The United States is 365 days away from the election of 2024.
As the country starts heading down the road to 2024 in earnest, it is very, very important to understand that this election is going to be different from any other in recent memory.
How so?
Two former presidents are running against each other. Both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to have to run on their respective records. The electorate knows both of them and there are no secrets, no surprises. What you see is what you get. This thing will be more about the two candidates on a personal and emotional level rather than on policy. Kind of a “love one, hate the other” dynamic that we saw in 2016.
Authoritarianism is on the ticket. This is true not only at the national level, but also at the state, and, believe it or not, local level (the small town that I live in is run by two MAGA authoritarian “wannabes”). Missouri, the state in which I reside, is, like many other “deep red” states, is controlled by a MAGA christo-nationalist/ authoritarian legislative supermajority that runs on and governs by all of the MAGA hot button issues. It isn’t just MAGA authoritarianism, either. There are ultraprogressive authoritarian Democrats like Rep. Cory Bush (D-MO-1) who are also running next year.
There are also many “wild card” variables that could, no, will impact the election in ways that we cannot even begin to understand this far out.
There is a very real possibility, given the age of both of the presumptive nominees, President Biden and Mr. Trump, that a health emergency, or even death, could take one or, heaven forbid, both out of the election.
Mr. Trump, indicted on 91 separate felony criminal counts at both the federal level and in the State of Georgia, is going to attempt to run for president while also spending time on trial. If Mr. Trump’s behavior during his New York State civil trial is any indicator, the trials will be his campaign. How is that going to work?
Of course, we have Ukraine, the Israel/Hamas war that could turn into a broader regional conflict, and China. All of these are potential time bombs.
Oh, lest we forget, we also have the economy, the potential for a government shutdown or two, a chaos generating, do nothing, performance politics, blow it all up MAGA caucus that controls the US House of Representatives, a media that tries to play both sides against the middle instead of seeking the truth, and the chaos and conspiracy theories of social media, especially the Elon Musk owned “X.”
What could possibly go wrong?
Before we all decide that the situation is hopeless and decide to jump off of a bridge, let’s take a deep breath, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, and try to think about this in a way that doesn’t feed into defeatism and cynicism.
I know, this is serious stuff, our democracy is at stake, and its hard to be hopeful, but hear me out.
There are three things to think about as we buckle our chinstrap and start moving down this road.
One Year, 365 Days, Is an Eternity in Politics
I’ve been doing politics for 50 years and I’ve seen a lot of water (and bullshit) go under the bridge during that time. I’ve walked around the proverbial political “block” a few thousand times. I’ve worked on two presidential campaigns (McGovern in 1972 and Ted Kennedy in 1980). I’ve worked on campaigns at the state and local level. I’ve been in the smoke filled rooms with the big dogs. I’ve won a few and lost a few.
Take my word for it, a year in a campaign is an eternity, a life time. It might as well be a century.
For those of you who were ever in the military, a campaign is like a 365 day “short timers” calendar where you cross off the days until you get out and go back to the world. Each of those days seem like they last forever. So much can happen that is totally out of your control (like a war starting).
At its most basic level, a political campaign is a war. Because of this, things can go right or things can go wrong. A campaign can start out hot and build momentum, then die just as rapidly. Strategy can blow up in your face. Money, the “mother’s milk” of politics, can dry up in a heartbeat if a candidate falters and donors start looking for the next new shiny object. Stuff happens; some times really bad stuff happens. Remember Gary Hart and “Monkey Business” or John Edwards?
To quote Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
History is filled with examples of candidacies and campaigns that were considered unstoppable until they were stopped and faded away. Ron DeSantis this cycle. Jeb Bush in 2016. John McCain in 2000. Ed Muskie in 1972. George Romney in 1968.
History is also filled with campaigns that came from nowhere, or were given up for dead, and won the nomination. Joe Biden in 2020. Donald Trump in 2016. John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008. Bill Clinton in 1986. My man George McGovern in 1972 (although he snatched defeat from the long shot jaws of victory with the Eagleton fiasco). Richard Nixon in 1968.
A campaign is a marathon, as the late Jules Witcover eloquently wrote about the 1976 presidential campaign. As a former marathoner myself, a marathon is 26.2 miles, one step at a time. It isn’t a sprint. So much can happen. The stars on conditioning, training, and race strategy can all be aligned, and you hit ‘the wall” at 20 miles and tap out.
A lot can happen in a year. In politics and campaigns, nothing is a “done deal” until it is a “done deal.”
Forget the Polls Right Now
We are a year out from voting and people are so focused on the polls. Many on “X” are coming unglued about recent polls showing Mr. Trump with statistically significant leads over Mr. Biden in five of six “battleground” states.
Polls are a critical tool and can be instructive in terms of spotting potential trends or problems, but at this stage of a campaign, they really don’t mean much in terms of final outcome. They just don’t.
Again, a year is a long time and so much can happen.
The polling industry has come under a lot of fire in recent election years. There are a number of reasons for this, but given the recent history of polls being inaccurate, or just plain wrong, voters, and yes campaigns have lost confidence in polls (Remember the red waves of 2018 and 2022 ?). While many polls are well done, there are a lot of really bad polls and polling organizations that exercise an inordinate amount of influence in the media.
Buyer beware. As they say in the investment industry, “read the prospectus before investing.”
The way that campaigns are covered doesn’t help. The media use polls to justify how they cover campaigns. The media, and to varying degrees the professional political class, view campaigns like horse races. Who’s in the lead? Polling firms and universities make tons of money doing polls for media companies. It’s like one hand feeding the other.
Polls, even crappy ones, facilitate the “who’s winning now” narrative and create drama, tension, and excitement. Politics is now so performative and voters want to be entertained. Poll results do that.
As someone who has worked with voting behavior data, I have extensive experience in understanding how polls work and the problems associated with polling. Things like sample size, question construction and wording (writing questions that are unbiased, leading, or presumptive is very, very difficult work), and how the poll is conducted (man on the street, on line, land line phone, mail, etc.) can impact results. The statistical techniques used to analyze data and the accuracy of the data and results can skew polls and lead to inaccurate conclusions.
A poll is an snapshot of a point in time. Polls are data points. They become trends over the long, and not short term. Right now there are some data points, some of them interesting, but it is way too soon for the horse race.
The “Wild Card” Variables
For many reasons, the dynamics of this cycle is unlike any I have experienced in all of my time in politics. In many, many ways, it is unique in modern American political history.
There are so many variables that could impact this election that it would be a fool’s errand to try to predict how all of this is going to end.
The health (and age) of both candidates is a real concern. Neither Trump nor Biden are “spring chickens” and health issues, or God forbid, the death of either or both candidates, would throw the entire election into chaos (if one or both die after being nominated, their names would remain on the ballot). How that would end is anybody’s guess.
The fact that Mr. Trump, a former president, is running while under criminal indictment (91 felony counts at federal and state levels) is unique in American history. Right now, polling data indicates that support for Mr. Trump has solidified and increased since the indictments.
As stated earlier, if Mr. Trump’s conduct at his New York civil fraud trial is indicative, the trials will become the campaign. He will use them to continue to vilify the justice system and the rule of law, all the while generating grievance and victimhood and creating the perception of being a political martyr. He will fund raise off of the trials and they will become fodder for his rants at his rallies.
The $64,000 question is whether a conviction will hurt or help his campaign. Any conviction will undoubtedly be appealed, perhaps even to the Supreme Court. This will create more chaos and uncertainty and a potential constitutional crisis even before votes have been cast.
Another concern is whether the system of elections will survive another significant challenge to the casting and counting of votes. Republicans have been very smart at the state level to change election laws to make it harder to vote and to disqualify results.
Republican secretaries of state control how elections are conducted and how results are counted and certified. MAGA states attorneys general could file motions to overturn state results, a reprise of their 2020 strategy. In addition, a MAGA controlled Congress (Republicans could gain control of both the House and Senate and would be sworn in before Electoral College certification) could repeat the shenanigans of 2020 and try to contest the results.
What is the threat of serious, perhaps democracy threatening, political violence in the event of another contested election and disruption of the peaceful transfer of power? After the insurrection of January 6th, we can no longer say with confidence that “it can’t happen here.”
These “wild card” unknowns, in addition to the economy, issues of war and peace, and and other unforeseen events make trying to predict what will happen over the next year almost impossible.
In all seriousness, the next election is a fight for American democracy and I don’t want to make light of that in any way. Americans who love democracy, veterans who took an oath to the Constitution, must continue the work of protecting our system and preserving our freedoms. We cannot let MAGA populist, nativist, christo-nationalist authoritarianism, and all that that means, win in 2024.
Donald Trump and Trumpism, in all of its forms, cannot be allowed to win and take over our country.
This is where we are and that won’t change. All we can do is hunker down, buckle our chinstrap, and get to work.
The enemy is at the top of the hill and we are running out of time and bullets.
What are you going to do?