So, where are we now?

A 50,000 foot view of the 2024 race.

(Quick note: My kids are still on Christmas vacation — they have this week off — so posting will be a bit light for the next 5-7 days. Thanks!)

First of all, happy New Year! We elect a president this year. Buckle up.

Given that fact, I think it is useful to do a BIG picture look at where we are right now in the race for president. This can and should serve as a baseline for everything I write between now and November(ish).

I’ve broken this down into a few component parts — primaries, general election and x-factors. This post is free — so spread it far and wide! And encourage people to subscribe — either free or paid!

PRIMARIES

Neither the Democratic nor the Republican primary are all that competitive at this point. If you were a betting person, Joe Biden and Donald Trump would be overwhelming favorites to be their respective parties’ nominees.

Let’s start on the Republican side, which is marginally more competitive.

In the early days of 2023, it looked like the race would be a two-person race between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump led most national polls but DeSantis was only 10 or so points behind.

Two things changed that dynamic:

1. Trump was indicted — for the first time — in April. Rather than damage his standing in the race, the indictment, which Trump cast as evidence of a Deep State conspiracy against him, re-rallied his base. While Trump’s subsequent indictments — there are four(!) now — didn’t have as much of an effect, it was further glue to keep the base stuck together and to him.

2. DeSantis turned out to be a dud of a candidate. In the early months of 2023, the story was how DeSantis had led a conservative revolution in Florida — and how he would carry that same blueprint to the presidential race. But, DeSantis didn’t immediately capitalize on the momentum from his 2022 reelection victory — waiting until the end of the Florida legislative session to announce his candidacy. And, when he did get in — via a disastrous announcement with Elon Musk on X — he was MUCH less than promised. DeSantis was halting and uncertain on the campaign trail. He went through a series of staff shuffles. He struggled to find a message that resonated with voters. And his poll numbers just kept going down.

What’s really interesting — and telling about the state of the Republican party — is that as DeSantis fell, no one emerged to be the main challenger to Trump.

Yes, you could argue that person is Nikki Haley but, outside of New Hampshire (more on that in a minute), she has struggled to get even close to Trump.

What gives? It became clear over the past year that Republican voters WANTED Trump as their nominee. They recognized him as the leader of the party. They thought — and think — he has the best chance to beat Biden. And they didn’t really want to hear any significant criticism of him. Millions has been spent — by candidates and super PACs — in hopes of slowing Trump or damaging him in some major way. It’s all been for naught.

Now, the primary calendar. In 13 days, Iowa kicks off the process with its caucuses. Trump is a heavy favorite to win. Of the last 6 polls conducted in the state, Trump is over 50% in 5 of them. His average lead is over 30 points. If he comes even close to those numbers on January 15, he will score a historically large caucus victory.

Eight days later — January 23 — New Hampshire will hold its primary. To the extent there appears to be any chink in Trump’s armor, this is it. While his average lead is still over 20 points, two of the last three polls in the state have shown Haley within 15 points, suggesting at least the possibility of a closer result.

I am still skeptical that Haley can beat Trump in New Hampshire as long as Chris Christie is in the race, however. There are more anti-Trump votes in New Hampshire than in any other early-voting state but I don’t think there are enough non-Trump votes that they can be split between two candidates. Which is exactly what is happening right now. While Haley is the preferred candidate of the non-Trump New Hampshire voters, Christie is still getting double digits in most polls — votes that are coming directly out of Haley’s total.

Don’t overthink this: If Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire, the race for the nomination is over. He is ahead by almost 30 points in South Carolina at the moment and, without some MAJOR upset in the first two voting states to change the trajectory, he is going to win there too. And if he wins there, then he sweeps the states on Super Tuesday (March 5) and, in so doing, builds an insurmountable delegate lead.

The ONLY alternate path I see is if Haley wins New Hampshire and that victory propels her into contention in her home state. A win in South Carolina for Haley would fundamentally re-orient the race heading into Super Tuesday.

At the moment, I would put the odds of Trump being the nominee at 96% or so. A possibility exists that he isn’t. But it’s a triple bank shot at this point.

The Democratic primary is worth less of your time and attention. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running in the Democratic primary, there was at least some intrigue about what percentage of the vote he might get in New Hampshire (where Biden is not competing).

But, without RFK Jr., who is now running as an independent in the general election, the race isn’t worth any of your time. (And isn’t really a race at all.) Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson will get some nominal amount of the vote. Biden will win. He will be the nominee. Don’t waste any more time thinking about it.

(It’s probably not even worth the two paragraphs I just devoted to it.)

GENERAL ELECTION

As of today, Trump is a slight favorite over Biden to be the next president. (Which is scary if you consider what Trump has said about how his 2nd term would look.)

Polling tells the story. While Biden led narrowly for the early part of 2023, the final few months of the year saw a clear movement toward Trump.

Why is this? I wish I knew! But, a few thoughts:

1. The race hasn’t, for the average person, really engaged yet. While we assume Trump and Biden are the de facto nominees — see above — for the unengaged voter they are waiting for the primaries to end before they even begin to think about the general election. Which means they have yet to begin to think seriously about what returning Trump to the White House would mean.

2. The narrative surrounding Biden is that he is too old to do the job effectively. And that the economy is not where it should be (despite lots of leading indicators suggesting that things actually look quite good). And that a change is needed. All bad for Biden.

3. Trump’s base is solidly behind him in a way that Biden’s isn’t — at least not yet. That base means that Trump probably starts around 45% of the vote nationally — solely because our recent years of polarization mean that there aren’t all that many undecided voters out there.

4. Trump never stopped running for president. He contested the 2020 election results, never conceded and then announced for president (again) in late 2022. Which means that for a lot of people he is still (sort of) the president. And, it’s worth noting that we haven’t had a sitting president running against a former president in a VERY long time.

My guess — and it’s an educated one but no more than that — is that, by the summer, the race will be effectively tied. I think Biden will rally his base (or Trump as the Republican nominee will do that for him) and the focus on Trump’s many indictments (more on that below) will give at least some voters pause about him.

The metaphor I have chosen to think about how Biden and Trump is this one: Two aging (and tiring) boxers leaning against one another to stay upright. Each one will throw a punch or two along the way but the real work will be to avoid getting hit in their considerable weaknesses. I am pretty sure neither man can knock the other out. Which means that the November election is going to be very, very close.

As the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last (among others) has pointed out, a very close national election is likely a good thing for Trump. The electoral college — as we saw in 2016 — has a bit of a Republican lean, meaning that for Biden to win it he probably needs to win the national popular vote by somewhere north of 3 points. (He won it by 4.3 points in 2020.)

Which brings me back to where I started: I think Trump is an ever-so-slight favorite to be the next president. At least as of today.

X-FACTORS

Donald Trump is currently under four indictments — and faces 91 criminal charges. The proceedings over those various legal entanglements will play out — publicly — over the next 12 months. (For a full calendar of Trump’s legal issues, check this out.) We know that. What we don’t know is a) whether Trump will be convicted in ANY of these trials and b) what such a conviction would do to his poll numbers.

“A” is unknowable at this point. Some of the cases — particularly the one brought by special counsel Jack Smith over Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election — seem more serious (and solid) than others, yes, but no one can really predict how the legal process plays out.

We have slightly more insight into “B,” that is, what happens to Trump’s numbers if he is convicted in a court of law. And the available data suggests that a conviction could have a serious — and seriously negative — impact on Trump’s chances of winning.

As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted last month:

A New York Times/Siena College poll [in November] got the ball rolling on this hypothetical. The swing-state poll showed Trump going from a four-point lead on Biden across those states to a 10-point deficit if he’s convicted — a massive 14-point swing on the margins.

That’s not the only poll that shows that sort of movement. A Wall Street Journal poll had Trump ahead of Biden by 4 but that turned into Biden by 1 if Trump was convicted.

And, as a recent New York Times op-ed noted:

The damage to Mr. Trump is even more pronounced when we look at an important subgroup: swing-state voters. In recent CNN polls from Michigan and Georgia, Mr. Trump holds solid leads. The polls don’t report head-to-head numbers if Mr. Trump is convicted, but if he is, 46 percent of voters in Michigan and 47 percent in Georgia agree that he should be disqualified from the presidency.

Now. It’s worth noting that how people say they would react to a Trump conviction is not a guarantor of how they actually would act if it came to pass. But, early indications suggest that if anything has the potential to reshape the presidential general election, it’s if Trump is convicted of something between now and November.

That may be the biggest x-factor in the race for president but it’s not the only one of course. I see two others.

First is a fall — a literal one — by Joe Biden or some other episode that raises questions about his fitness for office.

After Biden fell — at the Air Force Academy — back in June, he and his team went out of their way to downplay it. It was the result of an errant sandbag left on stage! Could have happened to anyone!

Which, I suppose. But, what I know is that if the same fall happens in June of this year, it could well have a negative impact on the case Biden is trying to make to the public — that, despite his advanced age (he’s 81), he remains totally and completely capable, mentally and physically, of doing the job he is seeking.

A fall — or an episode like Mitch McConnell experienced twice in 2023 — would, I think, fuel doubts voters already have about Biden’s abilities and age. And Trump and the Republican campaign machine, which has spent months playing up Biden’s alleged infirmity, would pounce.

The other x-factor I see is RFK Jr. Here’s why: Polling continues to suggest that RFK Jr. is getting somewhere between 15%-20% of the general election vote. In fact, 3 of the last 4 polls testing a three-way race show Kennedy at or above 20%.

Which isn’t nothing! (Ross Perot, considered the most successful 3rd party candidate in modern memory, took 18.9% of the vote in 1992.)

I think the vast majority of Kennedy’s support is explained by two factors: 1) People don’t love the idea of a Biden-Trump rematch and 2) People know the Kennedy name.

The first of those two factors likely won’t change — although I would suggest that some people (especially Democrats) who say they are for Kennedy now will eventually come around on Biden under the threat of a second Trump term.

The second — what the Kennedy name means — is the one where I think his candidacy might falter. Remember that Kennedy was getting upwards of 20% in the Democratic primary when it started. But, once Democrats found out about some of his positions — particularly on vaccines — that support crumbled.

Could the same thing happen to him in a general election? Maybe. Voters tend to be more low information in a general election, which is probably a good thing for Kennedy. But if he keeps winning 1 in every 5 votes in the general election, my guess is that his views will start getting a lot more attention — which is a bad thing for Kennedy.

In short: I am not totally sure what I think about Kennedy — and his effect on the race — just yet. Stay tuned. I am going to do some more thinking and writing on this as we go forward this year.

So, in sum, here’s where we stand: Trump and Biden are almost certainly — barring a cataclysm — going to be the party standard-bearers in November. Both have flaws that can be exploited. But only one is — by dint of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and what he has said about what he will do in a 2nd term — an active threat to democracy. At the moment, that anti-democracy candidate is a slight frontrunner to be the next president.

Happy New Year!