supported the 81 year old Biden’s re-election campaign initially.
Regardless of whether Biden was coerced to drop out or did so voluntarily, it was clearly a misstep for him to run for re-election in the first place. His main purpose in the last election was to defeat Donald Trump, which he did. He could have accomplished absolutely nothing during his presidency and still been remembered favorably by millions of Americans.
Risking that legacy just to personally beat Trump a second time always seemed foolish. Age-related concerns dating back to the 2020 election and his declining approval rating as president since the summer of 2021 should have been enough motivation to call it quits, and it’s shocking how many Democrats failed to see this. To be fair, some did call for Biden to sit out from the beginning but they were definitely in the minority.
Due to Joe Biden being the first president to not seek re-election since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, vice-president Kamala Harris is poised to replace him as the Democratic Party nominee, reminiscent of a plot arc from the HBO series Veep. Biden dropping out after the Democratic Primary elections meant that Harris did not have to earn the nomination in the usual manner. She had previously attempted to do so in 2020, but her campaign flamed out before the primaries had even begun. That doesn’t seem to be of concern to voters however.
It’s taken only 2 weeks for Harris to surpass Trump in national popular vote polling, which is significant given that Trump had been leading Biden for the last 11 months. There is undoubtedly enthusiasm amongst Democratic voters about getting a new candidate. The party raised a record amount of funds in the day following the candidate swap. Whether this novelty bump for Harris is sustainable until election day is a valid question, but since presidential campaigns usually span nearly 2 years for the nominees it’s possible that less time in the spotlight could also work in Harris’s favor.
The national popular vote is also not the determiner of who wins the election. That would be the electoral college, which Trump won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by 2%. All 50 states plus D.C. get a certain number of electoral college votes that roughly reflects their share of the national population, and all but two states are winner takes all when it comes to assigning their electoral college votes. Most states are considered “safe” for one party or the other, but a select few with a fairly large number of votes often have the final say of who wins - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania alone were enough to swing the last two elections.
There hasn’t been a ton of polling in the “swing states” yet but the limited sample suggests Harris is outperforming Biden in them. Expect to see both Harris and Trump spending a lot of time campaigning in these three states, in addition to other battlegrounds such as Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
At risk of getting too much into the weeds of subpar data, let’s now pivot to what elections are really about: the vibes. This is especially the case for presidential elections, which function as a large popularity contest between two people who just happen to be competing for one of the most powerful positions in the world. Look no further than the fact that Kamala Harris is faring better against Trump so far than Joe Biden, despite her and Biden having identical platforms.
Political issues still matter in elections, but it’s not so straightforward. There are entire scholarly disciplines devoted to the study of individual issues. The average voter does not spend their time reading academic journals and thinking deeply about any issue, never mind a multitude of them. Instead most of us have a general moral framework from which opinions about issues are derived. This top-down approach to forming political opinions implies reactivity - we evaluate how things make us feel, guided by our personal value system. Therefore, vibes.
To illustrate this point, take the issue of inflation. This is a topic that is most likely an area of specialized research in the majority of economics departments. Higher than normal inflation the past few years has made it a top of mind issue according to voters, but not because they adhere to some niche economic theory or comprehend any of the broader implications (for proof, consider that almost 80% of Americans reported cutting their spending amid high inflation, contrary to economics teaching!). It’s because things have gotten generally more expensive, and that’s a bad feeling for just about everyone.
Returning to the candidates, one of the most interesting paradoxes comes from the issue of crime. Kamala Harris’s career includes time as a prosecutor, district attorney of San Francisco, and attorney general of California. She was quite literally the “top cop” for much of her political career. Donald Trump on the other hand is now a convicted felon who has two outstanding cases against him including RICO charges in Georgia for attempting to change the results of the last election.
The contrast is pretty stark, yet Trump remains the preferred candidate for dealing with the issue of crime (albeit less important of an issue in this election). A possible explanation here is that Trump took a more hardline stance in rhetoric against the 2020 riots following the police killing of George Floyd, while Harris has been criticized for promoting a fund to bail out arrested rioters. It’s also the case that Republicans have generally been considered the party of “law and order,” though I would argue that they pick and choose when this is the case (the January 6th Capitol riot comes to mind).
Trump himself arguably has even more baggage now than he did running as an incumbent in 2020. The frivolous lawsuits and cartoonish effort to overturn the 2020 election didn't sit well with a lot of voters, and understandably so. It comes across as sore losing, and Trump has been unable as of yet to dispel this perception about him, including during the debate when he had a chance to commit to accepting a hypothetical loss in this year’s election.
Trump’s criminal cases are also a factor, but the one he’s been convicted of so far is the least serious. It’s unlikely that the trials for the other cases will take place before the election, therefore Trump has a very self-absorbed interest in winning this time around, as sitting presidents are a lot more shielded from the law. Trump’s status as the first former president to be charged with crimes is an additional twist that adds yet another layer of drama to this upcoming election.
Though I disagree with its significance, the vice-presidential candidates have been a factor thus far. Last month, Trump selected Ohio senator JD Vance to be his VP. Vance, a one time Trump critic and author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, has proven to be a controversial pick. His belief that so-called “childless cat ladies” are ruining America isn’t exactly a t-shirt worthy slogan. To me, Vance seems like a vapid opportunist. He used to oppose Trump when it didn’t seem possible for the latter to get elected, but over time completely flip-flopped in order to bolster his own political aspirations.
This week, Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz, the relatively popular governor of Minnesota, as her VP pick. Walz isn’t a household name to people who don’t actively follow politics and who aren’t from Minnesota. But when it comes to VPs, obscurity is an asset. The last thing you want is the sidekick creating constant distractions, which is currently the case with Trump and Vance. Walz has taken some flak for labelling Trump and Vance as “weird”, but it’s less problematic politically than childless cat ladies because it is a subjective term that doesn’t personally sleight a group of voters.
The reaction by Trump and Republicans to the candidate switch makes me believe that they didn’t have a contingency plan for if Biden were to be replaced, which is insane given that Biden is in his 80s and his mental capacity has been in question for the last 4+ years. The polling trend as of late would suggest they are right to be in a panic, but putting that panic on full display for the public to watch probably isn’t a great strategy.
I think a lot of people would be best served by remembering that this dance happens every four years. There’s a lot of passion out there in politics right now, but it’s probably not worth channeling it all towards doomsaying. My interest going forward will be in how the polls stack up to actual results and if any events over the next three months will have a noticeable effect on the polls and forecasts. No matter who wins, it will be a unique result: either Kamala Harris will become the first woman president in US history, or Donald Trump will be just the second president to win a non-consecutive second term, which would make him both the 45th and 47th president.