Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

As many have already pointed out, the past week or so has been a roller coaster: the failed Trump assassination attempt, followed almost immediately by the GOP convention and, just a few days later, by President Biden’s announcement that he will withdraw from the 2024 race and endorse his vice president.

Given these tectonic shifts, it would be easy to think that nearly everything has changed. After all, Donald Trump has not only weathered the blowback from the Jan. 6 riot as well as the criminal indictments and conviction, but he’s emerged in the past few months as a politically stronger candidate with a largely unified Republican Party behind him. Meanwhile, after staring into the jaws of defeat and forcing Biden out of the race, the Democrats seem poised for a major reset, with a much younger candidate who not only has a different gender and race from the president, but a different political temperament as well.

But things may not be as different as they seem. That’s because certain essential factors that have been driving the race up to this point are unlikely to change between now and Election Day.

To begin with, given how politically divided the country is, this race has always been and is likely to remain relatively close. Even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June and Trump’s widely praised raised fist after being shot, the latter’s lead over the former in national head-to-head polling never rose above 3%, which is at the edge of the margin of error. Given the advantage the Democrats have in getting out the vote and Trump’s propensity to say and do things that often repel the same independent voters he needs to win, there was no absolute guarantee that the former president was going to prevail in November, even if Biden had stayed in.

But there is something else that may make the coming race more static than many realize: the views of the American people on Biden’s handling of many of the most important issues facing the country. Because questions about the president’s age have been front and center in recent months, it’s easy to think that Biden’s low approval numbers largely stemmed from concerns about his ability to effectively complete a second term. And, of course, Biden’s age was a big drag on his political standing—big enough to force him from the race.

But another important reason the president’s approval ratings have been so low in the past couple years is that solid majorities of Americans give him poor marks on his handling of many of the issues that matter most to them—starting with the economy. According to RealClearPolitics averages of the most recent polls, roughly 59% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared with 39% who approve—a 20% difference. Dig deeper and the numbers get even worse: The gap between those who disapprove and approve of Biden’s handling of inflation is roughly 28%.

And on other important issues, the president also scores poorly. The gaps between those who disapprove and those who approve of the president’s handling of immigration (a 31% difference), foreign policy (27%) and crime (18%) all add to the narrative that voters are deeply dissatisfied with the president’s policies and his job performance in these areas.

Sure, if Kamala Harris ends up winning the nomination, the newness of her candidacy will generate excitement among voters and likely give her at least a bump if not a real boost in the polls. And at 59, she will not have the age problem that politically crippled her boss during much of his tenure in the White House. In fact, she will almost certainly begin expressing concerns about whether a 78-year-old Donald Trump will have the stamina over the next four years to do the toughest job in world.

But she will also inherit much, if not most, of the blame for the Biden administration’s failure—at least in the minds of most voters—to tackle many of the country’s biggest problems. As Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, will almost certainly remind Americans at every turn, the run-up in inflation, the breakdown at the border, the spike in the crime rate, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East all occurred on Harris’ watch as well as Biden’s.

Harris may also face headwinds due to a more general dissatisfaction with the status quo, which tends to hurt incumbent and even incumbent-adjacent candidates, such as sitting vice presidents.

On the surface, it seems as if we’re currently in uncharted territory, and if anyone has the edge, it may be Harris, who now has a chance to reintroduce herself to American voters. But a few months from now, we may well be looking at a race that’s essentially a jump ball, or one in which Trump continues to enjoy the slight edge in national and swing-state polls that he had before Biden’s debate performance set him on the path to withdraw from the campaign.

Who knows, switching horses at this point could really make a difference for the Democrats. Never say never. But the more likely scenario is that the powerful political forces that have shaped the race thus far will pull it back to where it’s been all along: a close-run thing with the challenger having a slight advantage.