By Chris Satullo

Since it now seems obvious that the Ron DeSantis clown car, with Elon Musk riding shotgun, is not going to beat Donald J. Trump to the finish line during the Republican primaries in 2024, we’re looking to repeat the 2020 presidential matchup that just about nobody seems to want.

This prospect of Biden-Trump II sparks dread in many Democrats. The angst is both understandable – and overdone.

The election held on Nov. 8, 2016 will be a source of post-traumatic stress for millions of Hillary Clinton voters for as long as they draw breath. Partly due to this lingering hangover, and partly because of the “red mirage, slow blue comeback” sequence caused by all those mail-in ballots in 2020, many Democrats have never really acknowledged what a solid thumping Joe Biden gave Trump last time. Not a landslide, but no squeaker either.

Whatever recent flashy polls might suggest, the fundamentals say Trump is not a strong candidate for 2024, even against old Joe. Why do you think so many in the Republican corporate elite have been placing bets on DeSantis, even though he’s a wooden campaigner with a generally peevish presence and little strategic feel?  They know Trump is a proven loser.

Yet, The Donald still holds an iron grip on the loyalty of about 70 percent of Republicans. That’s way fewer voters, though, than many people imagine. In the 31 states that register voters by party, Republicans number about 40 million, representing only about 30 percent of the potential electorate.  In those same states, Dems get 39 percent, for an 11-million voter edge. (Caveat: Several large, deep-red states don’t register by party, so the GOP’s registration disadvantage nationwide is probably smaller.)

So, let’s guess that 35 percent of all 210 million registered voters are certified Republicans. That equals 73 million. If seven out of 10 of them are MAGA-true, Trump’s locked-in base equals 51 million. Yes, many of the 30 percent that are now DeSantis-curious might eventually come home to Trump. But some are so sick of the Orange Man that they might not.

Remember, Biden got 81.3 million votes in 2020. Running vs. Trump in 2024, with a larger total electorate, he would not get less. That number then is, at a minimum, Trump’s target in 2024. Even if all of the 73 million registered Republicans in the land showed up to vote for Trump (a practical impossibility), he’d still be 8 million short. Where could he get those votes?

Well, he’d still peel off some working-class Democrats, as he did the last two times. But where he really has to mine for votes is in the third of the nation’s voters that declare themselves independent. Plenty of those people are reliable Republican voters who call themselves independent because, you know, no one is the boss of them. But these days, just as many I’s are young people who tilt way progressive and will vote for Biden, if they bother to show up.

These groups of independents likely will cancel each other out.

So, as has been true in presidential elections for a while, the election comes down to that small chunk of voters who are, somehow, truly undecided. About 9 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016. In 2020, Biden got a lot of them back. He consolidated the rest of his 7-million vote advantage by winning new, young voters by a lot.

The terrain will likely be similar in 2024, and the early smoke signals are spelling trouble for Trump. Young voters were key to the Dems avoiding the predicted “red wave” in 2022, showing unusually high turnout for a midterm. That bloc might be here to stay.

Meanwhile, it was just one focus group, but this week The Washington Post reported on a chat with 15 Trump-turned-Biden voters. None of them were thrilled with a 2020 rematch, but 9 were sticking with Biden, 3 going back to Trump, and 3 declaring themselves likely either to not vote or go third party.  

Plus, you know, the Dobbs decision on abortion – which was a huge factor in 2022.

Charlie Sykes, the ex-conservative talk show host now headquartered at The Bulwark, made a great point recently. Usually, re-election campaigns are a referendum on the incumbent. Biden’s approval numbers surely are weak. But approval polls just ask what you think of this guy. Elections ask, in the starkest way, do you really dislike this guy even more than that guy?

And, Sykes noted, in this case, that guy would be Trump, who is not an enticing, fill-in-the-blanks-with-your-dreams newcomer, but is instead also an incumbent, one with an objectively poor record and an exhausting personality.

This sets up Democrats, if they have the sense to seize the opportunity, to steal a page from Ronald Reagan, who vaporized Jimmy Carter in 1980 with a simple question for voters: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

This time, the question is: “Which four years were better?”

Joe Biden’s record on a number of basic presidential measures kicks Trump’s butt. Most Americans may not recognize that yet, marinating as they do in the cliche of Joe as old and rambling. For now, they’re also way more focused on important stuff such as whether Keeley will get back with Roy Kent (don’t get me wrong, I love Ted Lasso) and who’s more annoying, Prince Harry or Prince William.

But when elections roll around, undecideds might pay some attention to the actual record – and it favors Joe hugely over Don. Here’s the case Democrats should start making, and keep making, loudly and insistently.

As you read it, two caveats: 1) Presidents, like NFL quarterbacks, always get far too much credit or blame for whatever happens. But when you’re selling a candidate who isn’t getting even the credit he deserves, you ignore that and brag away.

2) I’m presenting the most positive Democratic spin on the actual facts. At times, a deep-seated habit of journalistic fairness will lead me to add a countervailing note to the spin, but Dems need not heed such quibbles. They’re charged with defeating an unhinged authoritarian who would gladly smash the Constitution to smithereens. 

So:

JOBS AND UNEMPLOYMENT (numbers from FactCheck.org)

BIDEN: 12.6 million jobs added in just over 2 years; unemployment back to its pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent. Manufacturing jobs up nearly 800,000. 

TRUMP: 2.9 million jobs lost; unemployment up to 6.5 percent; manufacturing – a loss of 129,000 jobs.

NOTE: Obviously, the pandemic cratered Trump’s job numbers, which were just OK before. But (see below) his botching of the pandemic response extended the adverse economic impact. Also, Republicans never showed such factual delicacy in blasting Obama for job losses early in his term that were caused by George W. Bush’s Great Recession.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE

BIDEN: 300 million vaccines administered; the pandemic tamed.  

TRUMP: Studies have found that his rhetoric and policies led to American deaths in 2020 being up to 40 percent higher than they might otherwise have been.

NOTE: Biden haters will harp that more Americans died from COVID-19 on his watch; but that’s because he’s been president for more than twice as many pandemic months as Trump. Also, studies confirm that Trump-voting counties had strikingly higher fatality rates, due to the mask and vaccine resistance he helped foment. In fairness to Trump, the Lancet study that came up with the 40 percent number involved a lot of extrapolations that may have been tinged with bias.

FISCAL RESTRAINT

TRUMP: Added more to the national debt – $7.6 trillion – than in any other four-year period in American history.  

 BIDEN: Reduced the annual deficit in his first two years.

NOTE:  While some of Trump’s red-ink binge was caused by wise pandemic relief spending, at least half is due to one of the dumbest sets of tax breaks for the wealthy in American history. Biden still spends plenty, but more often on things that help ordinary Americans. 

INFRASTRUCTURE

BIDEN: Got a bipartisan $1 trillion package passed to repair highways, bridges and mass transit.  

TRUMP: Regularly declared “infrastructure weeks,” but never got a significant bill through Congress, even when the GOP controlled it.

CLIMATE CHANGE/CLEAN ENERGY

BIDEN – Shepherded the largest climate-change bill in U.S. history through Congress, which promises to triple clean energy production. U.S. carbon emissions were lower in 2021 and 2022 than they’ve been since 2009 – except for 2020, when the pandemic kept us at home. 

TRUMP: Obsessively made fun of windmills and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accords.

IMMIGRATION

BIDEN:  Detentions of unauthorized crossers of the southern border are up 342 percent.

TRUMP: Never built the impermeable wall he yammered about, and certainly didn’t get Mexico to pay for the parts of it he did.

NOTE: The enforcement number can be spun multiple ways, of course, but it’s hard to square with claims that Biden is allowing “open borders.”

INFLATION

Clearly this is Biden’s Achilles heel, but it’s down sharply from its scary peak, as are gas prices, without triggering a recession (GDP grew 2.1 percent in 2022). At least not yet. An inflation spike or a real, extended recession (not merely one declared by Fox News) are the only things that could overturn Biden’s clear advantages in the coming rematch.  

Even if those economic calamities don’t happen, Trump, thanks to the Electoral College, does retain a 1 in 4 chance of winning.  

But if those odds hold, he’s already gotten that “1” out of 4 – back in 2016.

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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia