Biden and Trump’s strange co-dependent political lives

President Biden and Donald Trump have something in common: collapsing polling numbers. Increasingly, voters seem to want both of them to ride off into the political sunset. Ironically, their dual falling popularity means they need each other: If one drops out of the 2024 presidential sweepstakes, the other will fall. 

The American political landscape is stranger than it has ever been. Solid majorities disapprove of everyone; Biden, Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, former VP Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are all in negative territory. Yet, the American people overall agree on one thing: Biden and Trump should go away. 

In the July Yahoo News poll, clear majorities do not want Biden (64 percent) nor Trump (59 percent) to run again. Independents reject both at 71 percent (Biden) and 58 percent (Trump). This is not an isolated result, as Morning Consult also found 64 percent against a Biden run and 61 percent against a Trump run. 

While their co-partisans are more supportive, the percentage of Democrats who back a Biden run and Republicans for Trump are far below their partisan approval rating. Importantly, neither is facing announced opposition. For the American public, it’s Biden and Trump vs. Nobody — and Nobody is way out in front. 

Biden and Trump do have two main advantages: incumbency and each other. 

For Biden, occupying the Oval Office freezes the Democratic field. Challenging a sitting president is rarely done and most often not effectively. Over the past 100 years, only twice has a sitting Democratic president faced an intraparty challenge, in 1968 and 1980. Only the 1968 challenge was successful. And even then, the president at that time, Lyndon Johnson, controlled enough of the nomination process that he could have secured the nomination. 

Johnson quit in 1968 because he believed he could not win a general election fight. In 1980, the challenge by then-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, certainly weakened the latter. How much that had to do with Carter’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan is debatable. But those challenges point to the issue facing Biden: Should he fight for a nomination just to lose in the general? 

And that leads to Trump. 

Even with falling approval ratings and a nation that does not want him to run, Biden still polls favorably against Trump. Pick your poll from the FiveThirtyEight list, and Biden leads some, Trump leads some — but they are all generally close. And this, with Biden’s approval average at just 38 percent. In addition, the “right track/wrong track” numbers on the direction of the country are remarkably awful, running an over 50-point tilt to “wrong track.” 

What’s propping Biden up is Trump. Trump’s approval is nearly as dismal as Biden’s, at an average of 41 percent favorable and 55 percent unfavorable. But Trump’s approval ratings are more trouble than Biden’s, in that Trump’s unpopularity is very much locked in; except for a brief inauguration bump, Trump has never been overwhelmingly popular. Biden, however, had a net positive approval rating up until late August 2021. It is conceivable that an improvement in economic prospects could push Biden ahead of Trump in favorability. 

It is the mutual unpopularity of Biden and Trump that keeps each competitive in a putative 2024 matchup. Biden can claim to Democrats that he is the candidate who beat Trump, making him a safer choice. Trump still claims he really was the winner in 2020, and 73 percent of Republicans agree in the most recent YouGov benchmark. Each also does marginally better against possible alternate candidates. In sum, Biden and Trump have a plausible argument to Democratic and Republican base voters that each is the safer bet in 2024. 

Biden and Trump perform a bit better against alternate opponents than against each other. For example, Redfield & Wilton Strategies has Trump beating Biden by 2 points and Kamala Harris by 4 points. Alternately, YouGov has Biden over Trump by 3 points and Gavin Newsom over Trump by 2 points.  

But the reality is that those numbers are a bit deceptive. Biden and Trump are at 100 percent name recognition; the rest of the potential field is well below that number. The voting public tends to hold back a bit on candidates they don’t know. That lesser-known candidates are so close to the two presidents is an indication of the latter’s weakness. 

Waiting in the wings 

All the energy is with the new rivals. Trump is far more determined to run, but he is in the weakest position, while DeSantis has all the momentum. Consider recent polling in Florida: In the state where Trump has no name-ID advantage over DeSantis, Trump is lagging by 22 points in the latest GOP primary poll — a 50-point reversal in the past 10 months. DeSantis has been gaining on Trump nonstop. 

In addition, Trump is facing gathering legal troubles from the Jan. 6 hearings and investigations in Georgia. Trump’s flirtation with an early announcement is incensing Republican candidates and cannot be helping with voters. 

If it looks like DeSantis will de-throne Trump, that leaves Biden in a bind. Biden is the non-candidate who ran a non-campaign predicated on letting Trump lose. With Democrats open to ditching Biden now, just imagine their attitude at the prospect of their slow, 81-year-old, gaffe-prone candidate facing an energetic 46-year-old DeSantis. Biden won’t be able to run a non-campaign against DeSantis. 

On the Democratic side, unless the party commits seppuku by nominating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), dropping Biden is likely an improvement. While their potential field is far from stellar, they are likely to have an energetic contest as heir-apparent Harris is looking more nowhere-apparent. The slate of Democrats won’t have all the Biden baggage, and Harris’s non-profile might even let her escape some of the Biden administration’s unpopularity. 

Without Biden to kick around, what is Trump left with? He has no new program, no new issues. It’s all election complaints and self-pity. Trump will have to aim his fire at perhaps a dozen candidates, all the while trying to fend off a surging DeSantis. No Biden leaves Trump with nothing. 

Who drops first 

Each party has a different dilemma.  

Trump has been planning to run for more than a year; stopping him from entering the race is a fool’s errand. However, Republicans do have a clear option in DeSantis. In fact, I would put DeSantis as the favorite in a one-on-one primary battle. So, Republicans are going to be stuck with the albatross Trump for at least a while. But they have a clear and good option if they can push Trump off the cliff. 

For Democrats, Biden is likely easier to cast out on an ice floe. His age is a serious problem, and he is increasingly losing the chattering classes. He will likely wheeze along for some time, since announcing he is not running would instantly make him an ultra-lame duck. Unlike with the GOP, there is no clear next batter at this point. Party insiders, intellectuals and their handmaidens in the media may want Biden to delay a withdrawal in order to size up the field and try to get some consensus. 

For the next year, Biden and Trump likely will still be on stage with the boos and catcalls getting louder every day. But whichever one finally falls, the other will soon follow.

Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.