On Tuesday, Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Republican primary, confirming what has been obvious for months now: The 2024 election will once again be Trump vs. Joe Biden.
Between now and November, Americans will be inundated with political coverage of the two candidates. Every utterance, poll number and economic indicator will be pored over. To help you separate the myths from the facts, here’s a quick guide to the next nine months of political news.
Myth: Everything matters
Fact: (Virtually) nothing matters
Political journalists — and political junkies — love to interpret nearly every event that happens on the campaign trail for its larger political significance. Will it move the polls? Will it sway undecided voters? And so forth. The reality is that not only are few Americans paying attention to political news, but the overwhelming majority of them already know how they will vote in November.
While polls nine months out from Election Day offer a snapshot of the electorate’s mood, they are rarely useful predictors.
Historically, the best indicator of the way someone will vote in the future is how they voted in the past. Registered Democrats vote for Democrats, registered Republicans vote for Republicans, and independents are generally more partisan than their nonaffiliation would suggest, leaning toward one party.
While partisan identity has always been a huge factor in American politics, as political polarization has intensified, it’s become far more pronounced.
Indeed, I asked several public opinion experts for their estimation of what percentage of voters have already made up their minds on whom they will support in November. The answer from all of them was the same: 90%.
According to G. Elliott Morris of FiveThirtyEight, based on his forecasting work, only “about 5% of voters these days switch between Republicans and Democrats at the presidential level.” He estimates that in the 1970s, the number was closer to 25%.
This is matched by other political changes. At the beginning of 2009, for example, 23 senators represented states won by the other party’s presidential nominee. Today, there are five, and that number may fall even further after this year’s elections.
For all the media focus on the choice facing voters this fall, the overwhelming majority of Americans’ votes will be determined solely by whether there is a D or an R next to the candidate’s name.
As for the tiny percentage of swing voters who approach each election as though it’s a blank slate, they are, by and large, the ones least likely to follow the daily machinations of a political campaign — and yet they have the greatest influence. As the esteemed political scientist Philip Converse wrote some 60 years ago (in words that remain eerily prescient), “It is the least informed members within the electorate who seem to hold the critical balance of power.”
Myth: Polls matter
Fact: Polls matter — but not now
One of the least enjoyable parts of political campaigns is when a poll is released that shows a candidate losing, and his or her supporters collectively lose their minds. Biden backers have been on this emotional roller coaster for the past several months — and they need to relax.
While polls nine months out from Election Day offer a snapshot of the electorate’s mood, they are rarely useful predictors of what will happen when actual votes are cast. It’s one thing for a voter to reveal their presidential preference in January; it’s quite another to face a binary choice in the voting booth (or to decide to take the time to cast a ballot).
Voters have become increasingly reluctant to credit the other party for a strong economy.
Both Biden and Trump will spend hundreds of millions of dollars mobilizing their supporters and reminding voters why they’re better than the other guy. Considering that Biden’s biggest problem seems to be rallying wayward Democrats, we need to see how those efforts work out before drawing conclusions about 2024. A lot is going to happen between now and Election Day — likely including multiple criminal trials for Trump. It’s hard to ignore the polls, but for now, it’s the smart move. When we get closer to November, then you should pay attention.
Myth: “It’s the economy, stupid”
Fact: Actually, it’s not the economy
One of the long-standing maxims of American politics is that an incumbent president’s chances of re-election are intertwined with voter attitudes about the economy. There was some historical basis for this view: As the economy went, so too, generally, did the president’s approval.
It’s time, however, for political analysts to revisit this question.
Beginning at the end of the Obama years and throughout almost all of Trump’s term in office, a gap developed between presidential approval ratings and attitudes about the economy. During much of Trump’s presidency, until the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. economy was firing on all cylinders. Yet that didn’t translate into higher approval ratings for Trump. And polls regularly showed huge gaps between partisan perceptions of the economy. In December 2019, a Pew Research Center poll found that 75% of Republicans rated the economy as excellent or good. Only 41% of Democrats felt the same.
Months earlier, in March 2019, Gallup had recorded the highest-ever approval rating for Trump’s handling of the economy: 56%. Still, his overall approval rating was mired at 43%. In short, Trump received little boost from the country’s strong economic performance.
This trend has continued under Biden, with Republicans taking an even dimmer view of Biden’s economic record than Democrats did of Trump’s. The 2022 midterms offer an even more telling example. According to exit polling, more than three-quarters of the electorate had negative views about the state of the economy — 45 points higher than during the 2018 midterms, when Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House of Representatives. Forty-seven percent of Americans even said their family’s financial situation had worsened over the previous two years.
In these circumstances, one would expect the party in power to lose badly. Instead, Democrats picked up seats in the Senate, won big in state legislative races and dramatically overperformed in House elections. Democrats have continued to overperform in special elections, even as poll after poll shows that Americans are worried about the state of the economy.
Once again, partisan polarization is the key factor. Voters have become increasingly reluctant to credit the other party for a strong economy. Even when they do give credit, it doesn’t mean it will affect how they vote.
What makes 2024 even more predictable — and less likely to be affected by gaffes or views about the economy — is that both the party nominees are so well-known. Good luck finding an American who doesn’t have an opinion about Trump or Biden.
Granted, there will be events in 2024 that could influence voter attitudes — in particular, likely Trump’s criminal trials. Perhaps one or both of the candidates will have a medical event. One can’t control for the unforeseen. But based on what we know about voter habits and past elections, most of the daily obsessions of political media won’t matter much at all.
