AMAC Exclusive – By Aaron Flanigan
With just under one year to go until the highly anticipated 2024 presidential election, the only certainty is uncertainty. Here are five factors that could upend the 2024 race by next Election Day.
Joe Biden’s Age
Few issues have dominated the 2024 presidential election quite like Joe Biden’s age. As the oldest president in American history with a well-established record of physical and verbal gaffes, there is serious doubt about whether Biden will in fact be at the top of his party’s ticket come next November—or whether party leaders will eventually be forced to replace him with a younger face like Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom.
If Democrats are forced to boot Biden from the ticket, it could hamper their eventual nominee’s odds of retaining the White House.
One Democrat congressman, Dean Phillips of Minnesota, has recognized these risks and has launched a primary campaign against Biden. “My inability to attract other candidates, to inspire the president to recognize that it is time, compels me to serve my country because it appears that President Joe Biden is going to lose the next election,” Phillips said at his October campaign launch.
But whether Phillips’s warnings will ultimately prove true—and whether his fellow Democrats will heed them in time—remains to be seen.
Third-Party Candidates
From Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s independent campaign to Cornel West’s longshot White House bid to the threat of yet another third-party ticket from centrist group No Labels, there is no shortage of independent and third-party campaigns this cycle. How they might affect the final outcome of next year’s general election is anyone’s guess.
As the Associated Press recently reported, “There’s little concern that the independent or third-party candidates would actually win the presidency, but they could siphon support from the ultimate Democratic and Republican nominees.” The report continued: “A heightened sense of concern is spreading especially among Democratic officials, who see the outsiders as a dangerous wildcard that harkens back to 2016, when Green Party nominee Jill Stein may have enabled Trump’s razor-thin victory by winning a small portion of the vote.”
Polling has offered few solid indications about whether Kennedy’s presence in the race benefits Donald Trump or Joe Biden more. Following West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not seek reelection next fall, speculation has mounted that he will run on the centrist No Labels ticket. Though conventional wisdom suggests that Trump or another Republican candidate would likely benefit more from Manchin’s presence in the race, it remains too early to be certain.
Biden’s Lawfare Against Donald Trump
In the not-so-distant past, the prospect of a presidential administration weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and federal law enforcement agencies against the president’s chief political opponent would have been seen as patently un-American and a shockingly authoritarian power grab.
But that is undoubtedly exactly what the country has seen by the Biden administration against Donald Trump. Over the last several months, the Biden DOJ and state-level prosecutors have launched an unprecedented series of politically motivated indictments of Donald Trump – attacks that have grown in intensity as Trump has expanded his polling edge over Biden.
Whether any of the left’s indictments against Trump will ultimately result in a conviction from a far-left jury remains to be seen. But thus far, they have primarily served as major political boosters for Trump, rallying conservative voters to his side in unprecedented numbers.
As the first vote of primary season approaches, the former president will almost certainly continue to face baseless legal warfare from the left.
Conflicts Overseas
Thanks in large part to the Biden administration’s weakness on the world stage, war is now raging not only in Ukraine, but also in the Middle East—laying the groundwork for a tumultuous 2024 that could have massive implications for the 2024 presidential race.
These ongoing foreign conflicts have already been a major source of disagreement within the Republican primary field, with populist candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy calling for less American aid to Ukraine while neoconservative favorites like Nikki Haley have pushed for a more interventionist role both in Ukraine and in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict in Israel could put him in a politically precarious position. As Austin Sarat observed in The Hill, Biden’s public support for Israel’s right to defend itself “is costing him support from members of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and elsewhere.” Yet, Sarat continues, “if he is less supportive of Israel, or even tempers his commitments by pointing out the need to safeguard the lives of Palestinian people, he could lose large segments of America’s Jewish population and other political moderates.”
How these overseas conflicts might ultimately affect Biden’s reelection bid remains in question—but they will almost certainly continue to be significant factors as Election Day nears.
Biden Corruption
In recent weeks, investigations by House Republicans have revealed that Joe Biden received personal checks from his brother and sister-in-law that were paid with money they laundered from Communist China. Moreover, Americans have learned over the last several months that the Bidens received millions of dollars in alleged bribes from foreign countries, that the FBI knowingly covered up Biden’s bribery scheme with a Ukrainian energy company, and that Attorney General Merrick Garland has likely interfered with the DOJ’s investigations into the Biden family, among other groundbreaking revelations.
As James Comer, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, observed, “Bank records don’t lie, and coupled with witness testimony, they reveal that Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain.”
Though the media has largely failed to accurately cover Biden’s growing mountain of pay-to-play schemes, the GOP investigation could turn up even more damning evidence that is impossible to ignore and would seriously influence the outcome of the 2024 race.
These factors and many more are paving the way for a historically chaotic election next year. With less than 12 months until Election Day, voters can rest assured that 2024 will be politically unforgettable.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
