2024 Election: Biden’s popularity may have decreased, people dislike his rivals more

When President Joe Biden announced that he would run for the next year’s presidential election on April 25, 2023, commentators were quick to predict a decline in his popularity on a number of issues. Many others publicly urged Biden not to seek re-election due to his advancing age. Biden’s popularity has never really recovered after the failed US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a resurgence of Covid in the summer of 2021.

But if former President Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee – he is currently leading by a wide margin in the primary polls – Biden is in a better position than analysts are projecting, and that’s because Trump is far more unpopular than Biden . Recent political science findings suggest that for most candidates, it is more beneficial to have an unpopular opponent than to be personally popular. This is a condition known as “negative bias”, and it is one of the main reasons why voters often feel they are choosing the lesser of two evils rather than the better of two good. are selecting. ,

Party loyalty and negative partisanship are not two opinions in that the rate of loyal partisan voting – that is, voting for the same party for president, US Senate, and US House – has increased dramatically over the past several decades. But in a 2016 academic article on the subject, political scholars Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster found that these increases were greatest among voters with strong negative feelings about the opposing party.

They also found that these negative feelings about the other party have a larger influence on voters’ choices in elections than positive feelings about their own party. In other words, the more you dislike the other party, the more loyal you will be to your party. These days, negative partisanship seems to be everywhere in American politics, especially for Democrats. For example, in the 2020 and 2022 elections, Democratic donors across the country donated millions to Democratic candidates such as Amy McGrath in Kentucky and Marcus Flowers in Georgia.

What do these candidates have in common? They both lost to Republicans whom Democrats hate: McGrath lost to Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Flowers lost to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. None of his Democratic opponents have ever been able to put up much of a fight. His donors were not overly optimistic of winning these elections, but took comfort in the fact that he was fighting a battle against two of the Democrats’ most notorious enemies in Washington. As a candidate, Biden has already been the beneficiary of negative partisanship.

In the 2020 primaries, Biden was not the ideal candidate for most Democrats in terms of agreement on issues. Supporters of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren showed greater agreement with their candidates’ ideological positions than those of Biden. Despite this, Biden won fairly easily, but not because voters agreed with his decisions on various issues. Instead, they used negative partisanship: Democratic primary voters were not as concerned with advancing their ideal candidate as they were about defeating Donald Trump in the general election. That is why these voters saw Biden as their favorite.

Finally, the 2020 primary results resulted in strong negative bias against Donald Trump. No motivational politics. What does this mean for the 2024 presidential race? Negative bias seems to be working in Biden’s favor. She has the advantage of a Democratic voter who is extremely angry with Republicans for recent legislative moves against abortion and transgender rights. Perhaps more importantly, Biden faces a potential Republican opponent whom Democrats — and many independents — hate more than perhaps any other politician in recent memory.

According to a recent Fox News poll, 40% of voters reported having a “strongly unfavorable” view of Biden, but an even greater number, 45%, felt the same about Donald Trump. It’s even worse for Trump: According to a PBS NewsHour poll, 64% of the public, including 68% of independents, say they do not want Trump to be president again. These numbers show whether a coalition of 2020 voters will swing again in favor of Biden – assuming Trump is the Republican nominee. Evidence suggests Democrats and left-leaning independents will side with Biden, regardless of his shortcomings. Because his top priority is keeping Donald Trump out of office again.

However, this is not the most inspiring form of politics. Certainly, most Americans would prefer to vote affirmatively for a vision of the future rather than simply go with the least objectionable leader available. But, for now, negative partisanship is the central force in American politics, and it’s important to be clear about its role.

Disclaimer:IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.

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