Written by: Calum Binnie
Edited by: Melissa Tan
The last time the President of the United States faced a major primary challenge in re-election was 1992, when famous paleoconservative Pat Buchanan challenged President George H.W. Bush for the Republican nomination. While Buchanan did not win a single primary, he did win roughly 25% of the vote throughout the process. Rewind 12 years to President Jimmy Carter’s reelection – the peach farmer from Georgia entering reelection, incredibly unpopular after a botched international crisis, faced an even more significant challenge from Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Senator Kennedy won 12 state primary contests but was ultimately unsuccessful in usurping the 1980 Democratic nomination. Four years earlier, the 1976 Republican Presidential Primaries saw President Gerald Ford narrowly defeat then-California Governor Ronald Reagan after the latter won 24 state contests. All three presidents — George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford — lost their subsequent general elections. President Joe Biden may be next.
On Monday, February 27, 2023, bestselling author Marianne Williamson announced herself as the first primary challenger to President Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination. The former 2016 candidate herself poses virtually no threat to a President with 50 years of federal government experience to her zero. She may, however, elicit enough support as a leftward alternative to the moderate commander-in-chief to make the race seem politically viable to other more competitive Democrats. To the President, whose greatest political weakness is his charisma in campaigning, the notion of an even slightly contentious primary ought to be horrifying. Anything shy of a six month victory lap will remind the 52% (compared to his opponent’s 43%) of independent voters of what they signed on for four years before — no one, not even Democrats are convinced by the 46th President.
Even without a contested primary, President Biden does not have an easy road to another four years. As expected, former President Donald J. Trump (whom the President ousted in 2020) announced his third bid for the White House last November. Additionally, since the real estate mogul’s unexpected ascension to the Presidency in 2016, new faces have arrived on the Republican political scene. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who may wait a cycle over facing off against the 45th president, has become incredibly popular within the GOP as a less inflammatory, younger alternative to President Trump, despite a close similarity in policy. Former South Carolina Governor and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley entered the race under a month ago on February 14th, calling for “generational change” within the Republican Party and cast herself as a moderate, more electable choice. While it is safe to say that neither Haley nor DeSantis are guaranteed to take the nomination from a former President who is still beloved by the conservative base, a young conservative, even with meager political backing, would mount a formidable challenge against a President that started his political career in the same decade that these candidates were born.
Whether the Republican Party stands behind President Trump for a rematch or opts for a fresh face, President Biden does not face an easier race than in 2020.
The President and the Democratic Party are faced with a rare choice as the incumbent party. Unlike the cases with Presidents Clinton and Obama in 1996 and 2012, respectively, the party today is not necessarily better off continuing to stand behind its existing leader. A President who is already older than any other in history, a national economy and international community coming out of the worst pandemic seen in a hundred years, and an electorate whose partisan divisions grow wider and political attention span grows shorter all suggest, at the very least, the entertainment of a new party leader. Why not open up the race? The Democratic Party ought to demand that the man who said that his bid for the presidency was inspired by a morale calling after President Trump’s remarks over a violent protest in Charlottesville, NC, to earn the party’s support again as an original candidate with a new agenda. The United States has gotten through Covid-19, and President Trump is not the political insurgent and enigma that he was in 2020. The liberal party ought to either look forward and pick from a new generation of leaders, or let the 46th President reassure every voter in the country that, whether it is amongst Democrats, Independents, or every American in the country, he will always be able to assemble a winning coalition.
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