Some of America’s most accomplished presidents lasted only one term. Among these, George HW Bush, John Adams, Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy stand out. The difference with Joe Biden, who recent polls show has at best even odds of being re-elected next year, is that they were followed by figures who believed in the system. Bush Sr was defeated by Bill Clinton; Thomas Jefferson ejected Adams; Ronald Reagan trounced Carter; and JFK, who was murdered after barely 1,000 days in office, was followed by his vice-president, Lyndon Johnson. After Biden, on the other hand, could come Donald Trump, who many see as le déluge. A Trump victory would thus make Biden the most consequential single-term president in history — but not in a way he would wish.
For that reason, America’s political temperature over the next 12 months is likely to shatter even its own recent highs. In normal elections, the loser can take comfort from the fact that they will live to fight another day. With a Trump-Biden 2024 match-up, however, no such reassurance is possible. A group of Trump conservatives, known as Project 2025, has been drawing up plans to prosecute former Trump acolytes who he now sees as traitors. These include John Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, Mark Milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Bill Barr, his attorney-general, and Ty Cobb, his White House counsel.
In most of these cases their sin was to have refused to collude in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Project 2025 is also drawing up plans for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, enabling him to put troops on the streets. He would also “go after” Biden and his family. Which means that Biden, who will turn 81 later this month, will be defending more than just his legacy; the US system itself will be on the ballot. It should thus be no surprise that Democrats are prone to what insider optimists call “bed wetting” — bouts of existential panic about Biden’s approval ratings, followed by frenzied relief at any contrary evidence. Both the highs and lows were evident this week.
On Sunday, despair set in after a New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump leading Biden by several points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, five of the key swing states. That mood swung to euphoria on Tuesday night when Democrats nearly swept America’s off-year state elections in Virginia and Kentucky and comfortably won a referendum enshrining abortion rights in Ohio. It followed the 2022 congressional elections when Biden’s Democrats bucked the usual midterm rebuke to contain the widely expected “red wave”. A relieved Biden said on Wednesday: “Voters vote. Polls don’t.”
Unfortunately for Biden, however, there is less comfort to be drawn from Tuesday’s victories than is apparent. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was a reasonably good night for pollsters. Most predicted these results. In particular, they show high voter motivation to defend women’s right to choose even in red states like Ohio. Polls were also right in the 2022 midterms, as they were in 2020 when Biden defeated Trump. The notion that pollsters keep getting it wrong is itself wrong. Which means that Biden should take the recent 2024 polls seriously. He may also have to grapple with a third-party candidacy that could split the vote in unpredictable ways. What the events of the past week imply is that voters tilt more towards Democrats — especially on social issues, like abortion — but are specifically worried about Biden’s age.
There is nothing that Biden can do about that. But he can draw hope from historical perspective. First of all, history shows that polls a year away are almost worthless. In 2011, they forecast Obama losing easily to a Republican. He went on to beat Mitt Romney a year later. In late 1979, Carter was also forecast to beat Reagan. He lost badly. If a week is a long time in politics, a year is eternity. The next year is likely to be especially eventful. From March, Trump is scheduled to face two criminal trials — one in Washington over his role in the January 6 2021 storming of Capitol Hill; another in Florida over his misuse of highly classified documents. A third trial in Georgia over his attempt to reverse its electoral college result may take place before then.
The chances that he will be a convicted felon before election day are high. It is conceivable he will even be in jail. Incarceration is no obstacle to running for president, or indeed governing as one. But it ought to have an impact on swing voters.
Second, Biden has taken a hit from his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Many Muslim Americans and younger voters have vowed either to vote for Trump next year or not at all in protest at Biden’s backing of Israel’s high-casualty assault on Gaza following the October 7 attack by Hamas. Yet Trump is egging on Israel to be far more sweeping. He is also vowing to reinstate the Muslim travel ban that he tried and failed to implement the first time he was president. Ironically, the Israel crisis ought to have showcased Biden’s vigour. Only twice in history has a US president entered a foreign war zone — both times it was Biden (in Israel last month and Ukraine in February). For an old man in supposed decline, Biden is doing a great impression of being in charge.
edward.luce@ft.com
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