Somehow we’ve found ourselves watching reruns this election cycle — or maybe it’s more of a reboot. The players are the same, and on paper, they’re two of the least likely presidential frontrunners anyone could imagine: an octogenarian career politician with diminishing faculties and a lifetime of dissembling taking on an outsider who has managed to hack off everyone outside of his ride-or-die supporters.
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The two candidates’ roles have reversed this time around as well. Where Donald Trump was the incumbent in 2020, Joe Biden is this year. Still, the 2024 election cycle already seems like a retread of four years ago.
How did we get here? Donald Trump is treating this election as a chance to finish what he started in his first term, and Joe Biden is intent on beating Trump one more time. But is this matchup what voters really want? Two recent polls suggest that it’s not.
An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 American adults (not voters, mind you, but adults) shows that a majority of respondents don’t want Trump or Biden to run again.
NEW: Economist/YouGov polling on the 2024 election (Dec. 9-12)
Do you want Joe Biden to run for president again in 2024?
Yes: 24%
No: 61%Do you want Donald Trump to run for president again in 2024?
Yes: 32%
No: 56%https://t.co/FDHWpaLaVb— YouGov America (@YouGovAmerica) December 13, 2023
Breaking down the results a little more, respondents who voted for Biden in 2020 are evenly divided on whether the president should run again, while a whopping 82% of Trump voters in 2020 don’t want to see Biden run in 2024. Biden voters overwhelmingly (90%) don’t want to see Trump running, while just short of two-thirds of Trump voters want the former president on the GOP ticket.
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Related: Politico Offers Biden Advice on How to ‘Turn It Around’
Another new poll, this one from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, shows similar dissatisfaction toward the 2024 presidential frontrunners. This poll asked 1,074 adults for their views on Trump and Biden — again, not necessarily voters, but adults.
“Looking at U.S. adults broadly — setting aside party affiliations — there’s still not much enthusiasm for a Biden-Trump rematch,” reports the Associated Press.
“Most U.S. adults overall (56%) would be ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024, and a similar majority (58%) would be very or somewhat dissatisfied with Trump as the GOP’s pick,” the report continues. “Nearly 3 in 10 U.S. adults, or 28%, say they would be dissatisfied with both Trump and Biden becoming their party’s respective nominees – with independents (43%) being more likely than Democrats (28%) or Republicans (20%) to express their displeasure with both men gaining party nominations.”
Independents are the wild card, with 63% unhappy with Biden and 57% unenthused about Trump. What’s interesting (and probably painfully obvious) in this poll is that partisans view their frontrunners far more favorably than they do the opposing party’s candidate.
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“Both are generally viewed favorably within their own party: About three-quarters of Democrats have a favorable view of Biden and about 7 in 10 Republicans have a favorable view of Trump,” the AP notes.
What can we do about this lack of enthusiasm for both candidates? The GOP does have an alternative in the form of the primary. While Trump does look dominant, we still might see one of the other candidates emerge. But the Democrats are stuck with Joe Biden, barring some shocking decision on his part to bow out.
Unless some miracles happen on both sides, it looks like we’re stuck with the repeat of 2020. It’s déjà vu all over again — albeit hopefully with a better outcome.