President Biden begins his campaign for a second term in both an enviable and unenviable position. Unenviable because the country remains in a sour mood, his approval ratings are weak, and there is minimal enthusiasm for his candidacy. Enviable because Donald Trump, who at the moment is Biden’s most likely opponent, is an ideal foil to make the election a choice and not a referendum.
Biden’s announcement video released Tuesday morning was an echo of his 2020 campaign video, with images and language that put the former president and his followers at the center of a 2024 message. Biden will run in part on his legislative record and his desire to “finish the job,” as he said in the video. But just as much, he will continue to warn voters, as he did in both 2020 and in 2022, of the dangers ahead if Trump wins the White House and of the policies of a Trump-dominated Republican Party.
Incumbent presidents generally win reelection, but few presidents — Trump is a recent one — have ratings as weak as Biden’s as he starts his campaign. His approval rating in a new NBC News poll stands at 41 percent. On the economy, it’s 38 percent. In that same poll, 70 percent of Americans said they do not want him to run for reelection, including 45 percent of those who identify as Democrats.
By conventional measures, those numbers would traditionally spell defeat for an incumbent president or, at best, a mighty struggle to win. “But we don’t live in typical times,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff. “Despite Biden’s weak numbers today, we all have to be aware we’re in a different world with a different Republican nominee in Donald Trump that changes the equation of what we’re used to.”
Republicans saw the effects of that in the midterm elections, when, by the numbers, they appeared poised for major gains in both the House and the Senate. Instead, as Biden and the Democrats worked to make Trump and what Biden called the “extreme MAGA Republicans” the focus of the election, and as the issue of abortion generated votes for Democrats, Republicans emerged with only a tiny House majority and remained in the minority in the Senate.
Biden is counting on that same equation to change the terms of the 2024 election. Trump must wage his own campaign for the nomination first, and while he is the favorite, he is not a shoo-in. But Biden’s advisers have long assumed that Trump would become the Republican nominee in 2024. In many ways, that is the best possible matchup for Biden.
This will not be a rerun of 2020, however, even if Trump ends up as the Republican nominee. Four years ago, Biden was the challenger who could portray himself as the antidote to the chaos and division of the Trump years, the low-key but experienced hand who would rescue the country from an aberrant incumbent.
Though he will try to do that again, Biden does not have the luxury of focusing purely on that message. Today he is the incumbent, with a record, domestically and internationally, that he must defend as well as promote — a record that, despite clear accomplishments over the past two years, remains murky in the minds of many voters.
It is a record that Republicans will attack daily, as they did on Tuesday, with assertions that four more years of a Biden presidency would leave the country with more inflation, more crime in cities, more undocumented immigrants coming across the border and with families less well off.
Biden signaled in his video one way in which this campaign will be different — that it will put a sharper focus on freedom and the protection of rights, whether the issue is abortion, voting rights or gender identity. One of the first images in the video is of someone holding a sign that says “Abortion is health care,” and the first word from Biden is “freedom.” At a time when Republicans have sought to restrict rights, Biden is betting that more people want to protect and expand them and that he can make this a winning issue.
But winning the economic argument is also essential to the Biden reelection campaign, which is as — or perhaps more — important than the debate about cultural and social issues. He can point to strong jobs numbers and other indexes, but inflation and fears that the economy could fall into a recession make it harder for Biden to proclaim it’s morning in America.
Until the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Trump was seen as presiding over a strong economy. That perception remains a potential attribute for the former president, who in so many other ways would come to a general election encumbered by a record of controversy, lies and legal entanglements. Trump was recently indicted in New York over hush money paid to an adult-film actress and falsification of business records. He faces the potential for three more indictments in other pending investigations.
Biden’s domestic travels this year have largely been in service to promoting his record, particularly the bipartisan infrastructure package, the bipartisan bill to revive semiconductor manufacturing and the sizable investments in combating climate change contained in what was called the Inflation Reduction Act. But the politician with the bully pulpit has trouble breaking through. Most voters still know little about those measures, and changing that will be a campaign focus throughout the year.
“Their job is to sell all the historic things they have done,” said Jim Messina, who was the campaign manager for then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and is working with a super PAC backing Biden. “Swing voters don’t know about it and need to hear it repeatedly. Job one is to talk about their record. That sets up the narrative that the job isn’t finished yet.”
Biden has avoided one potential obstacle to a successful reelection campaign: a serious primary challenge. Before November’s midterm election, talk of a possible challenge was common. But with the Democrats exceeding expectations in the midterms, the party has again consolidated around the president. As in 2020, the argument that Biden is best positioned to hold the White House against Trump has again worked in his favor.
Still, he has presided over a sometimes fractious party. Generating enthusiasm among young voters and party liberals will be essential. He has fenced with the liberal wing of his party throughout his presidency; that flank will continue to push him to adopt more and more of its agenda. In the end, however, its members will be with him.
Faiz Shakir, who was the presidential campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020, said liberals might appear tepid in offering their approval of Biden’s performance, if only because they continue to pressure him to adopt more of their agenda. “But if you put me in the polling booth and ask me yes or no on Joe Biden,” he said, “it’s 100 percent yes.”
Shakir sees Biden’s strength as the leader of a coalition who has found ways to accommodate the left while maintaining his own authenticity. “He does it better than many, and for that reason I think he heads into this reelection in a strong position … stronger than even the numbers suggest,” he said.
Many of the Democrats who say they do not want Biden to run again cite his age, 80, as a principal reason. Against Trump, who is 76, the age issue might matter less, though the energy of the two candidates could come into play. Biden was able to avoid a lot of active campaigning in 2020 because of the pandemic. In 2024, voters might want to see a more vigorous candidate. Against someone other than Trump — against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example — the generational issue would be front and center.
The 2024 campaign could see something of a role reversal from the normal reelection campaign, with as much or more attention paid to the former president than to the incumbent, which ultimately could play to Biden’s benefit, despite what the statistics show about his political standing. As Republican strategist Russ Schriefer said of Biden, “I see a candidate with a lot of vulnerabilities, but one not to be underestimated.”