Greetings from Houston, where I gave a talk last night for the Forward Tour! We had a phenomenal time. Being out and about made me excited about my next trip.
This past week I sat down with Marianne Williamson, a friend from the trail. She talked about the Democratic Party, third parties, 2024 and much more. You can see the conversation here ([link removed]) .
My conversation with Marianne helped shift my thinking. For a while now I’ve been projecting a Trump vs. Biden rematch in 2024. Now I believe it’s going to be Trump vs. the Field.
Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party is as strong now as it was several months ago – perhaps stronger given that time has passed and no new rival has emerged. He held his first major rally in Arizona last week and was clearly testing out attack lines for 2024. His campaign machine is already running to the tune of well over $100 million. Some of his potential rivals are bending the knee and saying they won’t run against him. I believe his strongest opponent will be Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland who is term-limited. Right now the heavy favorite is Trump.
On the other side, I used to think it was going to be Biden because he’s the incumbent who beat Trump and the Democrats would want to avoid a fractious primary. But there have been a few developments that have changed my mind. First, Joe’s weakness has continued – his approval is mired in the low 40s, even in the 30s by some polling. Stacey Abrams declining to show up to a voting rights event in Georgia with Joe struck me as shocking. Build Back Better has stalled. His address on the filibuster was pre-empted by Kyrsten Sinema and the Senate was all sent home after being told they’d be working on election legislation all weekend. Deference to Joe is dissipating.
Second, there has been increasing unease from large DNC donors. One donor told me that several funders were openly talking about sitting out the next cycle until they knew what/who they were backing. Another suggested that donors were trying to figure out who to coalesce around as a new candidate in 2024. If donors are talking this way, they certainly have multiple candidates-in-waiting who are thinking this way.
Third, I’ve now heard from at least a couple people who are considering mounting a challenge. Nature abhors a vacuum. So does politics. As the sense deepens that Joe may not run for a 2nd term, people are beginning to prepare their own runs for 2024.
I thought that we’d have until the midterms in November. But now I think it’s going to get pushed up to earlier in the year, in part because Trump is so clearly the Republican frontrunner.
When I ran for President in 2020, Democratic Primary voters had one threshold question for candidates – “Who can beat Donald Trump?” It was the central question, and it was why Joe Biden became the nominee.
It seems that voters will be asking themselves that question again, and trying to figure out if Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren or someone else from among a host of new candidates (e.g., Kyrsten Sinema, JB Pritzker) can convincingly answer “I can.” Keep an eye on JB Pritzker as one of the only mainstream Dems who can self-finance.
I also believe there will be at least one 3rd party candidate who declares in 2022, in part because of Joe’s weakness, a desire for an alternative to Trump and the hazy Democratic field.
Joe Biden emerged from a scrum of a race to take on Trump. It feels like yesterday. But the next scrum will be here before we know it.
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