ANALYSIS: Will Trump, Biden Meet Again in 2024?

News analysis

Now that President Joe Biden has formally announced his bid for a second term, the United States is one step closer to a rematch that polls suggest many Americans don’t want.

No high-profile Democrat has entered the party’s 2024 presidential primary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who declared his candidacy earlier this month, is considered a monumental underdog, and Biden is expected to win the party’s nomination next summer, according to surveys.

Former President Donald Trump has several contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, but polls show he has a substantial lead over a pool that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy among others.

DeSantis has yet to formally enter the race.

Polling Favors Trump, Biden

An Emerson College polling survey released on April 27 showed that Biden has a 41 percent approval rating, and while 65 percent of Democratic voters believe he should be the 2024 Democratic nominee, 35 percent think it should be someone else.

“Driving Biden’s lower approval this month is independent voters, 37 percent of whom approved of the president in February, which has dropped to 30 percent this month,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College polling.

Biden, Kennedy, and self-help author Marianne Williamson are currently the only candidates in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary. The Emerson College poll indicated that Biden leads with 70 percent support compared to 21 percent for Kennedy and 8 percent for Williamson.

Trump leads the Republican primary with 62 percent followed by DeSantis at 16 percent, according to the survey. No other candidate received double digits.

“Independent voters are nearly split on the presidential ticket between Trump and Biden, 34 percent would vote for Biden and 33 percent Trump,” Kimball said. “A third of independents support someone else or are undecided.”

In a video posted in the early morning hours of April 25, Biden announced he was running for reelection and said, “The question we are facing is, whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

“This is not a time to be complacent … That’s why I’m running for reelection,” he said.

Biden targeted Trump and his supporters on April 25 by saying, “Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms.”

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden said.

Biden’s words are “a dog whistle for the left,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who questioned the authenticity of that the president’s campaign launch video comments that referenced “personal freedom being fundamental to who we are as Americans.”

“He has been systematically taking away the freedom and amassing power of government over families, children, individuals, on down the line. It’s ‘don’t watch what I am doing, watch what I am saying,’” Perkins said.

A desire for freedom, and for the next generation to succeed, is “still in our DNA” as Americans, Perkins added, but Biden’s policies “are 180 degrees removed from those ideals.”

Biden has traveled around the country since January touting what he deems as legislative victories.

Among the measures he proudly publicizes are the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $745 billion Inflation Reduction Act, and a $1.7 trillion government spending bill that he signed in December 2022.

Biden’s handling of the nation’s economy has been a source of concern for many Americans since late 2021 because of stubbornly high inflation and ongoing recession fears.

The debt ceiling standoff with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is one of his most urgent matters.

Inflation, which reached its post-pandemic peak in June 2022 at 9.1 percent, is now at 5 percent. Yet rising interest rates implemented by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation have increased the risk of a recession, many economists believe.

Even with those challenges, Biden is “in a good spot for 2024,” David Carlucci, a former New York state senator and a Democratic campaign strategist, told The Epoch Times.

“The fact that Trump is the clear Republican front-runner is good for Biden’s reelection,” Carlucci noted. “Republicans didn’t do as well as they thought in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections, and the party is divided over people who support Trump and people who want the party to move on from Trump.

Biden will move to attract more moderate Democrats and continue to paint House Republicans and MAGA Republicans as extreme, Carlucci said.

Legal Woes Loom

Critics say that Trump’s legal woes will hurt his chances in 2024.

The former president continues to fight the highly publicized indictment in Manhattan over his alleged hush-money payments to two women during his 2016 campaign.

This week, a defamation case against him started in Manhattan.

On April 24, an Atlanta prosecutor exploring whether Trump and his associates illegally interfered with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia told reporters that she expects to announce this summer if charges will be filed.

Trump continues to face a U.S. Department of Justice investigation about classified documents discovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump has denied wrongdoing with all of the accusations and allegations, and he has said that the investigations are politically motivated.

Trump’s legal issues motivate his base, said Wes Farno, an Ohio-based Republican strategist.

“They feel that the indictments are not legitimate and are a direct attack on Trump,” Farno added. “They think the indictments are further examples that Democrats will do anything they can to keep him from running and winning.”

Trump can get support from Republicans and independents who do not vote for him in the primary because “it will come down to that well-known Ronald Reagan quote asking if you are better off today than four years ago.” For the vast majority of Americans, the answer to that is a definite ‘no.’”

Trump will remind Americans of the thriving economy before COVID-19 arrived, low inflation and gas prices, a more secure southern border, and that the nation was a safer place when he was president, Farno added.

“In 2016, Trump ran on his Make America Great Again vision. In 2020, he had a track record of accomplishments, but the election became more about his personality than his documented success as president,” Farno noted.

Trump will be the likely Republican nominee, Carlucci said. No high-profile Democrat will enter the primary because “there is no smoking gun to say that Joe Biden’s gotta go,” Carlucci believes.

“At this point, I don’t see any high-profile Democrat entering the race to take on President Biden. It would be difficult to go to the left of Biden and win the general election,” Carlucci said.

Biden is “in a strong place to win the primary and cruise to reelection,” Carlucci believes. Trump is a key reason why, he noted.

“If there was another high-profile Republican instead of Trump, that might motivate a well-known Democrat to enter the race and challenge Biden,” Carlucci added. Without Trump, Biden would not be president. Biden has already beaten Trump, and there is no reason to think he won’t again in 2024.”