Every theory of how Joe Biden could win has fallen apart.
When is a bad debate performance more than just a bad debate performance? When you’re depending on it to save your campaign. Joe Biden’s televised meltdown last night punctured the last remaining theory of how he could plausibly defeat Donald Trump.
Heading into the 2024 election cycle, Biden narrowly but consistently trailed Trump in the polls. But his supporters offered several theories of how he would close the gap.
Theory No. 1: Trump amnesia would dissipate. People might be telling pollsters that they would vote for Trump, but that was only because they had forgotten the chaos of his presidency. As the campaign heated up and Trump began dominating the news cycle once again, voters would remember just how much they disliked him and swing back to Biden.
Theory No. 2: The economic mood would improve. Biden’s poor polling numbers had a lot to do with voters’ frustration over the state of the economy, a discontent overwhelmingly driven by higher prices. But after peaking in mid-2022, inflation had plummeted to near-pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, the economy was doing great by almost every other measure. Absolute prices were still much higher than before the pandemic, but in time, people would adjust.
Neither of those predictions came true. Even as Trump began campaigning in earnest and reinjected himself into the news cycle, the polls hardly budged. As for the economy, things did briefly seem to be looking up for Biden. From December to March, consumer sentiment rebounded dramatically, suggesting that the reality of lower inflation was starting to sink in.
