Could it be Hillary vs Trump AGAIN? Clinton’s belief that the presidency is her ‘birthright’ and Biden’s deep unpopularity could see the former First Lady run in 2024, politics insider warns
- The Democrat appears to still be reeling from her stunning 2016 defeat
- Meanwhile Biden and Harris’ dismal approval numbers make them long-shots
- She gave an interview Sunday in which the former lawmaker and State Secretary said people need to ‘stand up to’ Trump if he runs again in 2024
- Clinton read part of the 2016 acceptance speech she wrote in another interview
- Political analyst Joe Concha compared it to ‘a trial balloon in an effort to see if there is still an appetite for the Clinton brand’
With President Joe Biden’s sinking approval numbers and Vice President Kamala Harris’ deep unpopularity, the Democratic presidential field that was so crowded in 2020 now appears nearly bare.
It’s the perfect opportunity for Hillary Clinton, 74, to stage a comeback, political commentator Joe Concha explained in an op-ed published Wednesday.
‘Hillary Clinton always seemed to believe the mantle of “First Female President” was her birthright,’ Concha wrote for The Hill.
‘And given how pathetic the field is on the Democratic side with or without Joe Biden, she may just get a second chance at winning the office her husband so famously made infamous.’
Clinton’s 2016 stunning election defeat at the hands of Donald Trump caught political pundits and election watchers by surprise.
As a former First Lady, US Senator from New York and Secretary of State, Clinton’s credentials on paper made her one of the most experienced White House contenders in history.
A myriad of reasons has since been offered for her loss, including a misunderstanding of Americans’ discontent with the political establishment and former FBI Director James Comey’s actions related to a probe into Clinton’s emails.
Hillary Clinton could be setting the stage for a comeback, The Hill columnist Joe Concha predicts
Biden would be 82 if he was elected president in 2024, beating his own previously held record for the oldest person sworn in to the White House
She said as recently as this past Sunday – amid a slew of new interviews this month – that she still holds Comey accountable.
‘I do think but for Jim Comey and the stunt he pulled 10 days before the election, I would have won,’ Clinton told NBC host Willie Geist in an interview.
But Clinton has been out of the political world for five years now, and since then, it doesn’t appear Democrats have any viable rising stars in sight for the next presidential election.
‘The Democratic bench is about as deep as the New York Jets’ these days,’ Concha wrote. ‘Andrew Cuomo? No longer governor and thoroughly disgraced. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.)? He had to spend major time and resources just to avoid being ousted in deep-blue California during a recall election earlier this year.’
‘Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg? Not even 40 years old, and he has a supply chain crisis on his résumé. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)? Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)? Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)?’
Republicans, by contrast, are mostly set on Trump. Multiple surveys of Republican voters have also shown that they overwhelmingly want him to be their 2024 candidate. Ex-Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been floated as other potential possibilities but don’t poll anywhere close to the former president.
Clinton said on Sunday that she would ‘bet on’ her former rival staging a 2024 comeback.
But Harris and Biden’s sinking approval numbers are signs that Democrats may not have a candidate ready for 2024
She made a call to action while keeping her own future intentions vague: ‘Are we going to give in to all these lies and this disinformation and this organized effort to undermine our rule of law and our institutions, or are we going to stand up to it?’
Biden, at least for now, intends to run for a second term – though he would already be in his 80s before it started.
His historic selection of Harris to be his vice president also came with the assumption she would take the Democratic mantle when he was done, but her deep unpopularity coupled with damaging headlines have weakened her potential candidacy.
The most recent data from poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight has Biden with roughly 50 percent disapproval and a mere 43.3 percent approval rating – close to the lowest he’s ever had while president.
Harris’ disapproval rating among voters is at a near-tie with Biden, but even fewer people – 41.3 percent – approve of her job as vice president.
Meanwhile a recent poll shows Trump and Biden also at a near-dead heat in a potential 2024 rematch – though Trump’s policies win out.
Biden and Trump would be in a near-tie in a 2024 rematch, a recent poll found
Biden leads Trump by just a single percentage point, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, splitting the candidates 46 percent to 45 percent. The survey’s margin of error is a significantly larger gap of 2.5 percent.
But 48 percent of respondents to the poll said they preferred Trump’s policies to Biden’s, while 46 percent said the opposite.
In Wednesday’s op-ed Concha also points to an interview Clinton did last week promoting her Masterclass session during which she tearfully read part of what would have been her 2016 victory speech.
In a sane world, she would have been laughed out of the room for reading such a speech. But this felt more like a trial balloon in an effort to see if there is still an appetite for the Clinton brand,’ the political insider wrote.
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