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This could be the most consequential rematch in US history – a president who portrays himself as the champion of democracy against a former president who routinely rejects election results.
Anyone fearing Donald Trump’s return and those who reject Joe Biden’s victory could agree that nothing less than the future of the republic is at stake if Biden and Trump are on the ballot in 2024.
So why does it feel like an unwanted movie sequel – same actors, predictable new plot twist?
Biden will have been a candidate on the national stage in five of the last ten presidential elections. His first and second presidential campaigns sputtered in Democratic primaries in 1988 and 2008. He ran as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 and 2012. After sitting out 2016, Biden returned on a mission to unseat Trump in 2020.
Now the oldest-ever president, he’ll be asking voters to put him in the White House until after his 86th birthday.
Trump is already on his third straight election campaign. And let’s not forget he teased runs in 1988, when Biden launched his first failed bid, and also in 2000, when Trump left the GOP for a time, and in 2012, when he led the charge questioning, incorrectly, Obama’s citizenship.
Candidates who run three or more times don’t often successfully become president. One successful example is Ronald Reagan, who like Biden and Trump was technically a senior citizen when he took office. Reagan won his first term on his third try. He also overcame underwater first term approval ratings to win reelection.
In fact, at this point, a little over two years into their presidencies, Biden, Trump and Reagan were all hovering around 40% approval, according to data maintained by Gallup.
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