A rare analyst to have foreseen Hillary Clinton’s defeats against Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Marie-Christine Bonzom has covered seven presidential elections and five presidencies. At the invitation of Dutyshe occasionally casts her expert eye on the 2024 presidential campaign.
During the 2008 campaign, former Democratic President Bill Clinton, whose wife was running for the party’s nomination, estimated that after the terms of the unpopular Republican George W. Bush, marked by the attacks of 2001, the invasion of Iraq under false pretexts, the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hurricane Katrina“anyone [pouvait] win the election” against Republican John McCain, “even a refrigerator.”
Bill Clinton’s outburst meant that any Democratic contender had a clear path to the White House that year. It also targeted Hillary Clinton’s primary rival, a young senator named Barack Obama whom Bill found too cerebral.
The 2024 presidential election is a bit like the scenario mentioned by Clinton: the story of the refrigerator!
Indeed, Donald Trump, Bill’s former friend and Hillary’s 2008 campaign donor, should have been way ahead of Joe Biden, the most unpopular president since at least Jimmy Carter. Trump should also be way ahead of Kamala Harris, Biden’s highly unpopular vice president and former running mate, who was now installed in his place by the Democratic Party convention. But that is not the case.
Race
Before the presidential candidate was ousted by Democratic Party bigwigs and wealthy donors, Trump was leading Biden nationally by 3.1% and in all key states, according to polling averages maintained by Real Clear Politics.
A comfortable situation for a candidate as controversial as Trump, but not the solid situation that a Republican could hope for facing a president whose record is judged very negatively by Americans in light of their main concerns, which are the economy and inflation, illegal immigration, crime or foreign policy, including the war in Gaza.
Today, Trump trails Harris by 1.8% nationally and in three key states (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania).
The race for the White House has therefore tightened significantly since Kamala Harris entered orbit. She is attracting voters who wanted neither Biden nor Trump. She is winning back Democratic voters who did not want Biden or had taken refuge with third-party candidates, such as environmentalist Jill Stein or independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But the fundamental elements of the campaign have not changed.
While one of the candidates has changed — an unprecedented move at this stage of a US presidential election — the contenders now running on behalf of the Democratic and Republican parties remain unpopular. Americans who have a favorable opinion of Trump and Harris are, respectively, only 43.9% and 46.9%; low approval levels in American politics.
Moreover, Americans still have a very negative view of President Biden and the record of what Biden and Harris have always made a point of calling the “Biden-Harris administration.” Two-thirds of Americans also continue to think that their country “is on the wrong track.”
However, by substituting Kamala Harris for Joe Biden, the Democratic Party has destabilized Trump. In particular, it has undermined a pillar of the Republican’s campaign, that of Biden’s mental acuity, which had worried the majority of Americans for a long time.
Reversal
At 18 years younger than Trump, Harris makes him the oldest candidate for the White House. Her telegenic nature is another asset in a presidential election that, even more than previous ones, is being played out on screens of all kinds. The candidacy of a woman born to a father from Jamaica and a mother from India is historic. In the polls, Harris is seen as more honest than Trump, and Americans trust her more on race, abortion and health care.
The vice president, who was denigrated in her own camp until recently, is suddenly supported by the base, by the elites and by the political-electoral machine of the Democratic Party.
But Harris has her vulnerabilities. More than half of those polled consider her “too left-wing” and “too inexperienced to govern effectively.” Her executive branch position requires her to walk a tightrope: tied to Biden’s controversial record, she must keep him at arm’s length on illegal immigration or Gaza, while defending that record and drawing on her experience in power.
Harris has never faced the test of the national ballot box. In 2020, her first presidential campaign failed before the primaries. So she has no base of her own, and her platform and positions on some of the biggest issues are unclear.
So far, her campaign has operated in a highly protected environment: teleprompter-based campaign rallies, a Hollywood-choreographed Democratic convention, a single interview. Like any presidential candidate, she will still face media scrutiny and public accountability, including for her role in the historic immigration crisis at the southern border, which Biden has tasked her with, and the White House’s strategy to cover up the president’s cognitive decline.
Another stumbling block for Harris: the fractures in the Democratic Party, particularly over Gaza. To what extent will a young or Arab-Muslim voter be able to vote for Harris after having castigated “Genocide Joe” and “Kamala the Killer”?
Above all, Harris’ vulnerability lies in the intrinsic ambiguity of her candidacy. The Californian wants to be the candidate of “change” while she is the number two in the government and the closest thing there is to an incumbent candidate.
Between assessment and project, his campaign, which seeks to stand out with the slogans “joy” and “hope” – at the risk of being accused of neglecting the serious problems encountered by Americans – has the great challenge of finding a truly decisive echo among voters who, whatever their political tendency, are deeply anxious about the situation and the future of the country.
Pitfalls
Trump, too, has strengths and vulnerabilities. His greatest strength is also his greatest weakness: being Trump. Like his former friend Bill Clinton, Trump is a political animal, but that animal is often a bull in a china shop.
Trump has been met with almost knee-jerk rejection by a good portion of Americans, including about 20% of Republican primary voters, who preferred Nikki Haley. Nearly 60% of Americans believe that Trump is “too focused on personal revenge” and “too unpredictable and out of control to govern effectively.” In addition, the terrible riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has stuck with him, raising doubts and fears about his commitment to democratic values.
Harris’s rise presents Trump with new challenges. Her age, which never hurt her as much as it did Biden, now suggests the risks associated with aging. Beyond that, Trump faces two big challenges. Known for much except subtlety, can Trump campaign against a woman of Caribbean and Asian descent without again slipping up on the highly sensitive issues of race and gender in America? Can he do what no other candidate has had to do: adapt his campaign to a new opponent?
In retrospect and in comparison with the Biden-Harris record, the Trump presidency is re-evaluated by Americans more positively than when they sanctioned it in 2020. Moreover, most of those polled have more confidence in Trump to manage the economy, illegal immigration and foreign policy.
Moreover, while euphoria is now animating the Democratic camp, support for Trump should not be underestimated. On the one hand, Trump is more popular than during his other presidential campaigns. On the other hand, in 2016 and 2020, the voting intentions in his favor cited by pollsters in key states had turned out to be significantly lower than the votes cast. Finally, the rallying to Trump of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic candidates for the White House who have become mavericks, could help Trump with crucial independent voters.
However, Trump, faced with Harris as with Biden, still cannot take full advantage of the fertile ground that popular discontent with the government represents for him.
Moreover, during almost the entire campaign and until the Democrats changed horses, the reluctance towards Trump was such that he certainly beat Biden in the polls, but less easily than Haley, and even less easily than a “generic” Republican candidate, i.e. Clinton’s famous “fridge”.