The known unknowns of the 2024 election (part 1)

Breaking down the big questions that will determine whether Biden wins a second term

It may be hard to believe, but we are now exactly nine months out from Election Day, when Americans will go to the polls to determine whether to re-elect President Biden or to make Donald Trump just the second president ever to win non-consecutive terms.¹ Between now and November, political analysts and practitioners will be watching closely to see how every development in the campaign—major or minor—could influence the election’s outcome.

I’ve put together my own list of variables that (as of today) I think will be worth monitoring in the months ahead and on election night. I’m including half of them in this post, while the other half will appear in a separate post this week.

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1. The impact of third party candidates

Third parties in American politics have given the two major parties fits throughout history—especially the Democrats, who believe the presence of the left-wing Green Party, specifically, helped tip the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 to Republicans. This year, with the two parties’ likely nominees both suffering from high unfavorable ratings, third parties once again see an opening to jump into the fray.

One of them is the Green Party. Notably, the Green Party was not on the ballot in several pivotal swing states in 2020, when Biden ousted Trump from the White House. This time, however, they’re already on the ballot in four such states: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.² Though the Greens’ initial candidate—activist and Princeton professor Cornel West—left the party in October to run as an independent, their 2016 (and 2012) nominee, Jill Stein, announced she would run with them again. Some observers believe these challenges to Biden’s left are his biggest threats to re-election.

However, the Green Party is not the only game in town. The putatively centrist group No Labels has been teasing for months that they will run a “unity ticket” with one Democrat and one Republican, and several prominent politicians have been mentioned as possible suitors (though others have rejected the organization’s overtures to join them). The group has employed objectively bizarre logic to justify its raison d'être, claiming they won’t run a candidate unless the election looks like it will be close—but they also don’t want to be a spoiler that helps elect Trump. At least one prominent Democratic organization has conducted analyses showing that No Labels would be more of a threat to pull votes from Biden than from Trump.

Then there’s the question of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy. RFK, who began his campaign running in the Democratic primary, later bolted and became an independent (though he has recently had conversations with the Libertarian Party about leading their ticket). In contrast with other third-party candidates, RFK’s wide name recognition has helped him pack a punch in several polls. He has hit double digits in key swing states, and in one national poll, he garnered a whopping 22 percent support. Unlike the Green Party and No Labels, however, both of which appear to pose problems for Biden, polls have shown that RFK could actually pull more votes from Trump. This may explain why the Trump campaign reportedly approached him about being Trump’s running mate (an idea RFK has rejected).

Suffice it to say, the weaknesses of the two major (presumptive) nominees has left many voters hoping for other options,. At the same time, negative polarization and fear of the “other side” are strong impulses, too. Once the American public comes to the realization that their two main choices will, indeed, once again be Biden and Trump, many could come back into the fold for their respective candidate purely out of fear of the other.

What I’ll be watching for in the months ahead:

• How much more ground can these third-party candidates gain in terms of ballot access?

• Just how big is the third-party vote on Election Day/how many third-party-curious voters ultimately end up voting for Biden or Trump?

• In which states do third parties earn the greatest share of votes cast?

• Do multiple third-party candidates perform well or just one (and which one)?

• Which major-party candidate is most negatively impacted by the third parties’ presence?

2. The health of the economy and consumer sentiment

One of the issues dogging Biden since early in his first term has been the state of the nation’s economy. Coming out of the pandemic, countries around the world have been dealing with problems like constricted supply-chain flow and a rising cost of living—and the U.S. has not been spared.³ Inflation on items ranging from gas to groceries to housing increased at a higher rate than normal over the past few years.

This reality has unsurprisingly impacted the public’s mood. From 2020 to late 2022, consumer sentiment—the measure of how consumers feel about the state of the economy and their personal financial situation—continuously declined, hitting a historic low in June 2022. These sour attitudes were then reflected in voters’ poor feelings about their leaders. Biden’s approval rating has been mired in the high-30s and low 40s for most of his presidency, and voters frequently cite frustrations with the economy as a factor.

However, heading into 2024, there are numerous signs that the U.S. economy has started to rebound. Overall levels of inflation have cooled. The unemployment rate has been at record lows while the stock market has hit record highs. And Americans’ attitudes about the state of the economy are finally starting to catch up.

Unfortunately for Biden, the public still isn’t really giving him credit.⁴ But that may not ultimately matter. In the 2020 election, 28 percent of voters cited the economy as the most important issue, second only to the pandemic. Trump won these voters over Biden by an astounding 81–17 margin…but Biden won the election anyway. In 2022, nearly half of voters said the economy was the most pressing issue facing the country, but far from punishing the party in power, the Democrats had a lot of success that cycle. In fact, they won voters who “somewhat disapproved” of Biden’s handling of the economy by 23 points.

To be sure, any incumbent president—especially one running for re-election—would want credit for a healthy economy, but Biden may still be able to prevail even if voters don’t give it to him.

What I’ll be watching for in the months ahead:

• Does the American economy continue to improve (chiefly, does the inflation rate keep declining)?

• Do Americans’ attitudes about the economy continue following those improvements?

• What share of voters ultimately highlight the economy as the top issue in the country in this election?

• What share of voters who disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy vote for him anyway?

3. The state of the Israel-Hamas war

One of the most contentious issues right now in not just the U.S. but around the world is the renewed fighting between Israel and Hamas following the latter’s October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians. The Biden administration was unequivocal in its response: it embraced Israel and supplied them with weapons to launch a full-scale counter-response against Hamas.

As the latest stretch of violence in this decades-long conflict has continued, the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza has increased, much of the civilian population has been displaced, and Biden’s support for Israel appears to have alienated key constituencies, such as young, black, and Arab voters. Some have gone so far as to say Biden’s actions are a bridge too far, and they will now actively work to defeat him in critical states like Michigan this November.

However, it remains to be seen just how potent the war will be for voters nine months from now. If the fighting is continuing with no end in sight, this may become a huge political liability for Biden. However, if Israel and Hamas come to another truce and a relative peace returns to the region in the coming months, the potency of the conflict may begin to decrease, even among the blocs who have currently soured on Biden.

What I’ll be watching for in the months ahead:

• What level of conflict do we see in the region by November?

• Is the issue still front and center in Americans’ daily life?

• What share of the aforementioned key voting blocs still consider the conflict a litmus test and remain willing to abandon Biden over it?

• Will any defections from these groups be enough to cost Biden critical swing states like Michigan?

4. The accuracy of polling on young people

As discussed above, Biden’s standing among younger voters has taken a hit since the latest round of fighting in the Middle East began. However, their disapproval of him is nothing new. Young voters in 2020 weren’t exactly jazzed about Biden, flocking in the Democratic presidential primary to more progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. This remained true even after Biden won the Democratic nomination—one pre-election poll found that just 17 percent of those aged 18–29 were “enthusiastic” about him, among the lowest levels for any demographic group. Many young people simply saw Biden as a vehicle for getting rid of Trump, but they never seemed loyal to him the way they did with, for example, President Obama.

What’s unclear, however, is the extent to which Biden’s seemingly middling support among young people in recent polls is an accurate representation of reality. Indeed, there has been some debate among polling experts recently regarding these findings and the apparent divergence between polls conducted by phone versus those conducted online. Phone polls show that Biden’s level of support with younger voters has fallen significantly compared to his 2020 performance while online polls show that he actually hasn’t lost much support at all. However, no one seems to know which of these results reflects reality.

One could make the case that because young people were never enthusiastic about Biden, have been frustrated by a sense that he has not done enough to forgive student loans, and disapprove of his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, it therefore makes complete sense that he would have lost some support with them. On the other hand, seeing a group of voters that has historically overwhelmingly voted for Democratic presidential candidates go from backing Biden by 25 points in 2020 to now backing Trump by six points in phone surveys strikes many people as more than a little fishy.

If this divergence between phone and online polls continues to Election Day, one set of pollsters will have a lot of soul-searching to do depending on how the results shake out. Regardless, Biden’s path to a second term will close quickly if young voters support him at substantially lower rates this year than they did four years ago.

What I’ll be watching for in the months ahead:

• Do the two types of polls (phone vs. online) continue to show drastically different results for the rest of the cycle or do they end up converging at some point?

• Are there any signs of positive movement for Biden with young voters in non-horse-race polling (e.g., enthusiasm to vote, favorability toward Biden, attitudes on key issues like the economy and Israel)?

• Assuming Biden wins young voters again, how much ground (if any) does he lose relative to 2020?

5. The rightward trajectory of voters of color

Most folks who have followed politics closely in recent years will know that voters of color have unmistakably drifted toward Republicans since 2016, though to varying degrees. The largest shift has come from Hispanic Americans, a trend I have written about before. Somewhat more surprising has been similar movement among black and Asian voters, too. In fact, all three groups moved to the right between 2016 and 2020—the main reason Biden still won after Hillary Clinton lost is because he gained ground among white voters, and specifically, whites who did not go to college.

Year over year, voters of color are slowly making up more and more of the electorate, including in pivotal swing states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Most troublingly for Biden, polling since 2020 has regularly shown even further erosion with these groups of voters:

My guess is that at least some of the non-white voters who are lukewarm about Biden will ultimately come back into the fold. But as I wrote in the publication Persuasion recently, it seems that Democrats can no longer take the votes of “people of color” (or even any individual sub-group from that broad category) for granted the way they may have from 2008 to 2016. Instead, they’ll need to treat these voters as, well…persuasion targets. Biden’s team seems to understand this; whether they succeed in stabilizing the ship on this front and win back non-white defectors will have a huge impact on his re-election prospects.

What I’ll be watching for in the months ahead:

• Does Biden’s outreach to minority communities lead to any improvement in his approval rating in the coming months?

• Do undecided voters of color start to line up more behind Biden (in head-to-heads against Trump) as Election Day gets closer?

• What share of voters of color decide to vote third-party?

• Do Democrats fix their turnout problems with black voters in key Midwest swing states?

• Do Democrats bounce back with Hispanic voters or do they underperform with them (relative to 2016) for a third consecutive cycle?

1. Yes, there are other candidates running. No, none of them have a chance of winning.

2. They also claim to be close to getting on the Georgia ballot.

3. Though inflation here was notably not as bad as it was in much of the rest of the developed world.

4. It’s worth remembering a longtime truism in politics: presidents tend to receive too much blame for a bad economy—and too much credit for a healthy one.