The 2024 presidential election remains nearly a year away, but it seems as if with every passing day the electoral climate surrounding the upcoming election continues to worsen and the political tensions and division within the United States continue to increase. Indeed, the Republican presidential debates which took place this fall were eventful, but the former 45th President Donald Trump did not attend any of the scheduled meetings, making them rather irrelevant as Trump continues to run away from the pack of candidates. In the most recent five thirty eight politics polls, Trump maintains a near 50 point lead over Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley (60% to about 11%). Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, had been emboldened to run for president after a strong showing in the 2022 midterms when the GOP at large did poorly; his campaign has been largely a failure as he has been unable to make the case for himself as an alternative to Trump. Nikki Haley, the longtime Republican establishment politician from the state of South Carolina has also tried to gain momentum, but it appears that most conservative leaning voters simply do not want a return to the establishment rhetoric of the George Bush/Mitt Romney eras.
The GOP base remains galvanized around Trump and his conservative populist brand of politics. While his base remains staunchly loyal, Trump is in fact vulnerable. In many polls that forecast a hypothetical rematch of 2020 with Joe Biden in the 2024 election, Trump and Biden are locked in a dead heat, as both men are unpopular. Trump though, remains widely disliked by young voters. In a recent poll released by the Economist after being conducted on December 16th through 18th, 53% of respondents said they would vote for Biden in the 2024 election, while only 24% said they would support Trump. 10% said they would support other candidates, 9% said they wouldn’t vote, and 4% weren’t sure.
