Dem strategist: Biden underestimated, Trump will cost GOP election

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg on Tuesday pushed back against the sentiment that the Democratic Party will be outmaneuvered in the 2024 election, arguing the strength of President Biden’s record is underestimated while former President Trump’s “baggage” will cost the GOP the election.

In an op-ed for MSNBC, Rosenberg said he is “optimistic 2024 is going to be a good year for Democrats” and touted a series of positive changes seen under the Biden administration.

“President Joe Biden has kept his central promise in the 2020 election: that he would lead the nation to the other side of COVID, successfully,” Simon wrote, referencing the receding of the pandemic and the U.S.’s economic recovery, GDP growth and strong job market.

Simon further pointed to the country’s uninsured rate reaching its lowest point in U.S. history and the Dow Jones hitting an all-time high, along with falling gas prices and crime rates and softening rent prices.

Noting recent years “have been hard” with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Capitol insurrection, the Russia-Ukraine war and stubborn inflation, Simon said, “It’s increasingly clear that America is getting to the other side of this challenging period, and are in a far better place than when President Biden took office.”

Simon’s argument appears to dismiss a flurry of forecasts from other political analysts, who warn Biden’s low approval ratings spell bad news for his reelection campaign.

National polling shows Biden and Trump in either a dead heat in a hypothetical rematch between the two or with Trump holding a very narrow lead over Biden. According to The Hill and Decision Desk’s aggregation of polls, Trump holds a 2-point lead over Biden, while maintaining his strong lead of about 52.4 points in the GOP primary.

Simon argued the “strength” of Biden’s presidential record is matched by the strength of the Democratic Party, which has won more votes than the GOP in seven of the past eight presidential elections. He also pointed to Democrats’ statewide margins in several battleground states across the U.S. in the 2022 and 2023 elections that helped minimize the Republican majority in the U.S. House and maintain the Democratic majority in the Senate.

“A blue wave washed across the U.S. in 2023, and this ongoing strong performance of the Democratic Party in election after election, in all parts of the country, should fill Biden’s supporters with confidence,” Simon wrote.

Meanwhile, Simon said Trump’s “baggage and MAGA’s repeated electoral failures” need to be further discussed in forecasts for 2024, arguing the former president is “an even more degraded and dangerous version of MAGA than he was in 2020.”

The overturning of Roe v. Wade and Trump’s alleged attempts to remain in power after the 2020 presidential election will make it difficult for the former president to win reelection in 2024, Simon said, noting Trump’s ongoing legal battles will add to his trouble.

“Trump represents an unprecedented threat to the country, is even more extreme than 2020, and has, in political parlance, the highest ‘negatives’ of any candidate perhaps in our history,” Simon wrote.

While Biden and Trump are on course for a 2024 rematch, it’s a situation few Americans would like to see. Biden has faced repeated criticism over his age and ability to do the job for another four years, along with record-low approval ratings in the past year.

Biden, 81, would be 86 at the end of his second term.

Meanwhile, Trump has remained at the center of controversy amid his various legal battles and provocative remarks, with even some from his party pushing for a change in GOP leadership.

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