Neither Trump nor Biden may be his party’s nominee for president next year. But they’re the most likely candidates for now, so let’s see how the race stacks up about a year before early voting begins.
The RealClearPolitics poll of polls gives Trump a whisker-thin and meaningless lead of 0.5 percentage point over Biden. But, given the impending impeachment hearings and the daily dose of outrages emanating from Washington, the polls likely overstate future standing among voters. On the other hand, the negative publicity that Trump has reaped since January 6, 2021, and will reap as his trials get underway (if they do), will turn off independent and fickle Republican voters.
For now, in the absence of solid polling results, I choose to look at Trump and Biden’s relative popularity among voters during their presidencies. For that purpose, I use an “enthusiasm ratio”: the number of likely voters who strongly approve a president as a percentage of the number of likely voters who venture an opinion one way or the other (thus omitting the voters who are non-committal). Here’s a comparison of the enthusiasm ratios for Trump and Biden:
Derived from Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Polls for Trump and Biden from January 20, 2017, through September 15, 2023.
If Trump hasn’t lost too many of his supporters because of his antics and legal problems, and if Biden continues to slip (literally, verbally, and in policy making), Trump should win in 2024.
But in the realms of politics, war, economics — and life in general — the unpredictable far outweighs the predictable.
Stay tuned….