Presiding over an unhappy nation makes reelection hard for any president. But running against Trump makes it easier for Biden.
Given the current state of partisan polarization, it’s unlikely Biden can get majority job approval next year even with the most fortunate set of circumstances. But the good news for him is that he probably doesn’t have to. Job-approval ratings are crucial indicators in a normal presidential reelection cycle that is basically a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, 2024 will not be a normal reelection cycle for three reasons.
I don't have to like Joe or his policies to know that voting for him is the better choice. It sucks to have vote for the lesser evil, but right now the gap between the lesser and greater evils is so large that it makes the decision simple.
Joe will be a lame duck in 28' ineligible to run in 28'which will hopefully give us a chance to force the issue on not wantting to vote for the lesser evil then. However right now the greater evil is the issue, if we want to have a system to reform in 28' the choice on who to vote for now isn't a choice at all.
If Trump is still the nominee, he will likely have been convicted in at least one of those 4 criminal cases, but still holds sway in the party to win anyway and will double-dog-dare Georgia to throw him in jail. In that case, I don't think enough people would willingly vote for a felon (even a Republican one) to give him a chance.
This leaves Biden a single thing he absolutely needs to win the election: a pulse. I think the only person keeping America from becoming a fascist dictatorship is not Biden, it's his cardiologist. That doctor needs to keep Biden's heart ticking until Jan 21 2025.
Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy? If he hasn't keeled over with hamberders and buckets of KFC, he still has 91 felonies hanging over his head. He likely will be imprisoned, or disqualified by then.
I keep seeing messaging that essentially amounts to "Biden doesn't have to try, everything is great actually, and, besides, Trump is unelectable". Clearly the democrats learned nothing from 2016. This is too big to fuck up, don't phone it in.
Trump has all the weaknesses of an incumbent and few of the benefits. I knew some people who tried to play very agnostic about his record in 2016, but now as in 2020, the American people have a record to judge him on. And it's not very pretty. Biden is going to start laying into that record. And soon the negative polarization will build back up, after the GOP decides who exactly the are with their candidate chosen.