20231106

Who’s Ready for a Trump-Biden Rematch? Anyone? Hello?

Call it the election no one wants.

With a year to go until Election Day, a record share of Americans hold unfavorable opinions of both major parties and take a dim view of the front-runners. Most voters say they don’t want Joe Biden to be president. Or Donald Trump.

But anyone hoping for a better option is likely to wind up disappointed. Although voters and party leaders have doubts about both men, the same polls show Biden and Trump poised to coast to their party’s nominations once the primaries begin in January. The last time an incumbent president lost, ran against the same opponent four years later and returned to the White House was in 1892, when Grover Cleveland faced off against Benjamin Harrison.

Americans aren’t itching for a rerun. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 37% approve of how Biden has handled his presidency, while only 38% approve of how Trump handled his. Half of respondents say both men are too old to serve another term. While nominees often pivot to the center for the general election, “you can’t pivot younger,” warns James Carville, who ran Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.

Americans don’t agree on much when it comes to politics. But a majority of Democrats (68%), Republicans (57%) and Independents (78%) do agree on one thing in the latest Harvard-Harris poll: Rather than Trump or Biden, they’d like “another choice.”

Trump didn’t bother showing up for the Republican debate on Sept. 27 in Southern California. But his presence loomed over the proceedings at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, even though it was filled with candidates, operatives and donors eager to move on from him.

Once the cameras started rolling, the seven Republicans hoping to succeed Trump mainly swiped at each other over inflation, immigration, China and the flow of illegal drugs from Mexico, with a bickering intensity that quickly steered the debate into chaos. But none made a cogent case for why Republicans should abandon the former president, presumably because he is viewed favorably by around 80% of GOP voters. The closest anyone ventured was Chris Christie’s charge that Trump was “ducking” the debates: “You keep doing that, we won’t be calling you Donald Trump anymore, we’ll be calling you Donald Duck.” The line bombed. Trump was unscathed. And Christie has wound up with the highest unfavorable rating of any challenger.

“The winner tonight was Donald Trump, by not participating,” said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster and Trump critic, who distilled his party’s odd predicament. “By disrespecting the process and the people, Trump actually emerges stronger.”

By refusing to make way for the next generation of candidates, Trump has not only avoided the fate of a loser but also taken on the electoral attributes of a winner—even though he was cast out of the White House.

Democrats hoping to move on from Biden have had the opposite problem. Polls show that voters have substantial concerns about reelecting a president who will be 81 years old on Election Day. An August Associated Press survey found that 69% of Democrats believe Biden is “too old to be effective.”

Afterward, Democratic donors lined up to defend the president and try to redirect attention to Trump. “I am more worried about Trump’s mental acuity than Biden’s,” says John Morgan, a longtime Democratic donor and personal injury lawyer. “Someone who mixes up a word is a lot different than someone who is clinically insane.”

“I regret voting for Biden, but I don’t regret not voting for Trump.”

EK: Dilemma. Choose bad over worse. Neither of them is perfect.