Our gracious host recently weighed in on the 2024 presidential election. Tim opined that Donald Trump will win, primarily because “people are sick of the weirdness.” For Tim, who professes to be a libertarian, “weirdness” seemingly takes in highly successful, intelligent people who are just doing their own thing, such as Rachel Levine. (Editor’s Note: I think it’s because I was born as a grumpy old man.)
Last I checked, libertarians believe people should be free to do as they please unless it harms another person. As a libertarian, I should think Tim would be embracing that sort of “weirdness.”
But I digress. I have not come to discuss political ideology or where people stand on various controversial social and cultural issues. This article is about the important stuff: Who is going to win the 2024 presidential election, and why. The most likely winner is the incumbent, Joe Biden, and I’ll explain below why that’s true.
Although we surely disagree politically (my Slope avatar is a photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders), I share Tim’s fascination with elections. In fact, as a graduate student, I took a few courses on American political parties and elections. Although I opted out of graduate studies in favor of attending law school, I recall a few things from my brief flirtation with political science that are relevant to the upcoming election.
As political strategist James Carville famously said, “it’s the economy, stupid.” In 1992, with the economy seemingly mired in a recession, with unemployment north of 7 percent, and inflation at about 3 percent, incumbent President George H.W. Bush was handily defeated by Carville’s candidate, Bill Clinton, despite Clinton’s well-known character issues, which included infidelity and draft dodging.
Losses by other incumbent presidents have also been associated with objectively bad economic times. In 1980, Jimmy Carter was resoundingly beaten by Ronald Reagan amid double-digit inflation and unemployment at approximately 7.5 percent. Most recently, suffering from a pandemic-weakened economy that had seen unemployment briefly spike to 15 percent, and with unemployment still at approximately 7 percent at the time of the election, Trump suffered defeat at the hands of Biden.
However, by comparison, the Biden economy is on solid footing. At last report, the unemployment rate is just 3.9 percent, while inflation is at 3.4 percent. In modern times, economic readings at these kinds of levels have generally been associated with successful reelection bids by incumbent presidents.
Amid an expanding economy, President Reagan won a second term in 1984 with unemployment at approximately 7 percent and inflation at about 4 percent. Clinton was reelected in 1996 with unemployment slightly above 5 percent and inflation around 3 percent. In 2004, President George W. Bush won a second term with unemployment at about 5.5 percent and inflation a little below 3 percent. And, in 2012, President Barack Obama was victorious with unemployment near 8 percent and inflation slightly below 2 percent.
In short, as things currently stand, Biden has a set of economic numbers that should result in a popular-vote victory come November. Indeed, a leading forecaster of election outcomes based on economic variables, Ray C. Fair, currently predicts Biden will get 51.72% of the two-party vote, which would translate to about a 3.4% edge for Biden over Trump in the popular vote. Fair’s work can be found online here.
Of course, a Biden victory is not preordained. This will likely be a close election, and given the way the Electoral College works, winning the popular vote does not guarantee victory. Lest we forget, Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but prevailed by winning close decisions in several key battleground states. And Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote in 2000 but didn’t win the necessary 270 Electoral College votes.
Nor is there any guarantee that the economy will continue to deliver job growth and moderate inflation readings to Biden, as it has in recent months. In any event, to date, Biden is not getting much credit from voters for his handling of the economy. His job approval ratings remain alarmingly low, and most public opinion polls show Trump with a slight lead in the overall race at the present time.
However, both President Clinton and President Obama trailed their opponents in the polls before making up the necessary ground and winning reelection in November. I believe voters will eventually move in Biden’s direction as the election draws closer and they begin to pay attention to what he has accomplished, as shown, in part, by the good economic indicators. And that is to say nothing of the lawlessness, lying, and general chaos sewn daily by his main opponent, who may well by a convicted felon shortly. My one point of agreement with Tim is that, as he put it, “Trump is a blowhard criminal . . . whose entire family should be imprisoned for life.” (Editor’s Note: I’m a bridge-builder. There was something in my post for everyone!)
Although most voters have already made up their minds, there are still enough persuadable voters out there to allow Biden to overcome any deficit he currently faces. And if the economy holds up through Election Day, I am confident he will.
