Biden's age, Trump's court cases: The political winds blowing into the 2024 election

National elections are never about one thing, they're about everything.

In 2008, it was eight years of President George W. Bush, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a cratering economy and a deep-seated desire for change that resulted in Barack Obama's election. In 2012, it was whether the country was on its way back from recession, Tea Party conservatives, the Affordable Care Act and whether Mitt Romney could cobble together enough of a coalition to deny Obama a second term, which he couldn't.

In 2016, it was the animus toward both major candidates, the FBI's on-again-off-again-on-again questioning of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's private email server, Donald Trump's incendiary statements and, ultimately, disaffected voters and third-party support in Michigan and a couple of other key states that sent Trump to the White House. In 2020, it was COVID-19 and the shutdowns, mail-in votes and the promise of a return to relative normalcy after Trump's flouting of institutional norms that played out in swing states that elected Joe Biden as president.

Which brings us to 2024.

Certainly, there is no dearth of political winds blowing as we head into a primary season that portends, barring a major upset or other circumstance, a replay between Biden and Trump, the personalities that shaped the last election. Something could change — that's always the case. But more so than many other years, at this point, the stage appears to be set.

Unlike 2020, however, this year's formative themes appear to be far different than those that shaped that year's election, even if the same cast of characters are involved. With that in mind, here's a handful of the larger issues expected to play a sizable role in how the elections, especially the presidential contest but in down-ticket races as well, play out.

Biden's age and approval ratings

The U.S. finished its withdrawal from Afghanistan after some 20 years on Aug. 30, 2021, with a last-minute surge in evacuations and a bomb attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans in the days previous. Why bring that up here? Since right around that date to this, Biden's approval rating has trended lousy. As of Dec. 22, the fivethirtyeight.com average of polls showed 56% of Americans disapproving of his job performance, compared with 39% who approve. That's just about the same as Biden's job approval rating in a recent poll of voters in Michigan, a state he needs to win if he's to be reelected. (It's also on par with Trump's at about the same time in 2019.)

Given that Biden has had some notable legislative successes and that unemployment has remained low while job growth has been high, much of that disapproval appears wrapped up in his age — he's 81 — and the fact he sometimes seems stiff and stumbles over his words. There is polling data that suggests younger voters are less enthusiastic about supporting him. The question will be whether Biden can woo them back or if they will really vote — or not — in such a way that could improve the chances of a Republican of retaking the White House. Trump, the heavily favored front-runner for the Republican nomination, is also no spring chicken at 77 and has had some gaffes of his own. His approval ratings in Michigan are also pretty much as bad as Biden's. But GOP voters don't appear as concerned about that.

A 'dictator' for 1 day?

Having continued to press baseless claims about the 2020 election in Michigan and a handful of other key swing states being fraudulent, Trump's reelection campaign has largely centered on grievances and claims of Biden being weak and ineffective. But one claim that has gotten a lot of attention is Trump — who, again, remains the heavy favorite to win the GOP nomination — would be "a dictator for one day," as he recently told Fox News' Sean Hannity, so he could order continued construction of a wall at the Southern border and "drill, drill, drill" for oil.

Obviously, if Trump is not the nominee, this rhetoric doesn't count for much; even if he is and wins, he won't have unilateral authority and his first term is full of claims — such as forcing Mexico to pay for a wall or ending a program allowing immigrants who came into the U.S. as children to remain — that never came to fruition, sometimes because of bureaucratic missteps on his administration's part. But such dictatorial talk, amid reports that he and his allies would seek "retribution" against the media and prosecutors who have taken aim at him, is ginning up lots of concern. So are claims he would move to build camps to hold rounded-up undocumented immigrants, reinstate a ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries and take steps to be able to replace thousands of career federal employees with people loyal to him. His campaign is trying tamp down those worries as overblown, but if they continue to gain traction, they could serve to further solidify opposition to the former president.

Inflation, immigration

The good news for consumers — and potentially for the Biden administration — is that inflation, which had been rampant, appears to be declining. That said, prices are still high. USDA Choice sirloin was $11.65 a pound on average in the Midwest in November, compared with a pre-pandemic price of $8.41 a pound. According to AAA, the national average on Jan. 1 for unleaded regular gasoline was $3.11 a gallon, well off a high of $5 in summer '22 but still a good bit above $2.35 in February '20. Gas in Michigan on Jan. 1 averaged $2.88, according to AAA. A dozen large grade A eggs will cost $2.06 on average, compared with $1.26 at the end of 2019.

Following the pandemic, inflation has been a major concern globally, so it's not entirely Biden's fault, if at all. But presidents generally get more blame and more credit than they deserve for the economy and he's no different. The real surprise is he has seen so little upside to a stubbornly low unemployment rate (3.4% in November), a continued strong job market and avoiding, so far, the onset of a severe recession. Outside of the economy, however, his administration continues to be dogged by high numbers of undocumented immigrants coming across the Southern border since the pandemic let up, giving his Republican critics ammunition — though Biden's campaign is already turning up the rhetoric on what they say are Trump's draconian policies on the subject.

Trump's day(s) in court

No other past U.S. president — especially one running for reelection — has faced the legal battles Trump faces, and that's not including several ongoing questions as to whether his efforts to invalidate the results of the 2020 election based on false claims of irregularities (and his own aides telling him there was no widespread fraud) should disqualify him from the presidency should he win in 2024 and keep him off the ballot. The Michigan Supreme Court recently dismissed one such effort, saying he can appear on the ballot in the Feb. 27 primary, but the U.S. Supreme Court has also been asked to rule on a Colorado decision barring Trump from the ballot in that state.

There are at least four other notable cases: two federal ones, the first in Florida, regarding whether he improperly held onto classified documents despite officials' requesting their return, and the second in Washington, where the Justice Department says his attempts to reverse the 2020 election with false slates of electors, wild claims of fraud and egging on a mob to attack the Capitol as Congress met to certify Biden's election amount to conspiracy to defraud voters and obstruct an official proceeding. Meanwhile, there are cases in New York — a civil fraud trial in which Trump is accused of inflating the value of assets to get favorable loans and another involving alleged hush money payments to a former adult movie actor — and one in Georgia over efforts to overturn the 2020 election outcome there. Barring a higher court — like the U.S. Supreme Court — weighing in on some or all of these cases, they'll play out over the course of a tumultuous campaign season. So far, they haven't hurt Trump with his base but the issue will be, if he secures the GOP nod, how (or if) a major party nominee can move forward with such legal questions hanging over him and how it will be seen by the rest of the voters.

Hunter, Hamas

Biden has his own legal headache, though it pales in comparison to Trump's: namely, his son Hunter's indictments on some $1.4 million in what had been unpaid taxes — since paid — and federal firearm possession charges in Delaware. A Republican-led House is looking at filing contempt charges against Hunter Biden for refusing to talk to them behind closed doors and answer questions about his overseas business interests and what, if any, connection the president had with them. But sweeping Republican claims aside, there hasn't been any evidence so far that Biden has committed any wrongdoing or what would otherwise seem to qualify as an impeachable offense.

What may be far more troublesome to Biden is the perception that he has been too steadfast in his defense of Israel's decision to invade and attack the Gaza Strip, with some 21,900 deaths since Hamas brutally attacked southern Israel, with some 1,400 people killed, including civilians, and hostages taken. It's a stance that has split the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, with many of its adherents believing the attacks, while not justified, resulted from Israel's treatment of Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank and are demanding Biden call for a cease-fire. In Michigan, with one of the largest Arab American populations in the nation, some Muslim leaders have already said they cannot see supporting Biden for reelection. If that sentiment is widespread, not just among Arab Americans and Muslims — despite Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric — but among young progressives, it could spell serious trouble for the president (especially if many voters are already disaffected), though he has widely denounced Islamophobia at home as well as antisemitism. He also has taken steps to warn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, saying he is losing international support.

Republicans' abortion problem

Biden's problems aside, the electoral record for Democrats, pretty much since Trump was elected in 2016, has been impressive. In 2018 and 2020, Trump himself played the larger role, given that he was in office; in the first of those years, Democrats took back the U.S. House; in the second, Biden won and Democrats (narrowly) took control of both chambers of Congress. By 2022, Democrats gained a bit more in the Senate and lost control of the House but not by nearly the margin they had been expected to lose. In Michigan, meanwhile, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was winning reelection handily, as were other Democratic officials; the party took control of both state legislative chambers for the first time in decades.

Part of that in Michigan was a redistricting commission which drew what it argued were more partisan-balanced legislative lines. Another big part was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion and leaving that to the states to decide. Michigan did, with 57% of voters adopting Proposal 3 to enshrine that right in the state Constitution. In various elections then and since, the overturning of Roe appears to have worked against Republicans; even Trump has advised that GOP candidates need to embrace "exceptions" for abortion. Given that it was Trump who championed overturning Roe and nominated three justices who gave the court its conservative supermajority, expect Biden and Democrats to remind voters often what is at stake, even if Republicans try to argue the issue is already behind them.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Themes to play out in 2024 elections: Biden and Trump replay