While a majority of Americans say they do not want to see a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the Democratic Party is trying by all means to prepare the way for the president to prevent the emergence of a credible opponent in the party’s nomination contest for the 2024 election.
Some see it as just a kind of collusion between party elites depriving Democratic voters of a real choice. But strategically and historically, the Democratic Party is acting in a completely predictable, normal, and justified way.
Win and legislate
To understand the strategy of any political actor, one must first consider his objectives. The Democratic Party seeks to achieve two goals: the election of its candidates and the endorsement of public policies desirable in the eyes of its activists and the groups it represents. The party wants to win and legislate.
However, not only has Joe Biden proven that he can defeat the Republican favorite, but under his leadership, the Democrats have generally succeeded in confirming their priorities. Often obtained in a snatch and sometimes leaving the progressives on their hunger, these legislative victories nevertheless pleased the militants and the elites of the party.
“Manipulation” or normal strategy to avoid division?
The bulk of the Democratic Party elite and activists therefore line up faithfully behind Biden. But the party goes further by adopting rules favoring the incumbent president.
By reshuffling the order of primaries and caucuses and not considering holding televised debates, the party is aiming for a coronation for Biden. While some accuse it of “manipulating” the process in this way, the Democratic Party is simply adopting a strategy to prevent history from repeating itself.
Since World War II, five incumbent presidents have faced real opposition in the primaries. They will all suffer the same fate: they will no longer occupy the White House the following year either because they will withdraw (Truman in 19521Johnson in 1968), or because they will lose the election in November (Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, Bush in 1992).
Many studies in political science have quantified the deleterious effect of this internal division on the party’s chances of winning the general election.
No debates? No problem
Given these historical cases, it is quite normal for the president’s party not to organize televised debates and for the president not to participate in them. The Democratic president in 1980 and the Republican president in 1992 both refused to debate with their main opponent.
Trump did the same in 2020 as the Republican Party decided not to endorse televised debates. Remember the televised debates between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan during the tight race for the Republican nomination in 1976? In fact, they never took place.
The reshuffling of the primaries
It is also historically true that when the president seeks another term, his party alters the primary process. Since 1984, the party of an incumbent president who is running for re-election has held an average of seven fewer primaries than four years earlier (compared to an average of one primary moreover for the other party)2.
The orchestrated nomination is thus less contested, but deprives certain party voters of an opportunity to participate in the choice of their standard-bearer. The same logic leads the Democratic Party to reshuffle the primaries in 2024.
The Convention: Avoid Embarrassment
Another reason underlies the Democratic strategy: the party wants to avoid any sign of bickering at the national convention in August.
Traditionally, a platform is offered to candidates who have obtained significant support during the primaries, which sometimes gives rise to discord: in 1992, Pat Buchanan fiercely evoked the “culture war” while in 2016 Ted Cruz refused to urge his constituents to vote for Trump.
One can understand why the Democrats do not want, at prime time, to give the floor to a candidate like Robert Kennedy Jr., whose propensity to adopt certain theories prized by conspiracy theorists do not fit well with the positions of the party.
As the other would say…
Despite historical cases, strategic common sense or even studies in political science, critics of the Democratic Party openly lament the preferential treatment enjoyed by Joe Biden. But the party must act in this way to avoid the worst scenario in its eyes: a defeat at the hands of the Republican candidate.
The twin goals of winning and legislating are fundamental in a democracy. “At the end of the day, governing is about winning and delivering (legislative) results,” as Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a recent speech in Iowa. And that, the Democratic Party seems to have understood.
1. Not everyone agrees that Truman wanted to run for another term in 1952. But the fact that he announced his departure two months after losing the New Hampshire primary suggests that opposition within his own party played a role.
2. Data taken from the third edition of the book The Imperfect Primary by Barbara Norrander.
* Antoine Yoshinaka teaches American politics and quantitative methods. His research focuses on political institutions, elections and political parties in the United States. He is also an associate researcher at the Observatory on the United States of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.