President Joe Biden woke up Wednesday morning to surprisingly strong midterm results for his party. As returns show a red wave that looks more like a puddle, attention is already turning toward what those developments mean for 2024.
Big election losses may have spurred calls for Biden to step aside. Instead, he escaped the midterm fates of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, leaving former nemesis Donald Trump as the night’s big loser.
BIDEN AND OBAMA HIT BLUE STRONGHOLDS IN THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS, STOPPING RED WAVE
“So much of politics is exceeding expectations. Biden and [Gov. Ron] DeSantis (R-FL) are the big winners because they both exceeded expectations,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “Trump is the big loser because his candidates almost all lost. I think Biden will run again and win the nomination. I think DeSantis is now the odds-on favorite to get the GOP nomination as long as he as can build a first-class campaign.”
Republicans are likely to take the House, albeit by smaller-than-expected margins, and the Senate may come down to another Georgia runoff. Many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates, such as Mehmet Oz, Doug Mastriano, and Tudor Dixon, have already lost.
Trump-backed Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker vastly underperformed Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who so famously rejected Trump’s election denialism in 2020.
That’s all a big plus for Biden during the rest of his first term — and a big blow to his former opponent.
Big-name Democrats have shied away from directly endorsing a Biden reelection bid, including first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff. That may change now as attention turns quickly to 2024.
Biden turns 80 two Sundays from now and would be 86 at the end of a second term. That will be less of an issue against Trump, who is just four years his junior. But against 44-year-old DeSantis, the generation gap will be glaring. The Florida governor sailed to victory Tuesday night over Charlie Crist, securing nearly 60% of the vote in what used to be a purple state.
As such, a severely weakened Trump could ultimately backfire on Biden. Exit polls found two-thirds of voters don’t want Biden to run in 2024, yet polls have also shown that 92% of Biden voters would pull the trigger for him again should he face Trump.
It’s also up for debate how big of an impact midterm results have on incumbent presidents. Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010 and won reelection two years later. Clinton lost 54 House seats in 1994 and won reelection in 1996. Trump lost 40 seats in 2018, which is less than either of them, yet failed to secure a second term in 2020.
Biden’s approval ratings have been stuck in the low 40s for months, numbers he’ll hope to improve on as he faces a somewhat harsher Congress in 2023 and 2024. That may give him more of a contrast to show voters when election time swings back around.
“Republican control of the House means the President has a convenient scapegoat,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “He now can run against the do-nothing GOP House.”
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Biden has already made the comparison, using the midterm campaign’s final days to highlight how “MAGA Republicans” would harm the economy, refuse to accept election results, and threaten popular entitlement programs.
“My dad used to have an expression,” Biden said at a recent Democratic National Committee event. “He’d say, ‘Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.'”
