History and the Road to 2024
The single most predictive factor for midterm election results is a sitting president's approval rating. According to the RCP Average, President Biden's current approval rating has dipped below the previous all-time low he recorded in November of 2021. Combine this with historical precedent that the incumbent's party faces a backlash at the midterms, and you begin to understand why experts are predicting Republicans will take back the House, possibly the Senate, too. But what about the presidency? If Biden's approval rating continues to slip, many in the party may look elsewhere for a candidate capable of retaining power in 2024. Some speculate that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has the best opportunity to present his case to voters as he travels the country promoting the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That may be true, but polls show Vice President Kamala Harris is the leading alternative, for now. "It's hard to imagine she wouldn't get it, if the president doesn't run," says author and political writer Bob Riel. "I think the Democratic party is not necessarily united behind Vice President Harris. She's not a powerhouse, and she didn't run a great campaign last time. I could certainly see someone challenging her, like Sen. Klobuchar or Secretary Buttigieg, maybe somebody from the left. But it's hard for a VP to lose a nomination, if she wants it."
In his new book “Quest for the Presidency” (Potomac Books, 2022), Riel looks at each of the country's 59 presidential campaigns, from 1789 through 2020, weaving together threads that link elections across time. The book is written in a lively, entertaining style that sheds light on the evolving story of American democracy. We asked Riel to apply this historical perspective to today's biggest questions about campaigns and politicians, but also upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
What do you think the narrative for 2024 could be?
I think it will be one of those elections that defines American elections for some time to come. My book shows that we experience a defining election every half-century or so, dating back to pre-Civil War and through the progressive movement and then through Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency and into the 1960s when Republicans starting winning in the South. Go back to the Democrats in 1892. The Democratic party was a small government, conservative party. By the time FDR became president, they were the opposite. Industrialization and immigration happened, and Democrats changed significantly in that period, when they began to see themselves as the party of the working man. Industrialization shook up that notion. We’re in a similar period now. It’s impossible to predict how it will shake out and a lot depends on whether Trump runs, but I believe it will be a history-shaping election that we will look back upon, a hinge moment.
Part of this goes back to inequality; it’s what drove the Trump and Sanders cases in 2016. Trump succeeded and Sanders succeeded in influencing the direction of the Democratic party, though Democrats have continued to nominate moderate candidates. Whereas industrialization drove changes 100 years ago, I think technology and social media are driving major changes now. They’ve given us more freedom and changed life for the better, but they’ve pushed us more into small groups that didn’t exist before social media. Inequality and technology are driving major changes that affect the state of politics.
Think about the 2018, 2010, and 1994 midterm elections, when we saw a particular brand of politicians from the opposing party take control of Congress and play a role in the following presidential election. How do you think the midterm results could impact the 2024 election?
It seems that whenever one party takes power, the other party two years later makes a big comeback. It didn’t happen in 2002 because Bush was riding high politically after 9/11, but he took a beating in 2006 and Obama took a beating in 2010 and Trump took a beating in 2018. Clinton took a beating in 1994 but he still won reelection, and so did Obama after 2010. So, I don’t think you can take the midterm and use it as a predictive event for what will happen in the next presidential election. I think politics are so polarized that we don’t have a coherent direction about where the country wants to go.
Before Trump, we saw three presidents seek and win a second term. Now, we could have two presidents in a row who only served one (at least consecutive) term. Do you think that has greater meaning for our nation's political scene?
Honestly, I don’t. It’s been really interesting developing my macro-perspective in writing this book. Clinton, Bush, and Obama each won consecutive terms and that was an aberration dating back to Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Go to the 1860s up to the 1880s and there was a rocky period with a lot of shake-ups. I think we hit periods of stability and we hit periods of one-term presidents, which can later reset itself. One of the things I really try to explore in the book is the thread going through history that you have to look at these things from a macro-perspective. American politics is a pendulum that swings back-and-forth – sometimes one party has power for a period of decades, but then it swings back.
If Biden wants a second term, he'll certainly get his party's nomination and, from there, there's definitely paths to victory. Do you see any similarities with Biden and other presidents who were written off at some point and ultimately won? Perhaps Truman? Clinton?
Clinton in 1996. Everybody thought he was headed for defeat after the midterms. The whole “triangulation” thing (a phrase used by Dick Morris to describe a position that blended the best of both parties) upset the left but it helped him get reelected. And he was running against Bob Dole, who was an awesome human being but not the most dynamic candidate. Look also at Truman in 1948. Polling was still pretty young then, but they stopped polling the race for the final month because they were so convinced that he would lose to Dewey. But Dewey was not a great campaigner and didn’t make a great case for himself. The nation had just experienced 16 years of Democrat presidents and Truman’s reputation was pretty poor. The country was going through so many traumas – the Cold War, labor strife, economic problems. Republicans should have won that year, but the results proved that politics is unpredictable. Look at 1864, when Abraham Lincoln ran. Many Republicans thought Lincoln was a weak candidate for reelection and wanted U.S. Grant or Salmon Chase to run in his place, and Lincoln himself thought he would lose that election. There’s a story that Lincoln wrote a letter in August of 1864, saying that he promised to cooperate with his successor in ending the war. Lincoln sealed the letter and had all the members of his cabinet sign the letter, then he filed it away. But the situation changed as Grant gained ground and Sherman made progress, the war turned around. The liberal Republican running at the time, John Fremont, was running as a strong abolitionist from Lincoln’s left. When Fremont saw Lincoln starting to gain steam, he dropped out of the race because he feared that a primary challenge would weaken Lincoln and a Democrat might win and not follow through with emancipation. During that campaign, people asked Lincoln to postpone the election because of the war. But he said no, democracy needed an election.
There is one example of a former president returning to win back the White House: Grover Cleveland. But Van Buren, Fillmore, and Hoover also ran. Though they didn't lose their previous elections, Theodore Roosevelt and Ulysses Grant ran and lost. Could any of these past elections apply to a Trump candidacy?
There will be a lot of historical comparisons to Cleveland. What I find interesting is that many of these figures chose to lead third-party movements. I’m talking about Fillmore, Van Buren, and Roosevelt. Who knows if Trump tries? The lesson I might draw is that it seems to happen at times of upheaval in American politics. Van Buren ran as head of the Liberty Party, an anti-slavery movement. Fillmore ran as head of the Know-Nothings. Teddy Roosevelt started the Progressive Party when he couldn’t get the nomination over Taft. But Cleveland is the politician who returned to power. There’s a story where Cleveland’s wife told White House staff, “we’ll be back again in four years.”
If Trump runs as a third-party candidate, then it means we’re almost certainly at a time of upheaval and major change in politics. Trump probably could get the nomination, but he doesn’t seem quite as strong in the party today as he was a year ago. There’s an opening for someone else, sure, but it seems likely Trump will get the nomination if he wants it. I find it hard to imagine that a more traditional Republican, like Romney or Cheney, could win the nomination because the base has gone too far in the Trump direction.
It seems both parties, but especially the Republicans, have some history of a candidate in the primary starting off big and losing steam. Some names that come to mind for me on the Republican side are Walker in 2016, Perry in 2012, and Giuliani in 2008. On the Democrat side, I'd say Hillary Clinton in 2008 and Howard Dean in 2004. I'd say the two biggest names on the Republican side are Trump and DeSantis. Do you see that potentially happening to either of them?
It’s so hard to predict two years out because it depends on who captures the mood of the moment, the zeitgeist. You could argue that Humphrey or Johnson was much better situated in 1960, but Kennedy ran a better campaign. Hillary seemed better suited and more ready in 2008, but Obama captured the spirit of the moment. Bush prevailing in 2000 was an example of a favorite carrying the day over McCain, but nobody expected Carter to prevail in 1976. I think it’s a fascinating election unless Biden runs, which I think he probably doesn’t.
In 2020, there was talk of a potential third party with Howard Schultz but it never materialized. There have been lackluster third parties that have still arguably had an impact: Johnson/Stein/McMullin in 2016, and Nader in 2000. But the last time we have seen a third party receive double digits and make it to debates is 1992. Do you see a possibility for a third-party candidate to have a real chance in 2024?
In 1992 with Perot, and go back to 1980 with John Anderson, in both cases it was a situation where people were looking for an alternative beyond the two major parties. Voters were disenchanted with Carter and afraid of Reagan. With Perot, it was an everyman-type who would go to Washington and shake things up. There’s the same general feeling out there right now, a feeling of disgust for both major parties. A successful third-party candidate is someone who breaks off from the major parties and starts their own third party. Think of Cheney or Kinzinger or Romney on the right, someone who wants a more traditionally conservative party with less populism. I think that’s actually the most likely, but I have a hard time imagining who this candidate might be and how they could be successful in attracting people from the other side.
It’s really hard to predict. Stein and Nader won such a small percentage of the vote nationally, but the vote was so key in a few states. I don’t think Nader affected Gore nationally, but if Gore had won just a fraction of Nader voters in Florida, then he probably would have won that election. The Comey letter and African-American turnout both hurt Hillary in 2016, but there’s no question that a lot of Democrats were fed up with Hillary and decided to cast a protest vote against her for Jill Stein, which cost Hillary votes in the industrial Midwest. Perot’s biggest claim to fame is that he kept Bill Clinton from getting 50 percent of the popular vote, so Republicans could claim he was a "minority president." Perot definitely did not cause Bush to lose that election.
Republicans have not won the popular vote in the past four elections. Do you see a path for them winning the popular vote this time? If they don't, but win the electoral college, do you think it matters?
Republicans are struggling nationally at this moment in politics. Republicans have lost the popular vote because the majority of people lean a little bit left and live in urban and suburban areas, which Democrats win typically. Trump won so many counties, but Biden won the counties that represent the economic engine of the country. How this vote shakes out is part of the rural – urban divide. I don’t think Republicans have much incentive to win the popular vote. If Republicans moved a bit more to the center, then they could absolutely win the popular vote but they’ve moved too hard to the right-wing populism to win the popular vote. Every other election in this country is determined by popular vote and not how many counties you win, so I think people are okay with it not matching up every once in a while, but it could become more controversial if it stays this way for too long. It offends the “one person, one vote” thing. John Kerry was close to winning in Ohio, which would have given him the electoral college even though the popular vote would have remained out of reach. Think about how close the country came to getting rid of the electoral college in 1968. Wallace ran knowing he wouldn’t win but wanted to become a kingmaker. He thought his electoral supporters would ultimately win the election, and the two frontrunners would have to bargain with him to win the election. The country came excruciatingly close to instituting a national popular vote in 1968. Who knows if it could ever pass in today’s Congress?
Todd Carney is a lawyer and frequent contributor to RealClearPolitics. He earned his juris doctorate from Harvard Law School. The views in this piece are his alone and do not reflect the views of his employer.
John Waters is a writer in Nebraska.
