2024 President

Dear Readers: Just like President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris has had a challenging first year in office. Her approval rating, as calculated by FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, is in the low 40s, just like Biden’s, and she has attracted negative headlines for both some uninspiring public performances as well as staff turnover — let alone having to deal with a challenging portfolio of policy priorities. With Biden already 79 and not necessarily a lock to run for a second term, Harris could be leading the Democratic Party as its presidential nominee as soon as 2024 — or at least could get the opportunity to try to lead the party. Her ability to win the nomination, either in a couple of years or sometime down the road, will depend at least in part on how she performs in her current job. In the following piece, Thurgood Marshall Jr. and Steven Okun — past contributors to the Crystal Ball who worked with then-Vice President Al Gore — take stock of Harris’s problems and suggest some ways Harris can improve going forward, using Gore as a model. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Vice President Kamala Harris’s struggles could complicate

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Democrats, particularly at the presidential level, are maintaining or increasing their electoral strength in populated areas, but Republicans are strengthening their hold on more rural areas. — This tradeoff has led to a decline in the number of counties won by Democratic candidates since 2000, especially on the presidential level. So while Democrats continue to win a large number of votes, those votes are being concentrated in a smaller geographic footprint, which can affect the party’s competitiveness for offices where district lines are drawn. — The number of states where Democrats have seen the strongest decline in the number of counties won since 2000 is 5 times as large as the number of states where they have seen the strongest increase in the number of counties won. And the states with declining numbers of Democratic-won counties include such crucial presidential battleground states as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The growing concentration of the Democratic vote One of the inexorable political trends of recent years has been the declining number of counties won by Democrats. Put simply, Democrats, particularly at the presidential level, are maintaining or increasing their electoral strength in populated areas, whether urban and

The University of Virginia Center for Politics has partnered with Project Home Fire, a new initiative dedicated to finding common ground in American politics, on an innovative new data analytics and polling project to explore the social, political, and psychological divides between those who voted for Donald Trump and those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Some of the key takeaways from today’s release are: — Majorities of Trump and Biden voters express support for several elements of the bipartisan infrastructure and reconciliation bills being debated in Congress, but there are marked differences in their levels of support. (see Table 1 below) — Majorities — often large majorities — of both Biden and Trump voters express some form of distrust for voters, elected officials, and media sources they associate with the other side. A strong majority of Trump voters see no real difference between Democrats and socialists, and a majority of Biden voters at least somewhat agree that there is no real difference between Republicans and fascists. (see Table 2 below) — Significant numbers of both Trump and Biden voters show a willingness to consider violating democratic tendencies and norms if needed to serve their priorities. Roughly 2 in

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — One of the defining features of American politics is the realignment of white, college-educated voters toward Democrats and that of white voters without a degree toward Republicans. — There are competing views on how or whether Democrats can perform better among white non-college voters. — Appealing to the economic interests of white non-college voters may not be enough for Democrats to win back their support. What is driving the realignment among white voters The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic inversion of the class foundations of the American party system. White voters without college degrees, once the cornerstone of the Democratic electoral coalition, have swung sharply toward the Republican Party. Meanwhile, college-educated white voters, once a solidly Republican voting bloc, have been shifting toward the Democrats. The result is a party system in which, among white voters at least, education has become one of the main dividing lines. Growing support among white working class (non-college) voters for the Republican Party has sparked a debate among political analysts and Democratic strategists about the underlying causes of Democratic decline within this shrinking but still very important voting bloc and what, if anything, party leaders can

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — The number of swing voters — those who change their minds between presidential elections — has been declining over time. — However, there are still some swing voters, and they can be decisive in the nation’s highly competitive presidential elections. — Swing voters helped Joe Biden win the White House, and perceptions of Donald Trump’s stronger conservative ideology in 2020 compared to 2016 may have pushed some swing voters away from the incumbent and toward the challenger. The vital importance of a dwindling pool of swing voters Swing voters were once the most sought-after prize in American elections. A key goal of most political campaigns was to win over voters who lacked strong ties to either major party and were therefore open to supporting either side. Data from surveys conducted by the American National Election Studies show that there were once vast numbers of such swing voters and that their votes often determined the winners of presidential elections. Table 1: Swing voters as percentage of voters supporting major party candidates in consecutive elections, 1952-2020 Note: The 1980-1984 and 2008-2012 election comparisons are omitted because the ANES did not ask this question in 1984 or

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Joe Biden’s approval rating has been steady and positive, though many other presidents had better early numbers. — The “honeymoons” of past presidents may have been stronger because of a less partisanized and polarized electorate. — Individual national pollsters disagree on Biden’s approval rating. — Some pollsters who were overly bullish on Biden in the national popular vote last year are a little bearish on him now. A first “Hundred Days” temperature check on Biden The term “Hundred Days,” used to denote the opening few months of a new presidency, entered the American political lexicon with the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the help of large congressional Democratic majorities and the impetus of the Great Depression, FDR’s whirlwind Hundred Days “forged Roosevelt’s principal weapons in the battle against the Depression and shaped much of the New Deal’s historical reputation,” wrote David Kennedy in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. The term has an older, historical significance: It describes Napoleon’s brief return to France in 1815 following his initial exile to Elba, culminating in his final defeat at Waterloo. In any event, the Hundred Days’ mark has become a