Joe Biden 2024: Why the US president’s re-election bid looks doomed already
- Gaffe-prone and uninspiring, Biden has the resume but not the ability to convince Americans nor win his party’s support for re-election
- And this time, his likely competitor is popular Florida governor Ron DeSantis
Without officially announcing it, US President Joe Biden has launched his new campaign to run in 2024. That few people seem to have noticed is indicative of why Biden’s bid for another term is a risk and likely to end in defeat.
These days, the State of the Union is a spectacle, with little meaning other than to generate clips and sound bites for donors and social media appearances. The pattern is usually the same: the president praises himself, names his opponents at home and abroad, and promises that with his help, everything will be much better next year, all while being frequently applauded and cheered on by his party.
But Biden’s speech was more than just that. It was a best-of compilation, his greatest hits all at once: his economic accomplishments and a jaunty review of everything he accomplished in his first two years in office. Particularly noteworthy: it almost exclusively focused on the American people.
Moreover, the middle class will be happy that inflated drug prices, especially for insulin, are finally descending while the economy and job market have been recovering.
But these accomplishments are not felt by Americans. Right now, 62 per cent of Americans think Biden has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” during his first two years, while his approval ratings have stagnated.
It raises the question of why his polls remain suboptimal. The answer is as simple as it should be demoralising. Whenever such a dissonance between achievements and polls occurs, the president suffers from a communication problem; he simply cannot sell his policies or his successes.
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The inability to coherently and effectively sell his achievements to the American people is a gap Biden must, but is unlikely to, bridge over the next two years.
Two factors are generally decisive for election victories: obtaining the votes of independents and mobilising one’s own base.
One can argue the election is far down the road and that Biden can up his game. But is a communicative U-turn out of nowhere realistic?
Biden has never been a great communicator. He rarely gives press conferences; when he does, his office asks for pre-written questions. The likelihood of him turning into the second coming of Barack Obama overnight seems slim.
During the previous election cycle, Biden’s cautious style, and the recognition of his weaknesses, was obscured. He was running against perhaps the greatest political anomaly in US history. All Biden had to do was essentially not display the same disturbing character traits as Trump and not fall off the debate stage.
Moreover, the previous election cycle occurred during the pandemic. Traditional ways of communicating with voters, such as massive rallies, were almost obsolete, and Biden made ends meet with sporadic, careful appearances.
Republicans, to this day, criticise Biden for “hiding in his basement”. Albeit hyperbolic, there is an element of truth. Biden was essentially protected from being himself – the gaff machine and uninspiring communicator that he has been over his entire career.
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More alarming for Biden, surveys suggest that DeSantis would beat him. That may not be an exact science two years before the election, but Biden is campaigning for an election he undeniably possesses the resume for, but remains too communicatively inept and uninspiring to succeed at under these new circumstances.
Thomas O. Falk is a UK-based independent journalist and political analyst
