Why I'm Optimistic About The 2024 Election
Biden's achievements, inflation easing, the surging economy, declining crime, Democratic election overperformance, and Trump's extremism put Democrats in a stronger 2024 position than polls indicate.
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To say 2024 will be a consequential year would be an understatement.
As The New York Times outlined, 2024 is going to be a massive year for elections worldwide:
“More than two billion people in roughly 50 countries, including India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, the United States and the 27 nations of the European Parliament, will head to the polls. Altogether, participants in 2024’s elections olympiad account for 60 percent of the world’s economic output.”
Billions of people worldwide will be deciding who will represent them at the highest levels of power, triggering impactful geopolitical ramifications. Here in America, we’re yet again facing what is arguably the most important election in modern history. How we vote will have dramatic consequences, not just for the state of our democracy but for the state of the world.
Donald Trump is running for re-election on an overtly fascist agenda. All of the progress we’ve made under President Biden’s administration is at stake, as well as American democracy as we know it.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked voters: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” When looking at the facts, by almost every objective measure, the answer for the country as a whole would be a resounding yes. But for individual voters, there appears to be a stark disconnect between how a lot of Americans feel about our progress and what’s actually happening.
From negative feelings about the economy to false perceptions of rising crime, the numbers contradict the vibes. “Vibenomics” has been running our discourse. This isn’t to discount those who are actually struggling, but it’s clear that overall, the country is heading in the right direction. And recent developments indicate more Americans will soon feel the progress we’ve made.
That’s why I think President Biden and the Democrats are pretty well-positioned to win the 2024 election. I know this runs contrary to conventional wisdom, but I think the data supports my case for pragmatic optimism. If polls didn't exist and we only analyzed real-world election results and data on America’s post-pandemic progress, I believe the overall narrative would be one of incoming Democratic dominance.
The vibes indicate doom. The facts indicate otherwise.
I’m optimistic about Biden’s chances for several reasons:
Biden has an objectively impressive list of accomplishments
America’s post-pandemic progress has been remarkable - inflation easing, economy booming, crime declining
Democrats have been on a winning streak in spite of polls indicating otherwise
Donald Trump is overreaching with his overtly fascist agenda, and his criminality is overwhelming
Let’s dive into each point. I hope after reading this article, you’re left feeling less pessimistic about the future and re-energized to do the crucial work necessary to protect our democracy.
Biden Has An Objectively Impressive Record
In spite of some saying Biden hasn’t done much, he has a lot of accomplishments to brag about, some of which I’ve covered in The Independent. His first term has been remarkably productive, especially since his party only held both chambers of Congress for two years. Let’s take a quick look at some of these accomplishments:
The American Rescue Plan, which accelerated America’s COVID pandemic recovery
The Inflation Reduction Act, which included the largest climate investment in US history
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
The most significant gun safety legislation since the assault weapons ban 30 years ago
The CHIPS & Science Act
Expansion of the Affordable Care Act
The Electoral Count Act
NATO expansion in the face of Russian aggression
The successful appointment of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
166 federal judges confirmed, with most being women or people of color - a first for any president
$127 billion in student loan forgiveness
The impact of some of these policies is already being felt, and America’s post-pandemic progress has been the best in the world. When it comes to this progress, Democrats have an objectively positive story to tell.
America’s Post-Pandemic Progress: Inflation Easing, Economy Booming, Crime Declining
In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic that then-President Trump mismanaged, Candidate Biden promised a return to normalcy. Regardless of whether or not you support him, you have to admit that President Biden delivered on that promise.
We’re no longer seeing the mass death we saw during the peak of the pandemic, the economy has significantly improved, and crime is seeing historic declines.
Let’s break this down.
Inflation Easing & The Economy Booming
While President Biden got mocked for trying to make “Bidenomics” a thing, the numbers don’t lie: The economy under his administration is damn good, especially when compared to where we were when he took office.
Democratic Strategist Simon Rosenberg outlined some of these numbers in his latest piece for MSNBC:
“Our economic recovery has been better than any other G7 nation. GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.9% last quarter, and more than 3% for the Biden presidency. We have the best job market since the 1960s and the lowest uninsured rate in U.S. history. The Dow Jones broke 37,000 this month for the first time. Wage growth, new business formation and prime-age labor participation rates are all at historically elevated levels. Prices fell — yes, fell — last month. Rents are softening, and gas prices and crime rates are falling. Domestic oil and renewable production are at record levels. The annual deficit, which exploded under Trump, is trillions less today.”
Justin Wolfers, Economics Professor at the University of Michigan, has been spotlighting how wrong the recession predictions have been. In a post on Twitter/X, Wolfers shared a chart (with a hint of sarcasm) that shows just how well things have been going since the pandemic:
It’s looking like President Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s approach to the economy is paying off. We could very well get the “soft landing” we were hoping for. If trends continue, we will have deployed massive stimulus to help Americans and then successfully utilized monetary policy to hike rates and reduce inflation - all while avoiding a recession.
Powell has suggested that we could see up to 3 rate cuts in 2024. Rate cuts would boost corporate investment, increase borrowing, and offer opportunities for millions of Americans to refinance their homes.
Another positive is that wage growth has started outpacing inflation in the last half of this year. If that continues on top of all this other positive momentum, more Americans could begin to “feel” the benefits of this objectively good economy. There’s evidence that’s already beginning to happen.
As the firehose of good news flows in, the vibes also appear to be shifting. Last week, Politico highlighted that consumer sentiment is on the upswing and business outlooks have drastically improved:
“Data this week from the Conference Board’s index, which measures views of business conditions and the job market, amounts to a cornucopia of promising news for President Joe Biden. Recessionary fears are at their lowest point since 2022. Enthusiasm over the nation’s financial future is trending up. And more people are planning to make big-ticket purchases.”
The economy has historically had a direct impact on voter behavior. “It’s the economy, stupid,” as Democratic Strategist James Carville said in 1992. But, of course, Americans are complex. They have other concerns. But some of those are also being handled well.
Do you know what else improves in a good economy? Crime rates. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
Crime Is Seeing Historic Declines
A recent Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans believe crime is on the rise. The facts say otherwise.
Crime overall is down year-over-year, including violent crime. Comparing Q3 2023 vs. Q3 2022, violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3%—its lowest level since 1961.
Homicide numbers are poised to hit a record decline nationwide. From ABC News:
“The homicide rate in the United States is expected to plummet nearly 13% compared to 2022, meaning more than 2,000 fewer people were the victims of homicide this year, Jeff Asher, a national crime analyst, told ABC News.”
Crime is also dropping in cities, including in Democratic cities which right-wing media falsely claims are crime-rampant dystopias:
My theory on the disconnect between declining crime stats and false vibes about rising crime: Aside from overt disinformation from right-wing organizations like Fox News, when crime stories are spotlighted in mainstream media, people assume crime is high. Also, the epidemic of mass shootings in America can easily convince average Americans that violent crime is on the rise.
There’s a lot of anecdote extrapolation going on.
Democrats Have Been On A Winning Streak
I think the biggest indicator of where Americans currently stand and likely future election performance is recent election performance, not polls. The past seven years have shown that polls are not a reliable indicator of how Americans will vote.
In the 2023 off-year elections, Democrats defied expectations and the national polling. You can read more about the individual races in my standalone analysis article on the results, but here are the results in a nutshell:
In Kentucky, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear won re-election in the deep-red state after campaigning on protecting abortion rights. In Virginia, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin decided to double down on his abortion stance. The result: Democrats maintained control of the state Senate and flipped the House of Delegates. Youngkin lost the entire General Assembly and is now a lame-duck governor for the rest of his term.
In Ohio, the Issue 1 ballot measure that enshrined abortion rights into the state’s Constitution passed with a wide margin. In Pennsylvania, Democratic judge Daniel McCaffery won a seat on the State Supreme Court. McCaffery ran on protecting abortion rights in the face of growing right-wing threats. This maintained a Democratic majority on the court.
What we saw was majority support among Americans for the protection of reproductive rights and a rejection of the GOP’s extremist agenda. The Republican Party is so totally out of touch, and yet they continue to seek to inflict their minority view on the majority. Their extremism is costing them at the ballot box.
Since 2016, Republicans have been historically underperforming in every single national election, the majority of state-level elections, and special elections.
In 2018, Democrats made historic gains, taking back the House in a massive blue wave not seen since post-Watergate. In 2020, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris led Democrats to take back the White House, Senate, and the House. In 2022, Republicans under-performed, as Trump-backed election deniers lost. Republicans barely took the House majority, while Democrats expanded their majority in the Senate. Joe Biden had the best performance of an incumbent first-term Democratic president in a midterm since John F. Kennedy.
Democratic over-performance isn’t just happening in biennial national elections. It’s happening in special elections and local elections, too. I wrote about this in a column in The Independent this past September:
Democrats have been dominating in recent special elections. A FiveThirtyEight analysis found that in 30 special elections across the country this year, Democrats have outperformed expectations by an average of 11 points. It’s not just special elections. Axios also pointed out that Republicans are underperforming in federal, judicial, statewide, and local elections across the US.
Another positive indicator for Democrats is a Daily Kos analysis that found in 18 state legislative elections conducted in the first half of this year, Democrats have exceeded the 2020 presidential outcomes by an average margin of six points.
While this success has been remarkable, voters still have very real concerns that could erode support for Democrats within their coalition in the election season ahead.
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has eroded Biden’s support among young voters and Arab Americans - leading to Biden changing his approach to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. How this war plays out will surely impact how voters view him. Whether they’ll opt to sit it out is very much a concern that Biden and Democrats shouldn’t take lightly. But with all that’s at stake here in the US next year, the pro-democracy coalition might put their differences aside and unite once again.
With abortion likely to be a huge motivator for Democrats and Independents in 2024, Democrats are well-positioned to continue their gains. Amplifying the odds of Democratic success is the likely GOP presidential nominee.
Trump Is Overreaching & His Criminality Is Overwhelming
Republicans look set to nominate a twice-impeached, four-times indicted former President who launched an insurrection and is facing 91 criminal charges. The polling may look good for him at the moment, but as more Americans hear what Trump actually has planned, they’re likely to be reminded why they opposed him in 2020.
Donald Trump has gone full fascist, openly echoing Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler while pushing overtly authoritarian 2025 plans. His first term, which I documented every single day of, was bad enough. But this will be worse.
Trump is saying he will be a dictator on day one, calls people who disagree with him “vermin,” claims all non-white immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and promises he’ll jail his opponents. He’s repeated this multiple times, all while promising to detain millions of immigrants in camps, implement ideological screenings, and expand on his previous administration’s Mulsim ban.
It goes beyond just words and promises. The Trump Campaign, along with his allies working on Project 2025, are plotting to purge up to 54,000 federal employees to replace them with trained GOP loyalists who will turn the executive branch into a tool of the far-right.
Compounding this authoritarian agenda are Donald Trump’s legal troubles. Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four indictments. His path to election day is paved with trials. While some polling has shown Trump in the lead over Biden, that same polling also indicates Biden would take massive leads in every battleground state if Trump is convicted and sentenced.
Trump is in a very weak and desperate position.
We Can Do This If We All Mobilize
Answering poll questions has a different weight than making a decision at the ballot box. The country has already rejected Trump once. Will they vote for a post-insurrection Trump who is openly echoing Hitler when the economy is good and things are relatively normal? I personally doubt it. But the power of the right-wing disinformation machine shouldn’t be underestimated.
I’m optimistic we will beat Trump again, not because it’ll be easy. But because I know the pro-democracy coalition isn’t underestimating him. This will take work. It will take all of us - average Americans, engaged voters, activists, and journalists - to highlight the threat of a second Trump term to the progress we’ve made. Decent people need to stand up.
Activists will need to knock on doors, increase the Democratic base’s turnout, and earn every vote they can. Average voters will need to do their part to inform their circle of what’s at stake and volunteer/donate if they can. Journalists will have to do their best to inform the American people of what’s at stake and not focus on the horse race. We’ve already started to see that happening, with more media outlets calling out Trump’s fascism for what it is.
The beauty of America is that despite who we were as a country yesterday or who we are today, we as a people have the power to decide who we will be tomorrow.
I’m hopeful we will choose wisely.
Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s make it happen.
Thanks for reading and sharing! The more people are informed of this the better. Happy new year to you and your family 🙌🏾