Neither Biden nor Trump

A recent NBC poll showed that only 5% of American voters want a repeat of 2020 in 2024, meaning an election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. With the confirmation that the current president will run for reelection next year, this becomes the most likely scenario every day.

The last time the United States saw an election with repeat candidates was in 1956, when then-Republican President Dwight Eisenhower defeated Democrat and former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for the second time. The big difference between the 1950s election and today's, however, is that Eisenhower enjoyed great popularity, which is not the case for Biden – much less Trump. According to polls, the 2024 election will be more about who Americans don't want in the White House than who they actually want. According to a compilation of surveys organized by the FiveThirtyEight website, 57,9% of voters in the United States disapprove of Donald Trump. Biden is doing slightly better, but there are still more people who disapprove than approve of the president: 52,7% versus 42,6%.

Both are favorites in their parties' primary races, but at the same time, according to NBC's research, they are undesirable to the majority of the country. In Trump's case, 60% of Americans would prefer he not to be a candidate, including 1/3 of his own party's electorate. In Biden's case, 70% think he should stay out of the race, and among Democratic voters, 51% share this opinion. The main reason given against Biden's candidacy is his age – the president is currently 80 years old – but even so, 88% of Democrats say they will vote for him if he is, in fact, chosen by the party.

The repeat, however, seems likely. Trump is polling at 51,1% on average in the Republican primary polls. Ron DeSantis, who has not yet declared his candidacy but is expected to do so in May, is in a distant second place with 23,8%. In the case of the Democrats, there isn't even a real contest. Never in the modern history of the United States has a sitting president lost his party's primaries. The last time a president was denied reelection was in 1856, when the Democrats did not allow then-President Franklin Pierce to run. It is worth noting that this was even before the primaries as we know them today emerged.

The polls, of course, give a boost, especially to Trump's opponents. It's possible that the race for the Republican nomination will become more heated. It's worth remembering, however, that the former president has considerable power within the party and, above all, among the increasingly conservative base of its voters. In an election about rejection, Democrats would certainly prefer to run against Donald Trump. One way or another, 15 years after "hope" was the motto of the election campaign that led Obama to the presidency, American voters are preparing for a far less hopeful and far more pragmatic election.