Three 2024 headwinds Biden didn’t have to face in 2020
Rachel Schilke
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President Joe Biden launched his 2024 campaign earlier this week. He’s focusing on beating back “MAGA Republican extremists” and using the tag line “Let’s finish the job.”
His next presidential run is bound to look a little different. He’s entering a highly contested race that is likely to involve hot-button topics including abortion, the economy, and immigration. He’ll also have to contend with spitfire Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and possibly Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
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As an incumbent president running for reelection, Biden has an edge. However, it could also prove to be a liability as the country seeks to pull itself from a period of high inflation, border influxes, and a slew of social problems.
Here are three headwinds that Biden did not have to face in 2020 but must overcome in 2024.
Age is not just a number
In 2020, at age 76, Biden was similar in age to other presidential candidates, such as Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). So, age was not necessarily at the forefront of voters’ minds.
Now, at 80, Biden is the oldest president to serve in the White House. He would be 86 by the end of his second term in office, and he is already facing criticism and skepticism regarding his cognitive ability.
A poll released on Monday determined that only 26% of respondents wanted Biden to seek a second term, with 69% of voters citing Biden’s age as a factor.
Biden has been quick to say “Watch me” when people comment on his age and whether it impedes his ability to occupy the White House. On Wednesday, he said age “doesn’t register with me” when asked about his poll ratings.
“I can’t even say the number,” Biden said about his age. “It doesn’t register with me. But the only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out is, they’re going to see a race, and they are going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it.”
However, age will be a roadblock that even Democrats acknowledge will require triumph if Biden is to win the presidency again. If he faces Trump, who is now 76, it will likely not be as much of a liability as if he faced DeSantis, who is 44.
“I do believe he is up to the task, and that is something we just cannot pretend is not on people’s minds,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said of Biden. “I think he has to show the energy that he’s been showing over the past several months.”
End of COVID-19 forces Biden out of the basement
The largest difference between Biden’s 2020 and 2024 election campaigns is the end of COVID-19, which will force Biden into the spotlight.
In the 2020 race, the president avoided large events and rarely campaigned outside of his home state of Delaware, a point of mockery for Republicans who suggested he was hiding in his basement. It proved effective for Biden, though, because it allowed for Trump and his inflammatory rhetoric to dig himself a hole.
However, former White House adviser Karl Rove called Biden’s 2024 election debut on social media a “second basement campaign” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
He blasted Biden’s social media video, which announced his reelection bid on the four-year anniversary of his 2020 campaign launch on April 25, 2019.
“Tuesday’s video will leave no strong imprint, and news of the president’s announcement will be drowned out by the debt-ceiling fight in Congress,” Rove said.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said she believes the voters will see that Biden cannot keep up with an active campaign.
“It’s going to be hidin’ Biden again, just like we had in 2020, and I just hope the American people reject that and want to see this candidate face the American people and answer tough questions, which he’s never done,” McDaniel said Wednesday on Fox News.
Presidential record in the spotlight
One of the assets of a fresh candidate without top elected office experience means that their records cannot be used against them. That is not the case for Biden.
Before, when he entered the 2020 race, Biden was able to tout a mostly successful vice presidency under Obama. He entered the campaign promising, among several things, to defeat the pandemic, revive the economy, and safeguard abortion rights, as well as establish the United States abroad, according to Politifact. This resonated with voters, particularly among Democrats and independents who liked the idea of someone other than Trump in office.
Now, in the 2024 campaign, Biden can garner voters off the promises he kept, but he will also have to atone for the promises he failed to keep.
As promised, he did bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic, ending the Trump-era national emergency on April 11. The public health emergency is set to expire in May. However, Republicans are quick to blame the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and other Democratic measures for policies installed during the pandemic that negatively affected education and the economy.
The economy and immigration are likely to be two of the biggest hits to Biden’s record, especially for independent voters in red-leaning states.
Inflation is at 8.3% as of April 17. A report released on Thursday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed the economy growing at a rate of 1.1% in the first quarter of 2023, falling short of the 2.6% posted in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The influx of immigrants at the border is a thorn in Biden’s side and a rewarding target for the GOP. In March, the influx of immigrants illegally crossing the border rose 25%.
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Democrats and Republicans have both expressed concern over the dubbed “border crisis” that has brought fentanyl into the country. Federal law enforcement seized a record of 14,700 pounds in 2022, compared to 11,200 pounds in 2021 and 4,800 pounds in 2020, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The agency seized a record-breaking $21 million worth of fentanyl from a man seeking entry into the country. The pills were disguised as green beans.