In pro sports and movies like the “Rocky” series, everyone loves to see a rematch, but according to new polling, Biden vs. Trump 2024 would be the rematch nobody wants!
As of now, Biden has no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination, and former President Donald Trump is the clear front-runner for a third straight Republican nod.
Ironically, though a re-run of 2020 looks increasingly likely, it comes at a time when the vast majority of Americans believe the country remains on the wrong track. More pointedly, in a just-released NBC News survey, 70 percent of respondents said Biden shouldn’t run, and 60 percent said Trump shouldn’t.
To add to the sense of stagnancy, most polls show the longtime rivals within a few points of each other, suggesting there has not been a seismic political shift in the country since Biden won the 2020 electoral college on the strength of statistically narrow victories in several key states.
It seems inevitable that if the two men square off again, the rematch will be framed around Trump. Democrats say that will be helpful to them.
“It’s going to be very hard to move voters in terms of their opinion of Donald Trump,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa. “A clear majority of Americans have a negative view of former President Trump.”
That’s true, but Biden’s approval ratings are also below the waterline: the NBC survey showed that 38 percent of adults see him in a positive light, while Trump’s number was at 34 percent.
Both men are leaning heavily on their records to act as validators for what they would do with a second term, which points to their myriad differences in the realms of politics, policy, and personality.
“There has never been a greater contrast between two successive administrations in all of American history,” Trump said in his statement after Biden announced his bid for re-election. “Ours being greatness, and theirs being a failure.”
Most pundits suggest that a feeling of “déjà vu all over again will damper enthusiasm and voter turnout should the Trump- Biden rematch occur. However, Brendan Buck, a longtime GOP strategist, predicted that the sequel to the last election would draw plenty of intense interest, largely because of the challenger’s ability to focus media attention on himself.
“In a normal world, you might expect this to drag down enthusiasm, but Trump will take care of that,” Buck said. “If this is the matchup we end up with, it won’t be a boring election, and it won’t lack for turnout.”