Sam Smith - The media is not paying enough attention to this but the Democrats are facing some hugely serious 2024 election problems. For example, our five poll average finds Biden just one point ahead of both Trump and DeSantis. Biden, at 79, is already the oldest president to be elected and would be 86 if he lived out a second term. Most reporters have little experience with this, but being 85, I can tell you that things do change substantially. Starting with a Biden rerun, the Post noted last summer, "A poll this week showed that 26 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to be their nominee in 2024, while 64 percent preferred 'someone else.' As Biden's approval rating has fallen, he has also seen erosion on this question - to the point where about the only analog we can find in modern political history is Jimmy Carter."
But if Biden doesn't run, no one seems to have even his weak popularity. The Washington Post ran a list of ten possible candidates and said of Kamela Harris: "Just as Biden appears to be the most unpopular president at this point in his first term since Harry S. Truman, she is one of the most unpopular modern vice presidents at this point." Four of the others were little known outside of the Washington circle and their home states, and two - Buttigieg and Sanders - had virtue but little popularity.
To be sure, this is a era short on the honorable and the skilled. I can't remember another period in which there not only were so few admirable politicians but a similar shortage of the non-political admirable. On the other hand, the electable alternatives are as disgusting as I can recall. To be sure we have a year and three quarters to straighten this all out, but we're not using the time well by not facing the problem.
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