Liberty Exposed: Americans Don't Want Either Trump Or Biden As President

As we enter 2024, we begin one of the most important political cycles. It is the presidential election year. More so now than ever before, Americans will be fixated on the current state of American politics and presidential nominees, which will determine who they will vote for as the next president at the end of the year.

Unfortunately, for the American people, the presumed front runners for the Democratic and Republican ticket, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, are some of the most unlike candidates in terms of their approval rating and their support among independents. For conservatives, this makes Donald Trump the highest possible risk of losing to Joe Biden.

Approval Ratings

The approval ratings of both candidates are the lowest they’ve been in modern American history, particularly for Joe Biden, who is the current incumbent. At his highest, Donald Trump had a 49% approval rating, which is quite respectable, but by the end of his term, his approval had dropped to 34%. This was also nearing the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which would’ve been a difficult situation to handle for any president. However, Trump's policies during that time did exile many hard-core conservatives because of his massive spending.

Surprisingly, Joe Biden's approval rating is even lower than that of Donald Trump’s. Ever since Joe Biden’s horrific pullout of Afghanistan, his support has been hovering around the mid to low 30s. At his height of popularity, it was 39%, and at its lowest, it was 33%. His top issues are his age and fitness for the office. With numbers like this, the Biden administration should be extremely nervous. These are not the type of numbers you want to be pulling leading up to an election year, especially as the current sitting president.

For both of these presidential candidates, roughly 2/3 of Americans are not in support of either of them. A vast majority of the country is caught between two candidates that they do not want to see attempt a reelection campaign. Polls found that 70 percent of Americans feel that Biden should not run for a second term; at the same time, 60 percent of Americans say they do not think Trump should run either. It’s important to recognize what group of people share this opinion because they will have a tremendous impact on the winner of the 2024 presidential election.

Support From Independents

The biggest issue that both candidates are facing is their lack of support among independents. Independence has tremendous power and is often the deciding factor in winning elections; however, both candidates are particularly unlikely. Only 27% of independents are favorable to Joe Biden, while 37% are in support of Donald Trump, and 43% want neither Trump nor Biden to be their presidential candidates.

The Republican and Democratic parties are left in really tough situations where they’re presumed frontrunners, vulnerable, and seen as radicals by the opposing side. The division in America has led to independence, and non-political types are discouraged about their prospects for the future president. At the end of the day, most Americans have already made up their minds when it comes to Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and those opinions are set in stone. So if conservatives are going to want to win, perhaps they should consider alternative tactics.

Conservative Strategy

America is extremely polarized, and the presence of Joe Biden or Donald Trump does little to help. Polling data supports the idea that if a generic Republican runs against Joe Biden, they are almost guaranteed to win. A generic Republican outperforms Joe Biden in almost every demographic. Beating him by 11 points. Which would be a massive victory.

The smart and safe play for conservatives would be to elect a different presidential candidate that is not nearly as polarizing as Donald Trump and is much more favorable among independents, and based on the current candidate field, that is likely Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley.

It is clear that the left wants Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee because they believe he has the biggest shot at losing against Joe Biden. The only problem is that this was the exact playbook they had in 2016. The left might get exactly what they want with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. However, there is a very real opportunity for this to backfire, as it did in 2016. Joe Biden is currently extremely vulnerable. If the election were held at the start of 2024, then, presumably, Donald Trump would win his rematch against Joe Biden by one point. With such little room for error, many conservatives might wish not to take that gamble. There’s a lot of time between now and Election Day for things to change.

If the goal was to unify the country and remove the massive amounts of division between political groups, both parties would be smart to elect different people to be their presidential candidates.

How Elections Are Won

It’s important to remember that elections are not about which political party has more members. It is actually who can get the greatest percentage of their supporters to come out and vote while decreasing their opponent's turnout rate.

One of the byproducts of Donald Trump as a candidate is that he draws tremendous support from the Republican Party; however, he also creates a massive turnout for the Democrats as well. This is truly a double-edged sword.

Many American people are wishing for a return to normalcy. It is easy to forget that individual states and districts have unique personalities that should be taken into consideration when choosing to have a candidate represent them. It does no good for Republicans to elect the most conservative person in a purple district, almost guaranteeing the spot for a Democrat. This philosophy also holds true for the President of the United States, as they must carry the persona of a moderate or unifier. In terms of policy, this does not have to be true. The look and feel of a president has to invoke confidence, or whichever party decides to run a candidate that is not considered crazy by the public, they will leave victorious.

Conclusion

Many Americans are caught between a rock and a hard place. The most likely presidential candidates are two men who are disliked by the majority of the country. Each of them is seen as a radical by the other party. Especially for conservatives, there still is an opportunity to capitalize on the situation. There is a huge amount of untapped potential in the moderate center of the country. If conservatives are able to coalesce that group, then 2024 will be a great year.