Biden-Trump: towards a hypothetical return match in 2024

American politics is paved with paradoxes. The latest example? The affair of the confidential documents found at the think tank and at Joe Biden’s residence. On the one hand, this is bad news for Joe Biden: it weighs on his popularity and risks allowing Donald Trump to escape indictment for having also taken away sensitive documents. But seen from another angle, this is excellent news: the prospect of seeing Trump back in the saddle, and in a credible position to win the Republican primary, justifies more than ever that the Democrat is a candidate for re-election!

A near certainty: Biden has decided to stack up again. Last September, he had already told CBS News that he wanted to represent himself and that he was maturing his decision with his family and loved ones. In December, during the state dinner with Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, the two couples had a playful toast to the American’s next re-election campaign. This time it’s serious: according to CNN, Biden should officially announce his candidacy at the end of February or the beginning of March. A source close to the president confirmed the info to CBS News.

Why so early ? Because the timing seems – or at least seemed, until the documents matter – perfect. Biden is riding the strong midterm election result, which saw the Democrats retain the Senate and only a narrow head loss in the House of Representatives. He pushed through several massive pieces of legislation in the first two years, and is beginning to reap the rewards: he is regularly seen inaugurating renovations to bridges and other infrastructure projects made possible by the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” of November 2021, and his administration multiplies the announcements related to the “Inflation Reduction Act” voted in August 2022, intended, in particular, to fight global warming and lower the price of drugs.

Declining inflation

In a word, he reaps the harvest of what he has sown. The icing on the cake, the situation has improved economically since the midterms of November, when inflation was prancing at an annual rate of more than 8%: the country has still not fallen into recession and consumer prices, which fell in December, only increased by 2% in annual rate over the past six months.

A presidential election is an obstacle course strewn with unforeseen pitfalls, and no one can assess, at this stage, Biden’s chances of being re-elected or not. The war in Ukraine is a huge uncertainty, and the economy can easily go into a tailspin. But an early candidacy offers two advantages: it allows the Democrat to present himself as a statesman, responsible and calm, facing a Republican Party undermined by divisions and taken hostage by its ultra wing. And within the Democratic Party, the formalization of Biden as a candidate should end up dissuading those who dreamed of running in 2024.

No doubt Biden will invoke the “MAGA right” when announcing his candidacy, a reference to Trump’s favorite slogan (“Make America Great Again”). Everything happens as if the two men dream of a remake: Trump is keen on his revenge after the humiliation of 2020, Biden, meanwhile, believes that he is the only one who can beat his 2020 rival again. As noted on the Politico site Rich Lowry, director of the conservative magazine National Review “Trump has never let us forget that he lost to Biden (although he prefers to talk about an election that was stolen from him), while Biden has never let us forget that Trump is waiting in the wings. “

What could derail this remake? Many things. On the Republican side, a very recent poll gives Trump a 17-point lead in the primaries over his most dangerous potential rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But other polls point to a much closer contest, and DeSantis will be a tough challenger to beat. There is also the always real risk of an indictment, or even, who knows, of a condemnation to ineligibility.

Reluctant Americans

In the Biden camp, the “speed bump” that the discovery of the confidential documents would constitute, indicating that it is rather an administrative error: there is no proof that Biden knew that the documents were misplaced or in his possession. possession, and when discovered, they were promptly returned to the authorities. The damage will be temporary, it is estimated at the White House. His age, on the other hand, is likely to pose a problem: he would be 82 years old on the day of his swearing in, in January 2025. In fact, according to the barometer The Economist / YouGov, less than one in two Democratic voters (47 %) wants him to serve a second term. It’s better than in September (35%), but we can’t speak of delirious enthusiasm. Biden’s popularity rating among the population, which had risen from 36 to 44%, has also fallen to around 40%.

It’s as if Americans don’t want to see the 2020 scenario repeat itself. At the end of 2022, a CNN poll showed that 60% of Republican or Republican-leaning independent voters want a candidate other than Trump for their party, a similar proportion of Democrats hoping to see a Democratic candidate other than Biden in the running. But the two men have long learned to put the polls into perspective: Trump, because he is full of himself, Biden, because he has seen them give him the loser on multiple occasions. These two, let it be said, are determined to fight it out!